[Announce] "Accuracy in Academia" Group Slams Antioch's Advocacy Program

[announce at comm-org.wisc.edu]

From:
Steve Chase <steve_chase at verizon.net>


During a recent round of web-surfing, I found an interesting piece 
written by Malcolm Kline, the executive director of Accuracy in 
Academia--a rightwing organization based in DC that regularly attacks 
academics that it deems “biased” (ie. academics that the AIA perceives 
as liberal, progressive, populist, green, feminist, or 
multiculturalist--or even committed to the theory of evolution and the 
growing international consensus among scientists on global climate change.)

The piece, entitled “Environmentally Correct Again,” was part of a 
series of op-eds by Kline that challenges what the AIA sees as the US 
Left’s overwhelming “exploitation of the classroom or university 
resources to indoctrinate students; discrimination against students, 
faculty or administrators based on political or academic beliefs; and 
campus violations of free speech.”

I found his piece particularly interesting because Kline opened the 
article by naming me as one of the prime examples of a teacher guilty of 
these violations of academic freedom. My biggest sin is that I brainwash 
students and force them to become unwilling "foot soldiers in 
environmental campaigns." As he put it: "Steve Chase of the Antioch New 
England Graduate School, for example, led some of his lucky students on 
an ‘Environment Justice in the Mississippi Delta junket last spring. 
Chase described it as a '10-day field studies trip to Louisiana’s Cancer 
Alley—the 90-mile strip of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and 
New Orleans that houses more than 150 oil refineries and petrochemical 
plants.'" He then adds that this is just one of many examples where 
“students have been used as pawns of environmental activists when they 
should be in class.”

Kline fails to mention a few important things in his article, however. 
First, he neglects to mention the fact that the graduate students who 
participated in this field studies trip voluntarily signed up for this 
elective course and even paid extra money to take it. Second, he 
neglects to mention that during the trip the students engaged in 
conversations with a wide variety of stakeholders, including elected 
officials, journalists, petrochemical industry executives, union 
leaders, scientists, EPA officials, environmental activists, and members 
of polluted communities--and then debated with each other about the 
validity of each of these people’s perspectives. Even more interesting, 
Kline neglects to mention Exxon Mobil's effort to suppress these 
students’ legal right to do research on pollution and public health 
issues in Louisiana, or that it pressured the Attorney General of 
Louisiana to force a staff member of the Attorney General’s Office out 
of his job after 26 years of distinguished public service—all because 
this staff member stood up for our students’ legal right to engage in 
research when they were being detained by Exxon Mobil employees.

Now, Kline knows all this, because he quoted me from an an email I sent 
out in 2005, along with the press release that Antioch immediately 
issued out this situation. It therefore appears that Kline and AIA are 
actually against graduate students having the option to 1) take a field 
studies course focused on environmental justice and 2) exploring a wide 
variety of perspectives about the issue, including from people who are 
critical of corporate power and industrial pollution. According to 
Kline, all of this should be viewed as a serious violation of academic 
freedom.

Yet, Kline apparently has no problem at all with a giant corporation 
having off-duty police officers in its employ detain students for over 
an hour, lie about the law, and threaten students with being added to 
Homeland Security's "terrorist list" for engaging in the completely 
legal act of photographing an industrial facility from a public side 
walk as part of their research. He also doesn’t seem to believe it is a 
violation of free speech for a giant corporation to pressure the 
Attorney General of Louisiana to force a courageous civil servant out of 
his job for defending the legal rights of students to do academic 
research in his state.

I’m glad Kline and Accuracy in Academia are not “biased” in any way--and 
that they are such ardent defenders of “free speech” and “academic freedom.”

NOTE: If you would like access to online inks related to this post, 
please check out the hotlinked version on the Environmental Advocacy and 
Organizing Program’s “Well-Trained Activist” blog at: 
http://eaop-blog.blogspot.com/

All my best,
Steve

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Steve Chase
Director, Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program
Department of Environmental Studies @ Antioch University New England
40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431
Steven_Chase at antiochne.edu; 603-283-2336 (office); 603-357-0718 (fax)

* EAOP's Main Website: http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/
* EAOP's "Well-Trained Activist" Blog: http://eaop-blog.blogspot.com
* EAOP's Online Activist Bookstore: 
http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/bookstore.cfm
(7.5% of the purchase price is donated to the EAOP Scholarship Fund at 
no extra cost to you)

To learn more, you can also check out the study, ACTIVIST TRAINING IN 
THE ACADEMY:
DEVELOPING A MASTER'S PROGRAM IN ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY AND ORGANIZING, at
http://www.antiochne.edu/directory/page.cfm?page_id=230&id=1800014802&Type=Page