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AAUP Denounces FBI's "Chilling Effect" On Dissenting Professor |
AAUP Finds FBI Statement Inadequate
Washington, D.C.—On Tuesday, March 7, two Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies working with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force visited Pomona College professor of history Miguel Tinker-Salas at his office and without appointment. Tinker-Salas is a prominent critic of U.S. policy toward Venezuela.
According to Professor Tinker-Salas, he was questioned about what he teaches and whether the Venezuelan government or its embassy in Washington had tried to influence his views. The deputies also questioned several students waiting to meet the professor. They asked the students about the content of his classes and what they thought of his teaching.
Pomona College president David Oxtoby promptly issued a statement protesting the "chilling effect this kind of intrusive government interest could have on free scholarly and political discourse." A few days later, the FBI’s Los Angeles field office issued a statement saying, "there was no intent on the part of the FBI, regarding the timing or location, to place the professor, his students or Pomona College in an uncomfortable position."
Los Angeles County sheriff Lee Baca also expressed regret, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times. He would have preferred that the deputies had "avoided the college grounds or at least called ahead."
The statements by the FBI and the sheriff’s office are welcome but fall short of adequately addressing the chilling effect that President Oxtoby protested. The questions put to Professor Tinker-Salas and his students about his classes and the sources of his ideas would be objectionable whether asked on or off the campus, or whether at a meeting that was pre-arranged.
Whatever the proper mandate of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, it should not, the AAUP maintains, include inquiries into academic writing, teaching, and learning of the sort posed to Professor Tinker-Salas and his students. The resulting pressures to inhibit free utterance on controversial public issues that can result from such questioning are manifest. Indeed, it is through the encouragement of freedom of expression, not its curtailment, that the nation’s security is enhanced.
The American Association of University Professors is a nonprofit charitable and educational organization that promotes academic freedom by supporting tenure, academic due process, and standards of quality in higher education. The AAUP has about 45,000 members at colleges and universities throughout the United States.
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Robin Burns
American Association of University Professors
Department of Public Policy and Communications
1012 Fourteenth Street, NW, #500
Washington, DC 20005
202-737-5900 ext. 3013
800-424-2973
FAX 202-737-5526
"Academic Freedom for a Free Society"
Support AAUP by joining today! http://www.aaup.org/membership/joinaaup.htm
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