To: info@goacta.org, jmartin@goacta.org, aneal@goacta.org Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 01:35:05 +0500 Subject: Report on Defending Civ. Dear Jerry and Anne, Greetings. I recently read your new report on Defending Civilization. I must say that as an author of a law journal article on academic freedom (27 JCUL 669), your attempts of promoting academic freedom by publishing a list of professors who have made controversial statements seems counterproductive. Your report will do more to attack academic freedom than defend it. You have created a blacklist. If you did believe in academic freedom, why not publish the list without identifying the speakers? Naming them, as you have done, is an attempt to silence them. Your report is incredibly short sighted. For instance, in the first paragraphs, try replacing “military force” with “segregation” or any other progressive issue from this century. I could see this same report being issued in 1968 showing that the public opposed desegregation or women’s lib contrary to more progressive views expressed in academe. “The polls have been nearly unanimous—92% in favor of military force even if casualties occur—and citizens have rallied behind the President wholeheartedly. Not so in academe. Even as many institutions enhanced security and many students exhibited American flags, professors across the country sponsored teach-ins that typically ranged from moral equivocation to explicit condemnations of America. I think that what you have done—using your education and status in society as lawyers to advance repression--is the pinnacle of evil. I hope the big salaries and membership on prestigious boards that you enjoy as a result can clear your conscience. I, for one, could not sleep at night if I had to produce that drivel for a living. But there will always be members of society who can be purchased for the advancement of some political goal, just as their will always be humans that can be purchased for prostitution. Regards, Chris Hoofnagle