The following is an email that I sent to Bard president Leon Botstein today, in reaction to the events described in the Open Letter from Joel Kovel. -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Where are your principles? Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:19:04 +0100 From: Noel Bush <noel@aitools.org> To: Leon Botstein <president@bard.edu> Leon, I have been dismayed to learn about the forced retirement / termination of Joel Kovel from Bard's faculty. I will admit immediately that I was not familiar with Kovel's work -- either on Zionism, eco-socialism, or any other topic -- prior to learning about this incident. But the root of my outrage has nothing to do with Kovel's political views. I think that anyone with respect for principles of intellectual freedom and academic integrity would be troubled by what Kovel has written about the circumstances of his termination from Bard. As a believer in the sanctity of open enquiry and the role of the academy in protecting the same from political repression, I feel that you, as the representative of Bard College, owe the world an explanation for the decision to terminate Joel Kovel, given what he has claimed were its motivations. I dearly hope that you will not hide behind claims of "employee confidentiality". I am not a legal professional, but I feel certain that, to whatever extent Kovel's privacy might be implicated in the proceedings, he has opened up the matter for a fair exposition by any participant in the events outlined in his chronology. If you intend to claim that the evaluation involved students or other individuals whose identities or circumstances should be protected by concerns of privacy, I trust you are skillful enough to omit such details without suppressing the remaining relevant facts of the matter. Nor do I think your assertions that Kovel was dismissed due to financial pressures are credible. I read the article in Inside Higher Ed in which you employed a rather hackneyed tactic by dismissing the possibility that Kovel was terminated for his beliefs, writing to him, "You are not as controversial as you would like to believe." This is disingenuous on your part, every bit as insulting to the intelligence as you claim Kovel's charges are. It would seem much more to the point to observe that, to the extent that Kovel is a critical participant in a critical public discourse, the College has an ethical obligation to redouble its efforts to defend him publicly, let alone keep him on staff. By your patronizing dismissal of the controversial nature of Kovel's views, do you wish to suggest that he is unworthy of the academy, some sort of dilettante who fancies himself "controversial"? No, waving off Kovel's claims with patronizing language is not an adequate response. You stand accused on the public stage of violating the principles that you claim to hold dear. Without responding fully to the charge that you have terminated Joel Kovel because of the conflicts between his political views and your own, you passively permit the inference that there may be truth to Kovel's claims. Permitting that inference is not admission, but as a public figure I believe you must hold yourself to a higher standard of accountability, and explicitly address accusations that impinge on the very foundation of your role in public life. If, indeed, there *is* any truth to the charges, then I beg you to hear the voice of protest against this course of events, and consider the consequences of your action. You were recently quoted in the New York Times as saying that "it is also clear that being a Zionist and favoring the security and healthy future for the State of Israel is absolutely compatible with creating a Palestinian state". To the extent that I understand Kovel's views, his position is quite the opposite. But, even if the question is settled in your mind -- even if you are unshakeably certain that Kovel is utterly wrong -- do you feel that his views must be banished from the academy? Do you feel that his positions are so beyond the pale that they cannot be seriously, intellectually considered? Do you agree with the claims that his most recent book constitutes "hate speech"? Is the academic intellectual space really so poorly defended and maintained that it cannot mediate the engagement among disparate and contentious views without risking some civil rupture? Are Kovel's arguments to be classed with "evil" in the George W. Bush view of the universe -- unworthy of any serious consideration, functionally impervious to any critique? You claim to have been "delighted" that Kovel holds the views he does, but your actions contradict that claim. Whatever your views are on this, you must state them publicly, and you must defend -- on academic, professional, intellectual and political bases -- your decision to terminate Jovel Kovel. You must not try to duck the question by pointing at your own "good principles" as evidence that you care "more correctly" about the matter of Zionism and Israel. You must not evade an accounting by passing the matter off as a question of employee performance -- unless that is precisely what you find to have been the matter, in which case you *still* owe a more detailed public response to these very serious allegations. I say words like "must" and "owe" because, in my view, the several distinguished positions you hold, and your role in public discourse, confer upon you these obligations. In light of these serious accusations, it is also inadequate to cite student claims that Kovel had problems with "organization". Or are you trying to build a college of "organized" technocrats who "deliver education" effectively? If you're going to dismiss all the faculty members who are "disorganized", you're going to be opening up a lot of vacancies. Lastly, and hopefully tangentially, I could not help but be struck by the coincidence of the Times article about your project with Al Quds, and the termination of Kovel. It is dangerous to suspect connections where none are explicit, and yet it is also sometimes the way we can proceed to the truth. So I conclude by asking you to also address, comprehensively and clearly, whether there was any connection whatsoever between the termination of Joel Kovel and your ability to garner support for the project in the West Bank. The nastiness in this potential link is too glaring to ignore, and I believe this question deserves as much of an answer as the primary issue of Kovel's termination. Hopefully there is no trace of a possibility that this connection is anything other than an imaginative association. I thank you for your time, and I hope that you will prove me wrong in both my outrage at Kovel's accusations, and my fears about the association with the Al Quds project. I await your reply, as do a growing number of people who are organizing on- and off-line in reaction to these events. Cordially, Noel Bush, Bard 1996 Berlin |