In a blog post
in July titled “Tenure in Singapore and West-Centric Discourse,” I had
discussed the hypocrisy of US rhetoric of free speech that gets easily thrown
around in a celebratory story of American exceptionalism narrated through the
lens of free speech. In that article, commenting upon the monolithic
articulations about Singapore made by US academics on the tenure case of Dr.
Cherian George, I had shared stories of the US academics Ward Churchill and
Norman Finkelstein who had been systematically silenced from US academe because
they offended the status quo of American society.
Both these
academics were ultimately cast out of US academe because they voiced
uncomfortable truths.
The reality in
the US I had argued is that academics are indeed fired if they don’t tow the
line and if they offend the normative expectations of the status quo. As in the
case of Churchill and Finkesletin, articulations of civility and arguments of
quality are often used simultaneously to silence dissent.
In a recent
instance of another such violation of these normative expectations, University
of Kansas Professor David Guth has come under fire because he twitted “"#NavyYardShooting
The blood is on the hands of the #NRA.
Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn
you."
Professor Guth
teaches in a School of Journalism and Mass Communication, a site of teaching
where the concepts of first amendment and free speech are probably taught to
every undergraduate student.
Before sending
him on an unpaid leave, the administration of the University posted a response,
titled “University of Kansas decries offensive comments.” In that statement,
Kansas Dean of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication observed:
"While
the First Amendment allows anyone to express an opinion, that privilege is not
absolute and must be balanced with the rights of others. That’s vital to civil
discourse. Professor Guth’s views do not represent our school and we do not
advocate violence directed against any group or individuals.”
This is from a
Dean of a School of Journalism and Mass Communication! Dean Brill teaches us that
First Amendment privileges need to be balanced with the rights of others.
Articulations of First Amendment can be sacrificed to the need for maintaining
civil discourse.
However, Dean
Brill does not clarify for us what she means by civility or who is it that
ought be making the assessment of civility.
Further to the
point, she either intentionally or unintentionally misreads the tweet by
Professor Guth as advocating for violence.
What Professor
Guth had clearly expressed is that “next time” a shooting takes place, let the
consequences be faced by the children of the NRA. Rather than reading the tweet
as a call for violence, I read the tweet in quite an opposite direction, as a
much-needed response to the culture of violence in the US and as pushing for the
NRA to take responsibility for the shootings that have taken place across the
US.
It is ironic
that Professor Guth’s boss, the Dean of a Journalism School misinterprets
Guth’s articulation as advocating violence while in reality Professor Guth’s
statement is an expression of horror in response to violence. In his
articulation, Professor Guth holds the NRA responsible for this violence. I
read his intent as a proposition to reduce violence rather than as an advocacy
for violence. The irony then is in the intended misreading of the statement in
exactly the opposite direction of what it was intended to achieve.
What I also find
ironic about this scenario and other scenarios such as this is the rush to
defense that my American colleagues are propelled to so that they can hold high
their moral highground on the First Amendment. When expressing my dismay at the
situation, I have been told that Professor Guth is employed by the state and
therefore, will hav to pay the price for being a state employee. That First
Amendment principles are violated here or that principles of academic freedom
are at threat here go unchallenged.
Now imagine if
the same scenario had played out in my current workplace in Singapore.
Could then a
Professor of Communication be rightfully fired because they said something that
is offensive to the state? Would the same colleagues in the US then be jumping
up and down making claims of Singapore being an authoritarian state and calling
for a universal code of conduct regarding tenure and promotion processes?
Under that same
logic, would the US then be read as a totalitarian state, and what would then
happen to the ideas of freedom of speech because the Americans think they have
trademark on anything to do with freedom? Should then we in Singapore call for
boycotting American universities? Or should we call for principles of fair
trade that any American university would need to adopt before we sign them into
partnerships?
How does the
same response in one situation get attributed to the rightful role of the state
and in another situation get read as the authoritarin intervention of a
totalitarian state.
What is it about
America and about Americans that allows them to carry out their moral
highground in the face of such clearly
evident hypocrisies?
When Associate
Professor Cherian George in Singapore had not received tenure at NTU, I
had read the responses of my American colleagues as jingoistic. I had noted
that calls to boycott Singapore seemed silly and jingoisitic, without real
understanding of the complexities of tenure and promotion processes. I had
further noted that the response of the many of my American colleagues were hypocritical as the US is full of examples where academic freedom is
disergarded.
Let my American
academic colleagues prove me wrong.
Let them stand
up to their rhetoric of free speech for once and demonstrate that their
rhetoric is not just empty rhetoric. When questions of free speech are not
being debated in another country but amidst our very professions in our own
back yard, let my American colleagues stand up and prove that they do really
have a backbone and the moral fiber to stand up.
Here is to the
hope that my colleagues globally stand up to the silencing of their American
colleague in a totalitarian America.