Personal views
Oberlin has placed Joy Karega on administrative leave while it investigates her anti-Semitic postings.
In February, the news site The Tower published the posts made by Dr. Karega, an assistant professor who teaches rhetoric and composition, most dated back to early 2015. The private liberal arts school in Ohio at first defended its faculty members’ rights to express personal views, but in March, Clyde S. McGregor, the board chairman, wrote in a statement on behalf of the college’s board of trustees that “these grave issues must be considered expeditiously.”
That statement also described the posts Dr. Karega made as “anti-Semitic and abhorrent.” In her posts, Dr. Karega suggested that the Islamic State was funded by the C.I.A. and the Mossad organization, the Israeli intelligence service, and that Mossad was behind the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris.
But what about academic freedom? But then again what about basic intellectual values?
On Facebook, Dr. Karega seemed to respond: “Equitable?” she wrote on Wednesday, before adding that she had no comment and was on vacation with her daughter.
On Wednesday evening, Dr. Karega shared a statement written on her behalf by Chui Karega, an attorney based in Detroit. The statement accused Oberlin of “pandering to the dictates of a handful of vocal and wealthy religious zealots.”
The statement continued: “It is truly regrettable that an institution such as Oberlin College, with a historical legacy of activism and social justice, particularly in terms of African Americans, is being used as a personal tool of religious extremism by a small number of people.”
It’s also regrettable that an institution such as Oberlin College should employ academics who peddle tin-hat conspiracy theories.
As someone who teaches at a college, this is a difficult line to walk.. While it is bad to have teachers peddling views that are unsupported by evidence and conspiratorial, at the same time, academic freedom is a real issue. It doesn’t give us the right to teach badly, or to teach things that are ridiculous, but if she isn’t doing that, I’m not sure this is a good thing to suspend and investigate her over personal views. We can consider her views abhorrent, yes, but at the same time…many of my views (ones most the readers on this site would probably agree with like, evolution is supported by evidence and global warming is supported by evidence, for instance) are abhorrent to a great number of people in my state, people who pay taxes to support my teaching. I have been put on the spot more than once, and have been threatened with losing my job for views that some people find abhorrent, but few, if any, readers of this site would.
Where do we draw that line? How do we determine who gets to voice views that are abhorrent to a portion of the population? We can say, yes, but our views are supported by evidence, but in the current academic climate, there is a large contingency that feels that truth is flexible, and we shouldn’t claim that having evidence is any reason to hold our views over those that have no evidence (because personal gut feeling is evidence to many).
So we have to walk a fine line between academic freedom and academic integrity. But personal views? I know they can reflect badly on the school, and we do have a responsibility to our employer. But we are still citizens. So I guess what I’m saying is…I have no clue what the correct conclusion to this situation would be. All I know is that I come down hard on the side of academic freedom because it is the only way we are protected when we teach something that the general public doesn’t like. When it is outside the classroom, it becomes even blurrier.
Social media has managed to create new categories of problem for people like me, and for all of us. Suddenly what is in our mind is seen everywhere (not me; I’m not on Facebook, or Twitter; this is the only place I post regularly, with a few occasional forays into We Hunted the Mammoth).
Does she actually have a line of reasoning supported by evidence? She is an academic. Maybe she has some sort of actual argument she’s trying to make? Then she ought to be covered by academic freedom.
Alternatively, if she’s just doing Breitbart-left, then Oberlin is right to shut her down.
‘…a handful of vocal and wealthy religious zealots.’
The Elders of Zion? Right across American politics, this luridly credulous conspiratorial thinking has become normalized. The same sort of glazed-eyed, shifty, Trumpish waffling is just about as common among Bernie-ites and ‘intersectionalists’ as it is among anti-vaxxers and 9/11 troofers.
The “socialism of fools”… cherchez le Juif.