[NYTr] Banning Desmond Tutu is NOT Minnesota Nice. It's Downright Icky.

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Huffington Post - Oct 8, 2007
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/banning-desmond-tutu-is-n_b_67650.html


Banning Desmond Tutu is NOT Minnesota Nice. It's Downright Icky.

by Coleen Rowley

Last Tuesday, a couple of friends and I went to see the fantastic movie
biography "Pete Seeger: the Power of Song." It featured great musical
clips that told the unique life story of the folksinger and songwriter
whose rendition of "We shall Overcome" inspired the civil rights
movement (and anti-war movements). The inspirational movie also served
as a timely reminder of the painful repression and vicious backstabbing
that resulted from Joseph McCarthy's communist witch hunt back in the
early 1950's. For a huge chunk of Seeger's life--17 years!--he was
blacklisted. It was not until late in 1967 that the repression finally
ended when the Smothers Brothers (courageous Comedy Hour) invited
Seeger to perform on their TV show. And even then one of Seeger's
songs, "Waist Deep in the Big Muddy," was censored. Only months later
was he allowed to sing it on TV. No wonder the 88 year old Seeger has
come to appreciate so much--as reflected in his lyrics--"the right to
sing my song" that exists in America.

Interestingly enough, Natalie Maines' comments of appreciation for Pete
Seeger's musical contributions in the movie do not refer to her and the
Dixie Chicks' own continuing struggle against radio blacklisting. The
Dixie Chicks continue to sing out even though time has not yet healed
their wound (or the price paid) when they were told to "shut up and
sing" or their "lives would be over."

Still, there's something so weird and surreal about the type of
repressive actions engendered by McCarthy and his House Un-American
Activities Committee that, even being reminded like this, we still
prefer to think that kind of blacklisting could not occur any more. The
illusion ended for us, however, the very next day when we opened our
Twin City newspapers to find Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu banned
from speaking on the campus of one of our major (albeit private)
Minnesota universities. The University of St. Thomas, we were stunned
to learn, had banned Tutu, one of the most important voices responsible
for peacefully ending apartheid in South Africa but also one of the
strongest continuing voices for peaceful change and reconciliation in
the world. Moreover, St. Thomas officials had gone so far as to demote
the director of their Justice and Peace Studies program who had invited
Tutu to speak.

Our papers and blogs were soon abuzz with comparisons of the fact that
the very same campus had welcomed right-wing hate monger Ann Coulter a
couple of years ago. (Coulter is known for her controversial and
violent speech directed toward a variety of groups, including
advocating the "wanton" bombing of Muslim countries, the execution of
their leaders, public torture and a nuclear attack on N. Korea as a
"warning" to the rest of the world, as well as her famous 2004 response
that "I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days" to
talk to liberals.) So it was especially weird--to the point of even
being noted by conservative editorialists--when St. Thomas gave its
reason for banning Tutu and subsequently demoting the professor who
oversaw their "Justice and Peace Studies" as due to the fact that
persons on the Minneapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, when
queried, found some of Tutu's public remarks "hurtful." Also quickly
noted was the apparent hypocrisy of the St. Thomas Law School in hiring
(and then staunchly defending its hiring of) Robert Delahunty, a former
Department of Justice attorney who co-authored the Torture Memo with
John Yoo which recklessly and erroneously concluded that the laws of
war did not apply in Afghanistan, and international law has "no binding
legal effect on either the President or the military". Wouldn't most
people say torture is, by definition, "hurtful"?

So how in the heck could we have gotten so quickly to this dark place
of blacklisting and suppression of academic freedom? To this sad moment
in time where a Nobel Peace Prize winner's views on peace are not
welcome? To a point where the very concepts of peace and social justice
appear under attack?

Maybe upon deeper reflection, we didn't get here all that quickly.
Academic freedom has already been taking noticeable hits with
professors around the country being fired or denied jobs seemingly
based on political litmus tests, whisper campaigns and/or discussions
behind closed doors. Just in the past couple years, the University of
Michigan's pre-eminent Middle Eastern historian Juan Cole was
blackballed and rejected for a post in Middle Eastern history at Yale;
DePaul Professor Norman Finkelstein was denied tenure; and Duke Law
Professor Erwin Chemerinsky was, at least for a time (before public
outcry led to their reversing their decision), denied the deanship
(after he was promised it) of a new law school at the University of
California, Irvine. The bizarre reason given for withdrawal of the
deanship to Chemerinsky was that he was "too politically
controversial," pointing to an Aug. 16 op-ed article in the Los Angeles
Times in which he criticized a plan to speed up death penalty appeals.
That type of apparent academic repression so flabbergasted the legal
world, that Chemerinsky was (luckily) re-offered the deanship in
California. But these types of red flags have been going up for some
time revealing academic freedom increasingly under attack in this
country. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised that James Madison's warning
that "no country can maintain its freedom in the midst of continual
warfare" is also manifesting itself on campus.

It's true that St. Thomas is a private university under the auspices of
the Roman Catholic Church. And a quick check of Federal Election
Campaign records show that only three or four members of the St. Thomas
Board of Trustees contribute to Democrats (including one who is a
Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, Mike Ciresi) while the
overwhelming majority of their board members--over twenty--have a
history of contributing to Republicans. Certainly it's also true that a
private institution is free to select or hire whatever speakers or
professors they think fit better with what the institution wants to
teach or get across to its students who can then choose whether or not
to attend. The best universities, public and private, tend towards more
academic freedom but during times of politicization and war, more
repression and McCarthy-like whisper campaigns historically surface
even in academic institutions, entertainment, the news industry, etc.

Suppression of ideas works best behind closed doors. The best antidote
is therefore simple sunshine and tolerance. So if St. Thomas officials
and its more Republican-leaning Board of Trustees want to go in this
direction, choosing Ann Coulter's message of hatred over Desmond Tutu's
message of peace, that's up to them but students and faculty, and the
wider public need to be fully aware of these developments. The press
should fully cover this and other such cases so people are made aware
of the issue, St. Thomas' predilections and, to the extent the media
can find out, of the private discussions, pressures and labeling that
occur. In the case of Chemerinsky, all that was needed was a public
airing of these things and the legal community's righteous outrage for
officials to recognize the error of their ways and reverse their
decision. As a member of the St. Thomas Board of Trustees, Mike Ciresi
is someone who now has an opportunity to exercise some leadership. He
ought to publicly request his alma mater reconsider its decisions to
ban Tutu and to punish their Justice and Peace Program if, for no other
reason, than to maintain St. Thomas' reputation for academic excellence
and fairness.

When I sent an earlier draft to one of the ladies who went to the Pete
Seeger movie with me, her response was that "icky" sounds childish.
Precisely! But what word better describes St. Thomas' childish stance?!