AFT Follies

A union newspaper is something of an oxymoron: journalists are supposed to reveal the truth, but union publications must reflect the party line. It seems to me, however, that a union paper ought, at least, to pretend to follow basic principles of journalism.

The March/April edition of the AFT's"On Campus" featured a critique of David Horowitz's 101 Most Dangerous Professors. Two Brooklyn College profs made the list: Tim (all religious people are"moral retards") Shortell and Priya ("white English is the oppressors' language") Parmar. Neither Shortell nor Parmar could be seriously considered"dangerous": Shortell is more a caraciture of the tenured radical, while it was the policy Parmar implemented (dispositions), not the person, that is dangerous. Beyond that, though, the coverage of Parmar and Shortell didn't contain the errors of fact that characterized other sections of the book; Horowitz essentially relied on press accounts from the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and the New York Sun.

Nonetheless,"On Campus" editor/author Barbara McKenna devoted a good section of her article to defending Parmar's conduct. Given that even NCATE president Arthur Wise had branded Parmar's approach"aberrant" and AAUP president Roger Bowen had termed her behavior"wrong," McKenna set for herself no easy task. The piece gave an almost comically one-sided version of events, caused in large part by McKenna's refusal to speak to anyone on the other side of the dispute. Her article also celebrated a letter signed by all members of the Brooklyn School of Education criticizing me. This letter opened by misquoting me and concluded by demanding, in the name of"academic freedom," that I"stop" publicly"attacking" the school's handling of the dispositions issue. Only at Brooklyn could academic freedom be construed as justifying the suppression of a dissenting voice in the faculty, as I pointed out in my response.

Since McKenna's article attacked me without even having interviewed me about the issue, I penned a brief letter to the editor, noting that elementary principles of journalism require attempting to speak to both sides before publishing an article. Since I'm an AFT member, I figured that the letter would be published, as a courtesy, if nothing else.

But Editor McKenna had different ideas. She couldn't publish the letter, she said, because it"dispute[d] other information we collected from students and employees at Brooklyn College." This approach to journalism is certainly novel: speak only to one side, overlook even all published material from neutral sources on the case, and then decline a letter to the editor on the grounds that it contradicts material published in the original article.

In light of my recent posts on events in Durham, I'm nominating Editor McKenna for the"Mike Nifong Excellence in Journalism Award," given to the journalist who most effectively imitates Nifong's investigatory strategy of refusing to consider evidence from both sides and then, when that evidence nonetheless is produced, pretending as if the new material simply doesn't exist. The AFT might even consider a new slogan:"If it's good enough for the Durham D.A., it's good enough for us!"