Some 585 academics and others have joined the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University, a group established to affirm the principles of academic freedom on campuses across the country. Their statement, which appears in the February 15 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, calls upon administrators, students, and colleagues to speak out against political interference in scholarly life “even if it means incurring the displeasure of non-scholarly groups, the media among them.” It especially targets those who would silence critics of U.S. and Israeli policy in the Middle East with charges of disloyalty, support of terrorism, and anti-Semitism.
The group has established a web site: http://defend.university.googlepages.com on which appear the names of those who have signed on as well as links to articles about attempts to suppress academic expression. Its organizers are Joan Scott, of the Institute for Advanced Study; Jeremy Adelman, Princeton University; Edmund Burke III, University of California, Santa Cruz; Steven Caton, Harvard University; and Jonathan Cole, Columbia University.
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