Do Political Scientists Believe in Free Speech?

This came to us via e-mail:

PETITION
Ensure Academic Freedom and Freedom of Speech
for APSA Members in Canada

Whereas the APSA is committed to “promoting scholarly research and communication, domestically and internationally; . . . defending the legitimacy of scholarly research into politics and government; . . . encouraging the application of rigorous ethical and intellectual standards in the profession; [and] serving the public, including disseminating research and preparing citizens to be effective citizens and political participants” [http://www.apsanet.org/content_4403.cfm];

And whereas the Association in its policy for determining the site of its annual meeting states as a general guideline that the “APSA is committed to high standards of professional conduct and ethics in siting, planning, and conducting its meetings, including protection of academic freedom, equitable access to opportunity, and a commitment to non-discrimination,” and moreover now encourages “enhanced engagement with host cities on state and local issues of importance to the APSA”
[http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/APSA%20Meeting%20Siting%20Policy%206-26-2008.pdf];

And whereas Canada’s Human Rights Commissions (HRCs) have recently sought to suppress speech and impose legal penalties on speakers for expressing opinions on issues ranging from the morality of homosexual conduct and the question of legal recognition of same-sex unions to the threat to freedom posed by violent extremists acting in the name of Islam — speech that, according to all accounts, would be protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States;

And whereas, while we know of no direct suppression of academic freedom that has yet occurred in Canada, yet the writ of Canada’s HRCs runs without evident limit to encompass any speech, academic or otherwise, to which potential complainants take “offense”— and whereas, the arbitrariness and procedurally unconstrained practices of the HRCs create an air of uncertainty regarding whose speech, on what subjects, before what audiences, will be targeted next;

And whereas members of the Association ought to be able at the 2009 annual meeting to present research and argument on controversial topics, such as public policy concerning homosexuality or the character of and proper response to terrorist elements acting in the name of Islam, without fear of legal repercussions of any kind,

THEREFORE we petition the Council and staff of the APSA to take all steps necessary to ensure that academic freedom and free speech, even on controversial topics such as these, are not threatened at the 2009 annual meeting, including soliciting legal advice and seeking the assurance of the Government of Canada and local authorities that the civil rights and liberties of members to free speech and academic freedom will be secure.

To add your name to this petition, please send an e-mail confirming your electronic signature to: TorontoAPSA@gmail.com (APSA Members Only)

Initial Signatories (institutional affiliations for identification purposes only)

William B. Allen, Michigan State University; Hadley Arkes, Amherst College; Stanley C. Brubaker, Colgate University; Robert L. Clinton, University of Southern Illinois; Patrick J. Deneen, Georgetown University; Matthew J. Franck, Radford University; Robert P. George, Princeton University; Carson Holloway, University of Nebraska at Omaha; Charles R. Kesler, Claremont McKenna College; Harvey C. Mansfield, Harvard University; Paul D. Moreno, Hillsdale College; Richard Morgan, Bowdoin College; Anthony A. Peacock, Utah State University; Ronald J. Pestritto, Hillsdale College; Ellis Sandoz, Louisiana State University; Colleen Sheehan, Villanova University; James R. Stoner, Louisiana State University; Bradley C.S. Watson, St. Vincent College; Bradford P. Wilson, Princeton University; Jean Yarbrough, Bowdoin College

Please direct inquiries either to Bradley Watson at bwatson@stvincent.edu and (724) 805-2145 or to James Stoner at poston@lsu.edu and (225) 578-2538.

Attached was the following statement, outlining free speech problems in Canada (most of which we have blogged on):

What’s the Matter with Canada?

“Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.” Canadian Human Rights Commission investigator Dean Steacy1

Canadian Human Rights Commissions have repeatedly used complaints by “offended” parties to initiate legal proceedings against Canadian citizens who have engaged in political speech. As a result, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has found it necessary to speak out against Human Rights Commissions getting into “the business of restricting free expression of opinion.”2 While such proceedings have not yet been initiated against any scholar, Canada’s Society for Academic Freedom and
Scholarship has raised the concern that “current HRC practice is a danger to the academic freedom of both faculty and students.”3 Canadian human rights commissions have carried out proceedings against:

• MacLean’s, Canada’s leading periodical, and Mark Steyn, one of Canada’s most prominent political journalists, for publishing excerpts from Steyn’s book critical of radical Islam.4
• Ezra Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, for re-publishing Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed.5The Catholic Bishop of Calgary, for publishing a pastoral letter against gay marriage.6
• The Rev. Stephen Boissoin, for criticizing homosexuality in letters to the editor of a local newspaper.7 Rev. Boissoin has been “ordered to desist from communicating his views on this subject ‘in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet’ so long as he should live. He has been ordered to pay compensation to” the person offended by his views and “further to make a public recantation of beliefs he still holds.”8

According to David Warren of the Ottawa Citizen: “Before Canada’s ‘human rights’ tribunals, a respondent has none of the defences formerly guaranteed in common law. The truth is no defence, reasonable intention is no defence, nor material harmlessness, there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind.”9 The nature of radical Islamism and the relationship of public morality and homosexual conduct are issues of vital public importance to which the scholarship of many political scientists is addressed; and all political scientists have a professional interest in a full and open scholarly debate on such topics. It would be unseemly for the APSA to turn a blind eye to these attacks on freedom of speech, and it is unacceptable for it to risk exposing its own members to them. In Canada’s legal environment, how can the APSA ensure “protection of academic freedom” and “a reasonable basis for feeling welcome” – two key principles of its siting policy10 – for all of its members, regardless of the scholarly opinions they plan to express at the convention?

1 http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=405744
2 FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND HUMAN RIGHTS
3 http://www.safs.ca/issuescases/nicholson.html
4 http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/06/02/bc-macleans-human-rights.html?ref=rss
5 http://www.reason.com/news/show/124925.html
6 http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/aug/05082601.html
7 http://www.ccla.org/news/spring08-10.shtml
8 Deafening Silence
9 Show Trial
10 APSA Policy for Siting the Annual Meeting and other Conferences

This, of course, is a response to the actions of the APSA which, faced with a demand from its internal gay lobby that the the city of New Orleans be boycotted (since Louisiana does not recognize gay marriage), refused to boycott the city, but promised to “engage” on the issue. This meant, supposedly, that while the APSA was not necessarily going to boycott states whose policies are not sufficiently “gay friendly,” such places might be discriminated against. Or perhaps just berated.

But if the APSA is going to bring political considerations into the siting of its conventions, what about places whose very liberal and politically correct laws violate free speech?

This petition is, quite simply, a litmus test to determine whether the APSA is willing to uphold the most basic and fundamental of human rights, or whether it’s just another politically correct bunch of liberal and leftist professors.

American Political Science Association: Fudging the Issue of a Pro-Gay Boycott

The American Political Science Association, according to its Constitution, is not supposed to take positions on controversial public issues.

Unfortunately, nothing so insubstantial as a Constitution can stand in the way of a bunch of politically correct liberal professors caving to a politically correct interest group.

But what if the issue pits racial political correctness against gay political correctness?

The gay lobby within the APSA wanted to boycott New Orleans because voters in Louisiana had the temerity to vote to restrict marriage to one man and one woman.

Yet the race lobby within the organization, represented by the Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession, favored a convention in New Orleans as a means of helping revitalize a city whose (heavily black) citizens were ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

So what is a politically correct bunch of professors supposed to do if caught between two lobbies toward which they instinctively genuflict?

The answer: fudge.

From an APSA press release:

Washington, DC—The Council of the American Political Science Association voted yesterday to revise its site selection policy for meetings but not to move the association’s Annual Meeting from New Orleans in 2012. The new policy is aimed at speaking out against state legal restrictions on same-sex unions, reflecting a preference for engaging with the state of Louisiana on these issues rather than to boycott New Orleans.

The vote by the Council was based on concerns that Article 4, paragraph 15 of the Louisiana state constitution, adopted in 2004, discriminates against the rights of same-sex couples and their families. For example, association members attending the APSA Annual Meeting may not be permitted to make medical decisions on behalf of their partner or family members.

So the convention remains in New Orleans, but the APSA is going to “engage” Louisiana on the issue.

Of course, the APSA has no right to “engage” anybody on any public issue, since its Constitution says “The Association as such is nonpartisan. It will not support political parties or candidates. It will not commit its members on questions of public policy.”

Sometimes, taking a middle position can be seen as a matter of principle, a compromise between legitimate concerns.

But in this case, it has nothing to do with principle. Rather, it’s a fudge.

It’s well known that college professors are not merely liberal or left, but that they are increasingly intolerant of views at odds with their own.

And the APSA’s actions send a message of intolerance. As Matthew J. Franck puts it:

No moral or religious reasons not to abandon the consensus of all of civilized history will be given a hearing by these [APSA] members, or even be admitted to exist as a good-faith matter in the minds of intelligent, decent colleagues. For the advocates of a “welcome environment,” the welcome will not be complete until everyone else agrees with them or shuts up.

Any student in a political science class will get this clear message, indeed, has probably already gotten it.

As Charlotte Allen has noted:

The best approach for the APSA might be to follow the counsel of Daniel Lowenstein, a specialist in electoral politics at UCLA’s law school: “The whole purpose of the organization is to provide a forum where politics and the political process are researched and debated, not to take sides on controversial political issues.” Are these academics prepared for such a radical idea?

The answer is simple: no, they aren’t.

Will the American Political Science Association Cave to the Gay Lobby?

We broke the story right here, and Inside Higher Ed just recently noticed the situation, reporting:

The American Political Science Association is seeking members’ views on whether to relocate its 2012 annual meeting, currently scheduled to be in New Orleans, because of Louisiana’s ban on gay marriage. Several associations in recent years have relocated meetings due to labor issues at convention hotels, and others avoid certain cities based on their states’ policies. But such changes have been expensive for associations, which typically select meeting sites years in advance, and face fees when they change plans. New Orleans has been a popular site for many academic meetings, and some groups have moved meetings there, post-Katrina, as a gesture of support.

The APSA has twice e-mailed members, asking them to take part in a survey about the issue.

Here is the first of the e-mails, and here is the second.

So what would be wrong with the APSA supporting this gay cause?

Quite simply, it would violate the APSA Constitution, which says:

1. It shall be the purpose of this association to encourage the study of Political Science, including Political Theory, Political Institutions, Politics, Public Law, Public Administration, and International Relations.

2. The Association as such is nonpartisan. It will not support political parties or candidates. It will not commit its members on questions of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose as stated above.

But let’s be honest about this. College professors tend to be liberal and leftist yahoos, reflexively supporting any politically correct cause.

Indeed, as the Chronicle of Higher Education (May 30, 2008) pointed out:

This is not the first quarrel over the location of the political-science association’s meetings. During the 1970s, the association abandoned plans to meet in Chicago because the Illinois Legislature had not supported the Equal Rights Amendment.

That incident led to a breach-of-contract lawsuit by Hilton Hotels. In settling the lawsuit, the association agreed to meet only in Hilton properties for 10 consecutive years.

Political scientists, who generally think that the United States Constitution can mean whatever you want it to mean, apparently have no trouble with the notion that the Association’s Constitution can mean what they want it to mean.

The only hope for a New Orleans convention is another kind of political correctness: one based on race. Again, from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

And last month the association’s Committee on the Status of Blacks in the Profession released a statement arguing that “the black and poor communities of the City of New Orleans are still in the process of rebuilding their neighborhoods,” and that “the APSA annual meeting would contribute to the economic recovery of the city.” (The association’s recent conventions have drawn between 6,000 and 7,000 scholars.)

So will it be gay political correctness, or black political correctness?

Our guess is that the gay lobby wins.

And anybody who is paying attention will relearn a lesson they learned in the 70s with the Equal Rights Amendment: given a choice between respecting it’s own Constitution, and signing on to a trendy leftist cause, a group of political scientists will go with the trendy cause.

Will the American Political Science Association Cave to Its Gay Lobby?

We wouldn’t belong to the American Political Science Association except for the fact that membership carries with it a big discount on the registration fee for the annual convention. But it does, so we belong and thus got this e-mail:

Dear Political Science Colleagues at Marquette University:

I write to request your support of a boycott of the American Political Science Association’s 2012 Annual Meeting, currently slated for New Orleans, Louisiana.

In 2004, 78 percent of Louisiana voters (including a majority in Orleans Parish) passed this amendment to their state constitution: “Marriage in the state of Louisiana shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman. No official or court of the state of Louisiana shall construe this constitution or any state law to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any member of a union other than the union of one man and one woman. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.

No official or court of the state of Louisiana shall recognize any marriage contracted in any other jurisdiction which is not the union of one man and one woman.”

This language both limits marriage to different-sex couples and denies to same-sex pairs all “legal incidents” of marriage that arise from civil unions, domestic partnerships, and other familial arrangements. In other words, as a matter of state constitutional law, coupled lesbians and gay men can be nothing other than legal strangers to one another in Louisiana.

In 2005, the APSA’s Committee on the Status of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and the Transgendered in the Profession (on which I served from 2004 to 2007) adopted a resolution calling for the Association not to hold conventions in states with constitutional prohibitions of same-sex marriage. That year, the APSA Council forwarded the LGBT Status Committee’s siting resolution to the newly formed Annual Meeting Review Committee for consideration.

This year, the Annual Meeting Review Committee reported that any change in the Association’s conference-siting policy was a matter solely for the Council to determine.

On August 31st, the Council rejected the Status Committee’s resolution.

The APSA’s choice to hold annual meetings in states with constitutional provisions like that of Louisiana impedes the ability of LGBT political scientists to participate in the Association and to progress in the profession.

For instance, the domestic partners and children of LGBT members travel with them to conventions. Lee, my own partner of 12 years, has gone with me to meetings in Chicago and San Francisco. Were I to be hospitalized or otherwise incapacitated while visiting New Orleans in 2012, I would want Lee to make medical and other decisions on my behalf, and vice versa. However, under the Louisiana amendment, we couldn’t do that for each other.

This example isn’t hypothetical. Lee has Type 1 diabetes, and I’ve had to take him to hospital emergency rooms because of his disease. I wouldn’t want to face the question from medical staff in Louisiana, “Are you a member of his family?” In short, the Association’s rejection of the Status Committee’s siting policy makes only heterosexual families uniformly welcome at annual meetings.

The APSA’s posture hits LGBT graduate students and junior faculty with particular force. In 2012, they face the Hobson’s choice of, on the one hand, subjecting themselves and their families to an overtly hostile legal environment while in New Orleans or, on the other hand, not attending the conference and missing its opportunities to interview for jobs and to present papers in order to advance careers.

What is more, the Association established a relevant precedent in the 1970s and ‘80s when it refused to hold conventions in states that hadn’t ratified the federal Equal Rights Amendment. That policy precluded meetings in Chicago, because Illinois never approved the ERA.

Hence, while the APSA was fully prepared a generation ago to battle gender discrimination, the organization isn’t willing today to combat sexual-orientation discrimination with similar resolve. Instead, by selecting New Orleans for an annual meeting, the Association condones the condemnation of same-sex couples to the legal purgatory that Louisiana, and New Orleans itself, authorized in 2004.

In truth, the APSA would never consider New Orleans if the Louisiana Constitution discriminated on the basis of ethnicity, gender, race, or religion as blatantly as it does with regard to sexual orientation. Our national professional organization of political scientists, thus, reinforces the sad reality that explicit governmental discrimination against LGBT Americans remains politically and socially acceptable.

The Status Committee’s resolution eliminates just Atlanta and New Orleans from the cities with convention facilities that have been sufficient in the past to accommodate the Association’s annual gatherings. Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Toronto, and Washington are, and will remain, viable venues for conferences. Surely this list is adequate to suit the organization’s siting needs.

I have faith that the American Political Science Association has the capacity -- and can summon the compassion -- to ensure that all of its members are treated with dignity and respect at annual meetings. I hope that you share my belief. If so, please be kind enough to forward this message with your own statement (e.g., “I support the New Orleans boycott”) to the Association’s President and Executive Director:

Dianne Pinderhughes, Dianne.M.Pinderhughes.1@nd.edu
Michael Brintnall, brintnall@apsanet.org

Please “cc” me at dpinello@jjay.cuny.edu

In addition, if you know members of the APSA Council, please ask them to reconsider their rejection of the Status Committee’s siting resolution. Current Council members include:

Lisa Baldez, lisa.baldez@dartmouth.edu
Susan Burgess, burgess@ohio.edu
Dennis Chong, dchong@northwestern.edu
Michael Doyle, md2221@columbia.edu
Kerry Haynie, klhaynie@duke.edu
Arthur Lupia, lupia@umich.edu
Anna Sampaio, anna.sampaio@cudenver.edu
Melissa Williams, mwilliam@chass.utoronto.ca

Lastly, please let me know if you’re willing to assist in organizing the boycott.

With your help, we can persuade the Association to relocate the 2012 conference while there’s still time to do so.

Gratefully,
Dan

P.S. This message is being sent to political scientists at more than 200 colleges and universities across the United States.

Daniel R. Pinello
Professor of Government
John Jay College of Criminal Justice of
The City University of New York
dpinello@jjay.cuny.edu
www.danpinello.com


Author of:
Gay Rights and American Law
(Cambridge University Press, 2003)
and
America’s Struggle for Same-Sex Marriage
(Cambridge University Press, 2006)

Of course, the profession of Political Science has a strong liberal bias, so why wouldn’t the APSA boycott a state that has done something so politically incorrect as limit marriage to opposite sex couples?

Part of a possible answer rests in the APSA Constitution, which says:

1. It shall be the purpose of this association to encourage the study of Political Science, including Political Theory, Political Institutions, Politics, Public Law, Public Administration, and International Relations.

2. The Association as such is nonpartisan. It will not support political parties or candidates. It will not commit its members on questions of public policy nor take positions not immediately concerned with its direct purpose as stated above.

Of course, this language didn’t prevent the APSA from boycotting the State of Illinois when that state failed to embrace the Equal Rights Amendment.

So if the Association blew off its Constitution once to placate the feminists, why not blow it off again to placate the gay lobby?

This, of course, will be a test case to see whether a bunch of liberal academics can act in even a minimally principled way. They didn’t when the issue was the ERA. And they are the kinds of people who think the U.S. Constitution can mean whatever you want it to mean.

But if the APSA placates its internal gay lobby on this issue they will be sending a clear message. It’s well known that political science is a discipline with little intellectual diversity, and what there is is between (say) liberals and leftist radicals, or between old-time democratic socialists and cultural leftists.

But the profession has always maintained that, in spite of this lack of diversity, political scientists can be fair in dealing with contentious public issues, and fair in dealing with students.

But why should anybody believe that if the APSA won’t abide by its own rules?

Political Correctness in Political Science: Gay & Lesbian Issues

In general, the poisonous effects of political correctness have not yet fully penetrated into political science.

Yes, the vast majority of political scientists are liberals or (much less frequently) leftist radicals.

But in general, the kinds of biases one sees in political science are the traditional liberal biases, and not the more current variety of political correctness.

Some evidence of this is found in the case of the Group of 88 at Duke. In the wake of rape accusations made against several Duke Lacrosse players, the Group issued a statement that assumed the guilt of the lacrosse players. Why did they assume that? Because the accused were white males, and the accuser was a black woman.

Several departments and programs at Duke signed on to the statement. Political science was not among them. Among individual faculty, 88 signed on to the statement, including only three members of the political science department.

But political correctness has made inroads into political science, as shown by a request we got today (via a mass e-mail) from the American Political Science Association Committee on the Status of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and the Transgendered (LGBT) in the Profession. It’s interesting that they have to translate “LGBT.” If political science were really entirely onboard with political correctness, that would not have been necessary. Here is the text of the e-mail:

The American Political Science Association is studying the relationship between sexual orientation and professional life. We urge all APSA members -- regardless of their sexual orientation -- to complete this questionnaire, which should take no longer than 10-12 minutes. Anonymity and confidentiality will be completely protected.

Here is the survey.

Most of it is relatively innocuous, although there is a fairly clear agenda on some issues. The survey shows a lot of concern with including “LGBT” issues into regular political science courses (they wouldn’t want students to be able to avoid indoctrination by failing to take certain classes). They are also very interested in whether faculty are encouraged to do “LGBT” research or discouraged from doing so.

And clearly, some of the people on the Committee are wanting to start a journal on Sexuality and Politics.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with studying the gay lobby as another interest group, or studying gay identification as a politically relevant identity, or looking at public policy issues that relate to homosexuality.

The problem is that academic projects like this tend to produce little politically correct ghettos, where only certain political attitudes are allowed, where all research and teaching must support a political agenda, and where broader intellectual standards are considered irrelevant, if not downright oppressive.

Looking at departments of Women and Politics, or Black Politics or Chicano Politics tells the story.