That’s when Ellen Schrecker received her honorary degree from CUNY. Schrecker, who throws around accusations of McCarthyism like my two-year-old does Cheerios, has written to Benno Schmidt, chair of CUNY’s board, asking to give back her honorary degree.
Here’s my advice: Take it back! And quickly!
Schrecker claims that by not giving Kushner the degree, the trustees have violated the faculty’s academic freedom. If you want to know why claims of violations of academic freedom are becoming more and more difficult for people outside the university to take seriously, look no further than Ellen Schrecker. In an introduction to her letter she explains:
Admittedly, the awarding of an honorary degree may not be central to the educational mission of an institution. Certainly, Tony Kushner will not suffer unduly from what the CUNY trustees have done. But the rest of the academy cannot help but feel the chill.
Oh, for Pete’s sake. If that’s all it took to get the academy to give up droning on with its one-sided view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, college faculty must be a pretty cowardly bunch.
Are they worried that the other side isn’t represented in the academy? Schrecker and her colleagues can rest easy knowing that Kaukab Siddique gets to keep his job even though he called on Muslims to “defeat, to destroy, to dismantle Israel, if possible by peaceful means… [to] rise up against the hydra headed monster which calls itself zionism.” And oh yes, he gets to keep his job even though he called the Holocaust “a hoax.”
That’s what I call “a chill.”
