Rummy at Stanford by Stefan Beck

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Sep 21, 2007 08:40 PM

Rummy at Stanford

by Stefan Beck

Friday night is no time to be worrying about academic freedom, but James’s post about Columbia’s latest disgrace reminded me of a similar dust-up on my doorstep. As the Stanford University Daily has reported, Donald Rumsfeld will be a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution—his arrival date is yet to be announced—to “serve on a task force pertaining to national security, ideology and terrorism in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”

Well, we’ve solved the Case of the Missing Outrage. It seems the public outcry that should have been directed at a Holocaust-denying anti-Semite and amateur fission enthusiast was accidentally bottled up, shipped to Palo Alto, and dumped wholesale into the water supply:

“Many Stanford faculty are outraged by this appointment of a war monger and torture facilitator into any part of the University environment, even if the Hoover Institute is not directly connected with the University,” said emeritus professor of psychology Philip Zimbardo, whose recent book “The Lucifer Effect” holds the former defense secretary directly responsible for the torture and abuse of detainees in military prisons such as Abu Ghraib. “The perception of the world is that [Hoover] is part of Stanford, a very visibly erect part of our beloved campus. We value truth, justice, peace and respect for human dignity — principles which this former Secretary of War has consistently violated.”

The unofficial platform of the faculty opposition, an email sent by English Prof. Robert Polhemus entitled “Ten reasons why the appointment of Donald Rumsfeld to the Hoover Institution at Stanford as a Senior Fellow is sad, ridiculous and contemptible,” has widely circulated and garnered more than 40 responses from like-minded faculty overnight, Polhemus said. The email, which condemns Rumsfeld for his “arrogance, failure and incompetence,” expresses worry that Stanford’s affiliation with Hoover will damage the University’s reputation and differentiates Rumsfeld from Gingrich or Rice by his lack of “intellectual and academic experience and/or some measure of achievement.”

Whatever one thinks of Rumsfeld, this response illustrates the almost ineffable dullness and predictability that characterize the political life of today’s university. The Daily breathlessly notes that Prof. Polhemus’s letter generated several dozen responses “overnight,” as though there had been any danger the faculty wouldn’t trip over itself to join in. Those professors could have prepared themselves for an opportunity to challenge their greatest ideological foe on their own turf. Instead, they opted for a “Get lost, Rummy” echo chamber. As someone commented just minutes ago on the Stanford Daily website:

I’m surprised the Stanford heirarchy isn’t clashing with Columbia over who gets to hear the Iranian president put Israel and the U.S. down. If I was Rumsfeld, I would stay away from the Farm where the wheat fields of academic freedom have now turned into fields of liberal stubble and waste. It’s all a Cardinal sin.

More from the San Jose Mercury News here.

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