[COMM-ORG] COMM-ORG may go off the air

[Discussion list for COMM-ORG]

  Hi COMM-ORG,

Those of you following the events in Wisconsin closely may have heard 
that one of our most prominent faculty, William Cronon, has been the 
subject of a Freedom of Information request by the Wisconsin Republican 
party seeking all of his e-mails that may contain a wide variety of key 
words related to the protests in Wisconsin.  This came after he 
published an editorial in the New York Times related to the events in 
Wisconsin.  You can read more about the request at 
http://scholarcitizen.williamcronon.net/ .

You are probably also aware that I have sent out news reports about the 
protests over COMM-ORG, and that many people across the world have used 
the list to send out advocacy messages about a wide variety of causes.  
I have always prided myself on not censoring COMM-ORG (well, except for 
those Prince William wants to send you a million dollars spam messages), 
making it an open forum on community organizing.  I even created a 
separate announcements list so that off-topic messages sent to the list 
could have a home.  I have also considered COMM-ORG to be a central part 
of my academic work documenting the diversity and depth of community 
organizing around the world, and community organizing necessarily 
involves advocacy.  Given the current climate, I do not know whether 
such work will be protected under the principle of academic freedom.

I do not know whether the Republican Party will expand its efforts to 
target other faculty and I do not know how the university will respond.  
And while I have received no information that I or any other faculty are 
being targeted, I want you to all be aware that there is nothing 
predictable here and thus I am worried that COMM-ORG may be taken off 
the air at any time.  I am particularly concerned about students, since 
I know a number of courses use the papers on the COMM-ORG site.  For 
those of you using those papers, please inform your students that they 
should download the papers for their personal use immediately, in the 
event that COMM-ORG is shut down.

I am sorry for all this uncertainty.

Randy Stoecker
moderator/editor, COMM-ORG