Category Archives: Freedom

Just six and a half years ago, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan was plotting a Freedom Caucus response after Republican leadership stripped then-North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows of a subcommittee chairmanship as retaliation for opposing a trade deal. In January 2021, then-President Donald Trump awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Jordan chronicles the evolution from being a nuisance to Republican leadership to a leader in his party and a prime target for Democrats in Do What You Said You Would Do: Fighting for Freedom in the Swamp, his first political memoir.

Now, Jordan is one of the most notable and influential Republicans in the House with his eye on becoming chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee should his party win the House in 2022. The most recent evidence of his importance was the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol requesting, three days before Christmas, that Jordan appear before the panel to answer questions.

Like many books written by politicians, Jordan's includes passages articulating his core principles and a highlight reel of sorts. There are several transcripts from his notable exchanges in committee hearings, including pages of his exchange with Hillary Clinton when she appeared before the Benghazi select committee in 2015.

JIM JORDAN: TRUMP DID NOTHING WRONG ON JAN. 6

But more than being an ideological manifesto, the book documents a political revolution in the Republican Party over the last decade from the perspective of one key House Freedom Caucus founder who helped make the Republican Party more uniformly conservative and confrontational.

We are now a party that I think is a populist party rooted in conservative principle, which is where we always should have been, Jordan told the Washington Examiner in an interview.

It shows an evolution, too, of Trump in how he and his administration dealt with the Freedom Caucus and how members learned to woo and influence the president. Jordan notes Trump naming him and Meadows in angry tweets because they opposed then-Speaker Paul Ryans Obamacare repeal plan, which failed just two months into his term.

He recalls being for some reason invited to a bill signing that would benefit the coal mining industry despite that not being an important issue in his district. Trump took the opportunity to compliment a Jordan appearance on CNN, prompting the Freedom Caucus to pivot to a cable news-heavy communications strategy. We could talk to him directly through Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, Jordan wrote.

Jordan writes several paragraphs about the significance of choosing the word freedom for the caucus name. That stands in contrast to former Rep. Mick Mulvaney telling the New Yorker in 2015 that the name was chosen because it was so generic and so universally awful that we had no reason to be against it.

Asked about Mulvaneys description, Jordan said there was a real debate about the name. I think it's a good thing. We picked that term because that's what the Left is trying to destroy, the Ohio congressman said. "We picked the word that you most associate with our country, the greatest country ever."

Even if the story is pruned for the narrative, Jordans book marks a milestone in Freedom Caucus history.

Meadows gave Jordans book a shoutout during a speech to state Republican lawmakers forming their own legislative Freedom Caucuses in mid-December mere hours before the House voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress for not more fully complying with the Jan. 6 investigation. He and Jordan said they had planned to write the Freedom Caucus stories together, according to Meadows, before he became White House chief of staff under Trump.

If you do what you said you would do when you campaigned for office, it will go well with you. It's the people who want to fake it that its such a hard time, Meadows told the crowd.

Partly due to the timing of its release, the shadow of the Jan. 6 riot and the select committee investigating it hangs over Jordans book.

The second chapter is devoted to Jan. 6 and its aftermath, but Jordan reveals little about his personal experience leading up to and during that day, who he talked to (including Trump), or other information that the select committee would likely want to know. He articulates his reasoning for objecting to the Electoral College count and his call for hearings into anomalies and concerns but does not fully buy into the notion that mass fraud put President Joe Biden in the White House.

Maybe everything was legit, but begins one sentence. When one-third of the voters believe the process is rigged, we have a big problem.

After his book was released, the Jan. 6 committee revealed a text message sent to Meadows described as being from a lawmaker that outlined an argument for Vice President Mike Pence to not count electoral votes from certain states. Jordan later revealed that the message was sent by him but it was an argument from a different lawyer that Jordan simply forwarded to Meadows, he said, and the committee admitted it inadvertently added a period in the excerpt it shared and cut off a full sentence.

In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Jordan did not directly say whether he agreed with or entertained the idea of Pence outright rejecting electoral votes. But asked whether Trump should have done anything more to call off rioters who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, Jordan went further than he did in his book. President Trump did nothing wrong, he said.

Jordan prefers to focus on whats next for House Republicans if they take back power and sets the stage for such a scenario in his book. Democrats won back the House in 2018, he writes, in part because Republicans failed to deliver on repealing Obamacare and on immigration reform.

Top priorities while Biden remains in the White House include launching Republican-led investigations into issues such as border security and U.S. funding of virus research in Wuhan, China. Legitimate oversight, Jordan said, not this Jan. 6, you know, craziness.

Unlike other rabble-rouser household names in the Freedom Caucus, Jordan earns praise from a wide ideological variety of House Republicans. After Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw ruffled feathers in early December by criticizing grifters in the House Republican Conference, he pointed out that he likes Jordan and doesnt put him in the same category.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

For those wondering why House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy does not publicly condemn or punish the more inflammatory members of his caucus, Jordans recollection of Freedom Caucus fights with former Republican Speakers John Boehner and Paul Ryan helps explain the dynamic. Both leaders publicly squabbled or even attacked the hard-line conservatives. Both suffered massive setbacks or were forced to resign after failing to earn or force support from the Freedom Caucus types.

Jordan has nothing but nice things to say about McCarthy, who made him the ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, in the book and in interviews.

Kevin McCarthy is, you know, the first leader to actually bring the entire team together, Jordan said, naming various conservative and centrist factions of the Republican Party. We have to be unified in our effort to stop where [Democrats] want to take us.

Original post:

The chronicles of Jim Jordan and Freedom Caucus Republicans - Washington Examiner

Happy Wednesday, everyone. Its the last Wednesday of 2021, so happy 4th day of Kwanzaa! The 4th principle of Kwanzaa is Ujamaa, which means cooperative economics. Continue to Shop Black and help stimulate business growth in Black communities.

Yesterday, there was a lot of news around Major League Soccer, so lets get to it, beginning with a couple of transfer rumors:

D.C. United interested in Wisa Krakw winger Yaw Yeboah - BRU

D.C. United could bring a Ghanaian international to Audi Field this offseason, as there is reported interest in Yaw Yeboah.

Report: Lorenzo Insigne to join Toronto FC in summer 2022 - MLS

Lorenzo Insigne could be the latest big name to head to the 6 and join Toronto FC.

Finally, Inter Miami is listening and doing something right:

Paulo Nagamura to be named head coach of Houston Dynamo FC - The Striker

The Houston Dynamo could have a new coach, 12-year MLS veteran Paulo Nagamura. That would be a nice hire for the Dynamo, who are looking to make some traction in the Western Conference.

D.C. United Acquire $250,000 in GAM from Charlotte FC - DCU

Charlotte FC wanted an international roster slot, so they paid D.C. United $250K for it. Nice doing business with you, Charlotte.

In more Black-and-Red news, it looks like the team will be headed to both Florida and California for their preseason.

Report: Palmeiras make $12.5m bid for NYCFC striker Taty Castellanos - MLS

MLS Golden Boot* winner Taty Castellanos may be leaving the league for Brazil, as Palmeiras makes a huge bid for the striker.

*he tied with Ola Kamara on goals, all hail Ola the Great!

AFCON 2021: Cinderella Equatorial Guinea set for landmark tournament - BBC

Equatorial Guinea have qualified for a tournament on the field for the first time ever, and theyre looking to make the most of their opportunity in the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations.

Happy New Year, everyone! Well catch you in 2022!

See more here:

Wednesday Freedom Kicks: D.C. United interested in Yaw Yeboah, Lorenzo Insigne to sign with Toronto FC - Black And Red United

Half a century ago, the Supreme Court settled the matter of when a court can stop a newspaper from publishing. In 1971, the Nixon administration attempted to block The Times and The Washington Post from publishing classified Defense Department documents detailing the history of the Vietnam War the so-called Pentagon Papers. Faced with an asserted threat to the nations security, the Supreme Court sided with the newspapers. Without an informed and free press, there cannot be an enlightened people, Justice Potter Stewart wrote in a concurring opinion.

That sentiment reflects one of the oldest and most enduring principles in our legal system: The government may not tell the press what it can and cannot publish. This principle long predates the Constitution, but so there would be no mistake, the nations founders included a safeguard in the Bill of Rights anyway. The First Amendment says, Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.

This is why virtually every official attempt to bar speech or news reporting in advance, known as a prior restraint, gets struck down. Any system of prior restraints of expression comes to this court bearing a heavy presumption against its constitutional validity, the Supreme Court said in a 1963 case. Such restraints are the very prototype of the greatest threat to First Amendment values, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote a generation later.

On Friday, however, a New York trial court judge broke from that precedent when he issued an order blocking The Times from publishing or even reporting further on information it had obtained related to Project Veritas, the conservative sting group that traffics in hidden cameras and fake identities to target liberal politicians and interest groups, as well as traditional news outlets.

The order, a highly unusual and astonishingly broad injunction against a news organization, was issued by Justice Charles D. Wood of the State Supreme Court. He wrote that The Timess decision to publish excerpts from memos written by Project Veritass lawyers cries out for court intervention to protect the integrity of the judicial process. This ruling follows a similar directive Justice Wood issued last month in response to a story The Times published that quoted from the memos. The Times plans to appeal this latest ruling.

In requesting the order from Justice Wood, Project Veritass lawyers acknowledged that prior restraints on publication are rare, but argued that their case fits a narrow exception the law recognizes for documents that may be used in the course of ongoing litigation. This exception recognizes that because parties are forced by the court to disclose materials, courts should have the power to supervise how such forced disclosures are used by the other party. The litigation here is a libel suit Project Veritas filed against The Times in 2020, for its articles on a video the group produced about what it claimed was rampant voter fraud in Minnesota. The video was probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort, The Times reported, citing an analysis by researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington.

The groups lawyers also argue that the memos are protected by attorney-client privilege and that The Times was under an ethical obligation to return them to Project Veritas, rather than publish them. This is not how journalism works. The Times, like any other news organization, makes ethical judgments daily about whether to disclose secret information from governments, corporations and others in the news. But the First Amendment is meant to leave those ethical decisions to journalists, not to courts. The only potential exception is information so sensitive say, planned troop movements during a war that its publication could pose a grave threat to American lives or national security.

Project Veritass legal memos are not a matter of national security. In fact, but for its ongoing libel suit, the group would have no claim against The Times at all. The memos at issue have nothing to do with that suit and did not come to The Times through the discovery process. Still, Project Veritas is arguing that their publication must be prohibited because the memos contain confidential information that is relevant to the groups litigation strategy.

Its an absurd argument and a deeply threatening one to a free press. Consider the consequences: News organizations could be routinely blocked from reporting information about a person or company simply because the subject of that reporting decided the information might one day be used in litigation. More alarming is the prospect that reporters could be barred even from asking questions of sources, lest someone say something that turns out to be privileged. This isnt a speculative fear; in his earlier order, Justice Wood barred The Times from reporting about anything covered by Project Veritass attorney-client privilege. In Fridays decision, he ordered The Times to destroy any and all copies of the memos that it had obtained, and barred it from reporting on the substance of those memos. The press is free to report on matters of public concern, he wrote, but memos from attorneys to their clients dont clear that bar.

This is a breathtaking rationale: Justice Wood has taken it upon himself to decide what The Times can and cannot report on. Thats not how the First Amendment is supposed to work.

Journalism, like democracy, thrives in an environment of transparency and freedom. No court should be able to tell The New York Times or any other news organization or, for that matter, Project Veritas how to conduct its reporting. Otherwise, it would provide an incentive for any reporters subjects to file frivolous libel suits as a means of controlling news coverage about them. More to the point, it would subvert the values embodied by the First Amendment and hobble the functioning of the free press on which a self-governing republic depends.

Read more from the original source:

Opinion | A Dangerous Ruling About The Times, Project Veritas and Press Freedom - The New York Times

To the Editor:

Happy New Year! While the Spring 2022 Elections might seem a ways away, they are just around the corner with the Spring Primary on February 15, 2022 and the Spring Election on April 5, 2022.

Make it our New Years Resolution to vote in every election in 2022 and take the pledge. Take two minutes today to get a head start on this goal by requesting all your absentee ballots for the year. Visit myvote.wi.gov today to make sure you are registered and to request all of your ballots. They may be requested at https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/VoteAbsentee

Encourage your friends and family to take up this resolution and check-in with one another as we get closer to elections. Post the link to myvote.wi.gov on social media and tell your circle that they can request their absentee ballots today.

Check something off your to-do list by requesting all your absentee ballots for the year at myvote.wi.gov today!

The League of Women Voters, a non-partisan political organization, encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in government, works to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. The League was founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt who was born in Ripon, Wisconsin.

For more information on local the League of Women Voters of the Ripon area please visit our Facebook page, email lwvriponarea@gmail.com or call Ellen Sorensen at 920-960-3397.

Ellen Sorensen

Ripon

More:

Letter: Celebrate the New Year and the freedom to vote in 2022 - Ripon Commonwealth Press

AMMAN Jordan ranked first regionally and 94th globally on the 2021 Human Freedom Index (HFI).

Co-published by the Fraser Institute and the Cato Institute, the 2021 Human Freedom Index measures personal freedom the rule of law, safety and security, identity and relationships, freedom of movement, speech, assembly and religion alongside economic freedom and the ability of individuals to make their own economic decisions.

When people are free, they have more opportunity to prosper and pursue happier healthier lives for themselves and their families, said Fred McMahon, resident fellow at the Fraser Institute and co-author of this years Human Freedom Index.

Representing 98.1 per cent of the worlds population, the index covers the period from 2008, which is the earliest year of comprehensive data, to 2019, the most recent year of comprehensive data.

The index also shows that there is an unequal distribution of freedom in the world, adding that freedom plays an important role in human wellbeing.

The Kingdom ranked 50th in economic freedom, and 115th in personal freedom, which are sub-categories in the seventh annual index, which showed that 83 per cent of the worlds population live in countries where freedom declined.

Jordan is making clear progress in the area of freedom and justice, Balqees Wasfi, a Jordanian life coach who is also experienced in the human rights and freedoms arena, told The Jordan Times on Monday.

Wasfi said that the index is important as it makes it possible for people to be more familiar with the status of world states in regard to freedoms.

Switzerland topped this years freedom index followed by New Zealand, Denmark, Estonia and Ireland. The five least-free countries are (in descending order) Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Venezuela and Syria.

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Jordan ranks 1st regionally, 94th globally on 2021 Human Freedom Index - Jordan Times

By: Daily Record Staff December 29, 2021

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Second Circuit Freedom of Information Act: The New York Times Co. v. U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services - The Daily Record (Rochester, N.Y.)

John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Brochure Cover for Planting Acorns at Coventry, 1968, first public art collaboration.Courtesy Yoko Ono

Among the many fascinations served up by The Beatles: Get Back documentary series is the nature of Yoko Onos presence in the recording studio. She wasnt observing from the sidelines with the other spouses and associates. She was in the inner circle, literally, sitting alongside John Lennon, turning the fab four into a group of five. As the Beatles jammed and messed around and recorded what would become iconic songs, Ono was right there, quietly reading, sewing, sorting through mail or just sitting.

Ono was a household name at this point because of her celebrity boyfriend. But long before she met Lennon, she was a highly regarded conceptual artist. You can experience her work right now at the Vancouver Art Gallerys exhibition Yoko Ono: Growing Freedom: The instructions of Yoko Ono / The art of John and Yoko.

The work in the exhibition brackets the time period depicted in Get Back. Director Peter Jacksons three-part, nearly eight-hour series documents the intense four weeks in January, 1969, during which the Beatles, working toward what they had planned to be a TV special, created material for what would become the Let It Be album, including their legendary rooftop concert their final public performance.

The instructions of Yoko Ono.Blaine Campbell/Courtesy of Contemporary Calgary

As a viewer of the series, you get more than a front-row seat to it all; this is fly-on-the-wall level access.

In a couple of scenes, the bandmates read newspaper stories about themselves out loud. Reads one headline: Beatle John Lennon says: Im in love with Yoko.

While Onos relationship with and, ultimately marriage to Lennon meant she would never have to struggle to attract attention to her work (or a pay cheque), attention is one thing recognition quite another. Her art career would forever be eclipsed not just by his music career, but by their relationship. It became nearly impossible to experience her work in a vacuum.

I saw the VAG show earlier this fall. But after devouring Jacksons series, I wanted to go back for another look. Would the exhibition feel different?

With the context of the Beatles documentary floating around in my brain, I started with Cut Piece, Onos pioneering work of participatory art. In a film of her 1965 performance, Ono sits on the stage of New Yorks Carnegie Hall while attendees, following instructions supplied in a leaflet, ascend one by one to cut away a small piece of her clothing with a pair of scissors. Throughout, she remains still and expressionless.

Nobody says a word; Ono is more silent than she is during those recording sessions. But this time, she is centrestage. And alone, except for the visiting audience members. All you hear is the clickety-clack of their shoes as they ascend and descend from the stage.

Ceiling Painting (1966).Blaine Campbell/Courtesy of Contemporary Calgary

Ono met Lennon a year later famously, as she was preparing a solo exhibition at an experimental gallery in London. Lennon was intrigued by her Ceiling Painting (1966), where the participant climbs a ladder, picks up a magnifying glass and points it to a small panel on the ceiling. The word yes is revealed.

Lennon a superstar by that point later said if the word had been no, he would not have continued through the exhibition. He loved its optimism.

In Vancouver, Ceiling Painting stands at the centre of one of the galleries. (Its not the same physical work; these are realizations of Onos concepts.) It shares space with other examples of her Instruction works. Laugh Piece (1961): Keep laughing a week. Cough Piece (1961): Keep coughing a year. (I had to laugh, behind my mask.) Fly Piece (1963): Fly.

These were written long before she met Lennon, but its hard not to think of him when encountering Shadow Piece (1963): Put your shadows together until they become one.

The next part of the exhibition deals with the couples collaboration in life and art, including the greatest performance of their lives: How they parlayed intense media interest in their marriage to call attention to the atrocities of war. Their Crusade for Peace took place partly on Canadian soil. With the Vietnam War raging, they held Bed-Ins for Peace first in Amsterdam, then at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. They appeared at a hastily organized Seminar on World Peace in Ottawa (cooked up by young future cabinet minister, Allan Rock). They later met with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Cut Piece (1965).Minoru Niizuma/Yoko ono

This is well-known history for many Canadians. But looking at photos from this time right after viewing the Jackson documentary, Lennon and Ono feel more familiar, somehow as humans, not celebrities.

These events took place in 1969, just a few months after the Get Back sessions. Yet Lennon seems more grown-up and serious in his white suit and shaggy beard. Perhaps its partly the result of being out of the shadow of Paul McCartneys take-charge studio presence. Ono, no longer the silent observer, is now a participant, and Lennons equal in this collaboration. The duo, in place of the band, has more important matters to attend to. (The Beatles officially broke up in 1970.)

The next part of the exhibition concerns the other side of Onos instructions: what the viewer or participant, rather does with them. For Onos My Mommy is Beautiful (2004), visitors are invited to write about their mothers. A small gallery is filled with messages on Post-it notes. I love my mom sooooo mutch. I am soooo happy she is my mum, reads one.

Further along, for the final segment of the show, Yoko Ono: Water Event, Ono invited local Indigenous artists to create or choose a water container. Onos contribution of water completes the sculpture, the wall plaque explains.

Wish Tree (1996).Blaine Campbell/Courtesy of Contemporary Calgary

Throughout, people were snapping photos of pretty much everything with their phones, which underscored another thing I have been thinking a lot about since watching Get Back: how different those sessions would have been in a world of ubiquitous cellphones. The four of them and everyone else would have been buried in their phones instead of forced to talk to each other, to mess around, to get a little bored, to conjure up music to fill the void.

How much are we not creating because were looking at our phones?

Ono believes the viewer/participant is an essential part of the work. Further, context is so important. Artworks feed on each other. Every experience bleeds into the next, whether consciously or not. You see an exhibition twice in the space of two months, viewing a related documentary in between, and the experience changes so the art in fact changes. It is always in flux. But we need to pay attention.

The VAG show ends with Onos Wish Tree (1996), where participants are instructed to make a wish, write it on a tag (provided) with a pencil (sterilized) and tie it to one of the small trees in the space. I wish the end of Covid for the world, read one during my second visit. Another: I wish to keep laughing with friends and look at art forever.

The exhibition is at the Vancouver Art Gallery until May 1.

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Yoko Ono's work comes to Vancouver Art Gallery with Growing Freedom: The instructions of Yoko Ono / The art of John and Yoko - The Globe and Mail

Dolly Partonseems like she'd qualify for the Presidential Medal of Freedom based on her cultural contributions alone, from songs like "Jolene" and "I Will Always Love You" to hit movies like "Steel Magnolias"(1989) and 1980's"9 to 5"(not to mention her Tennessee theme park,Dollywood).

But as all Dolly devotees know, her initiatives reach far beyond the entertainment world. She promotes child literacy through her Imagination Library which has donated more than 100 million books to kids since its foundation in 1995 and she also helped fund the development of Moderna'sCOVID-19 vaccine.

In short, you'd be well within reason to ask why Parton hasn't been offered the medal yet. But as she shared during a virtual appearance on NBC's"TODAY"earlier this year, she actually has been offered it twice, both during Donald Trump's tenure. The first time she turned it down because her husband was ill. The second offer came during the thick of thepandemic, and she decided to decline the award rather than have to travel to accept it.

As for whether Parton would accept a third offer, she's not sure. "Now I feel like if I take it, I'll be doing politics," she explained. In other words, she seems to be wary that the move would be read as an endorsement of one administration over another, and Parton isfamously mumwhen it comes to politics.

In any case, receiving the medal doesn't appear to be much of a focus for her. "I don't work for those awards," she said. "It'd be nice, but I'm not sure that I even deserve it. But that's a nice compliment for people to think that I might deserve it."

It's not the first time Parton has shown such admirable humility. This past February, when Tennessee's state government was working on getting the OK to install aDolly Parton statueon Capitol Hill, she asked them to kill the bill. "Given all that is going on in the world, I don't think putting me on a pedestal is appropriate at this time," she said in astatement (though she did allow that she'd be open to the possibility in some years' time).

[h/tTODAY]

See original here:

Yes, Dolly Parton really did turn down the presidential medal of freedom (twice) here's why - Salon

In recent years I have discovered that I like to read short books. I am not sure when this habit started, but I have a suspicion. After I stopped working in politics, when I began again to read in earnest and discovered just how little I had read, I began to keep lists of books completed. I would note down each title and the month and location at which I had turned the final page.

Because I was travelling a lot at the time, these lists are quite satisfying to look back at. I can live again, not only the story of the book, but the story that lies alongside it, the story of my life: the Laotian town where I read about Sylvia Plath, the Roman holiday on which I read The Flamethrowers. They were handy, too, for recommendations: if somebody asked me if I had read any good books lately, I had only to trawl through my list and pick the two that seemed most suited.

A list of books read soon tuned into an exercise in efficiency and comparison.Credit:Thinkstock

But what started as an aid to memory quickly turned as most things do these days into an exercise in efficiency and comparison. How many books had I read this year more than last? I didnt have to wait until the end of the year to check: in April I could see whether I had fallen behind my average. And sometimes I had, and so what was the solution? Short books. A casual observer could deduce this from the lists themselves: after I finally got around to reading Don Quixote, across a long series of cold dark mornings in London, the next two books were very short indeed.

This year, for me, has been a poor year for reading. I have read far less than usual, and struggled with lack of desire. I have picked up many books and set them down again. I am not alone in this: many others have written similar accounts. Short books have been the saving of my reading year: if it were not for brief volumes I would have read barely any books at all.

There are two common explanations given for this shift in our reading habits. One pre-existed the pandemic: the invasion of our lives by technology and its demands. The other is anxiety created by the threat of COVID. The argument is that our minds, worried about virus, are scanning for threats, engaged in constant vigilance. Part of that vigilance, psychologists have argued, is the hunt for information scrolling through Twitter, flicking from news site to news site in an attempt to control what cannot be controlled. In turn this advances the invasion of technology. The two factors, technology and fear, loop round and feed each other.

This is probably true, but I prefer a simpler explanation: for many reasons, some shared and some not, we are all by now very, very tired.

Whatever the cause, the reading I have not done this past year has left a gap. I was, thanks to the virus, already engaging with fewer people, fewer minds; and now that is more true still. It means, too, that in a year in which most of us have been restricted in our movements for long periods, that my mind has also been more caged: it has been exposed to fewer thoughts, it has visited fewer places, lived through fewer events. And you can tell this from my list, too, which began to tail off early in the year before fading to nothing in July. I have read some books since then, but did not note them down.

Recently, I have felt an itch; an urge to begin again to read. Immediately I thought about how to make best use of this. Perhaps I could start with the short books which sustained my list early in the year, and use them as a type of training-cycle, to ready myself for longer books. And as I began to have these careful, practical thoughts I felt the urge to read fizzle again.

Originally posted here:

Freedom and stumbling across the secret to rekindling my lost desire to read books - Sydney Morning Herald

Henry Reichmans new book is a product of his scholarship and his activism. Reichman, professor emeritus of history at California State University, East Bay, has previously published books on academic freedom and on censorship in the schools. He was also for the last nine years the chair of the American Association of University Professors Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. His new book is Understanding Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press).

He responded via email to questions.

Q: There are lots of books about academic freedom. What is your purpose with this one?

A: In a review of my previous book The Future of Academic Freedom, Keith Whittington opined that it should be read by every professor working in the United States and that study of academic freedom should be a core part of professional training. I was flattered, to be sure, but I wasnt so certain that my collection of essays was necessarily the invaluable entry point Whittington suggested. I wanted to write something shorter, less topical, perhaps a bit more timeless than just timely, that could serve as a concise and accessible introduction to and survey of the topic, based on both historical and contemporary experience. In some respects Matthew Finkins and Robert Posts 2009 book, For the Common Good, was a model, but not only is it a bit dated, it also fails to cover student academic freedom, a defense of tenure and, ironically, given that the authors are both law professors, the legal environment, each of which gets a chapter in Understanding Academic Freedom. It is my hope that college and university administrators, attorneys involved in higher education law, journalists, even politicians and, most of all, ordinary faculty members, tenure track and contingent, and graduate students will find the book a useful guide.

Q: You note in several places the decline in the percentage of academic workers who are tenured, but also say that in matters of academic freedom, it doesnt matter if a professor has tenure. Why doesnt it matter? Do you worry that drawing attention to that could undermine efforts to reverse the trends on tenure?

A: Its not so much that tenure doesnt matter than that contractual tenure is the strongest defense of academic freedom we have, both for those who can lay claim to it and, perhaps more importantly, for the faculty as a collective body. As the AAUP and the Association of American Colleges and Universities acknowledged in their 1970 interpretive comments on the 1940 joint Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, Both the protection of academic freedom and the requirements of academic responsibility apply not only to the full-time probationary and the tenured teacher, but also to all others, such as part-time faculty and teaching assistants, who exercise teaching responsibilities. The tenure system is based on the conviction that once instructors have not only obtained academic qualifications but have gained classroom experience sufficient to demonstrate competence and fitness for their positions, they should be entitled to a presumption of continuous appointment, with dismissal only for appropriate cause as determined by a due process hearing before a qualified faculty committee. As I pointed out in Understanding Academic Freedom, the existence of a sufficiently large group of tenured faculty can ensure that dissenters and gadflies can have a community of supporters able to advocate on their behalf. This can, I hope, help protect even part-time and untenured gadflies and dissenters. An institution that claims a commitment to academic freedom but does not embrace tenure is one whose claim will be much too readily abandoned.

Q: You write critically of Turning Point USA and its Professor Watchlist. Why isnt that just another example of free speech?

A: In a sense, it is such an example. But just because people are free to say their piece doesnt guarantee that what they have to say will be constructive. And it certainly doesnt mean that such expression should itself remain immune from condemnation. As the AAUPs 2004 Committee on National Security in a Time of Crisis noted, private entities are protected by the First Amendment from state censorship or sanction as long as they stay within lawful bounds. They are sheltered by the same freedom of expression that we seek for ourselves, and they are equally subject to public rebuke. Insofar as a particular professor might be thrust into the rough and tumble of the public arena, the law demands, as a prominent legal scholar once put it, a certain toughening of the mental hide. Such is the price of free speech. I wont dispute the First Amendment rights of these organizations, nor do I call for censorship or sanction against them.

I do, however, condemn efforts to intimidate or silence faculty members, and urge others to do so as well. Governing boards of colleges and universities have a responsibility to defend academic freedom and institutional autonomy, including to protect institutions from undue public interference, by resisting calls for the dismissal of faculty members and by condemning their targeted harassment and intimidation. The entire academic community should join the American Historical Associations forthright 2017 call to condemn in the strongest terms the creation, maintenance, and dissemination of blacklists and watchliststhrough media (social and otherwise)which identify specific individuals in ways that could lead to harassment and intimidation.

Q: What have been the issues with academic freedom during the pandemic?

A: Its become something of a clich to point out how the pandemic experience brought to the fore problems already long festering in American society, including in higher education. I was honored to serve on the AAUP investigating committee that in May published a special report on COVID-19 and academic governance. While that report found scant evidence that the governing boards and administrations of the investigated institutions terminated the services of the affected faculty members based on considerations that violated their academic freedom; nevertheless, the committee did encounter overwhelming evidence that tenureand, thus, academic freedomhas faced a frontal assault at these institutions and many others in the wake of the pandemic.

The renewed assault on tenure, initially justified by an alleged need for flexibility in the face of pandemic challenges, has now, like the pandemic itself, been politicized. What began in Kansaswhere in early 2021 the state governing board approved a policy allowing for emergency terminations and suspensions of tenured positionshas now spread to Georgia, where, as a recent AAUP investigation concluded, newly adopted policies deny academic due process to tenured faculty members dismissed through posttenure review, essentially eviscerating the protections of tenure. In South Carolina, the Cancelling Professor Tenure Act seeks entirely to eliminate tenure in the states public colleges and universities for all employees hired in 2023 or later. And, of course, while not directly related to the pandemic, the chilling assault, including via legislation, on teaching and scholarship dealing with race and gender, epitomized by the critical race theory moral panic, has rendered the overall atmosphere for academic freedom as toxic as it has been at least since the McCarthy era, if not the early 20th century.

Q: Can you discuss the case of Amy Wax?

A: Wax is a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania who has been widely condemned for public remarks that most people consider racist, including remarks about Penn students of color, although to my knowledge no direct evidence has yet been offered that she actually discriminates against any students. There have been calls for her dismissal, and her dean responded by prohibiting her from teaching mandatory first-year classes. Whittington called her case a classic example of extramural speech, noting that the argument against Wax is the same argument that has been turned against professors who engage in racially inflammatory rhetoric that might make students think they would be judged by the color of their skin. In his view, professors are allowed to denigrate groups of people in such a way that students might fear that they will not be treated fairly in the classroom. Professors are not allowed to in fact treat students unfairly. He has a point, but the standard by which we should judge professorial expression outside the classroom is how relevant that expression is to the faculty members fitness to perform instructional and other duties.

As I asked in Understanding Academic Freedom, might it be argued that Waxs repeated disparagement of minorities, including of minority students at Penn, creates a situation in which such students could genuinely expect she would not treat them fairly, even if evidence that she has actually discriminated remains inadequate? And could it therefore not be said that this might be relevant to her fitness to teach? Frankly, I cant answer definitively, and the real point of academic freedom and tenure is that providing an answer is not my role in the first place. If such questions are to be raised, the answers must come neither from an outsider like me nor from outraged students, much less the Penn administration, but from a qualified panel of legal scholars in a due process proceeding. As I concluded in my book, it should be extremely difficult to dismiss a tenured faculty member for unfitness on the grounds that her extramural expression alone could create a classroom atmosphere so intimidating to the learning of some students that this implicates her fitness for the position. In principle, however, this is not inconceivable. Still, extreme caution must be exercised.

Q: What should professors do to protect academic freedom on their campuseswhen there isnt an attack on a particular faculty member?

A: This is perhaps the most important question that the faculty today faces as a group. The old saying that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure is certainly relevant. The best protections for academic freedom are institutional rules and regulations that comport with procedural recommendations developed by the AAUP, specify how and why an institution can properly terminate a faculty members service or impose discipline, and that provide for faculty tenure. It is the obligation of all who teach and conduct research in higher education to advocate for the adoption of such rules; educate themselves and others on their importance; and insist that administrators, trustees and politicians not only comply with and enforce them, but defend them.

A strong system of shared governance and, where possible, a strong and active faculty union (and a collective bargaining agreement that provides a basis for enforcing rules and regulations governing academic freedom) are critical vehicles. We are educators, but if we are to educate freely, we must educate ourselves, and not only about our disciplines but about the critical importance of academic freedom to the very mission of our institutions. I conclude Understanding Academic Freedom with a long quote from the AAUPs 1956 investigation of the impact on academic freedom of that eras anti-Communist hysteria, which includes these words that may provide the best answer to this question: we deem it to be the duty of all elements in the academic communityfaculty, trustees, officials and, as far as possible, studentsto stand their ground firmly even while they seek, with patient understanding, to enlarge and deepen popular comprehension of the nature of academic institutions and of societys dependence upon unimpaired intellectual freedom.

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Author discusses his new book on academic freedom - Inside Higher Ed