Teach-ins help campuses deal with terror attacks

Following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, news outlets carried reports of professors being disciplined for their responses to the tragedy and of Muslims (or those mistaken for Muslims) being harassed or assaulted on campuses and elsewhere. Less widely reported were the teach-ins held at many colleges and universities to help faculty, students, and administrators educate and learn from one another. A few such teach-ins led to conflicts, including one at the City University of New York (see the story on page 11) and one at the University of Rhode Island.

At URI, disagreements between professors making presentations at a teach-in became hostile and spilled over into the local newspaper and onto a faculty senate e-mail list. Some professors charged that political conservatives were underrepresented at the teach-in, which they said had been dominated by antimilitary views: others disputed these charges and characterizations of their presentations as antimilitary.

But most campus teach-ins represented academia at its best, providing forums for campus community members to assemble, explore difficult questions, and debate ideas. At George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, about 150 students, faculty, and staff participated in a teach-in held shortly after the September attacks. Professors whose academic specialties run the gamut from civil liberties to the Central Intelligence Agency to Middle Eastern studies spoke for a few minutes each before opening the floor to questions, says Jon Gould, a speaker at the event.

"This was a time when people didn't know what to do or think," says Gould. "We tried to help people make sense of what had happened, and we also viewed it as a teaching moment, an opportunity to make real the abstract concepts we discuss in the classroom." Gould, a professor of public and international affairs, spoke about the potential tradeoff between security and civil liberties following the attacks. "We often want to think that some 'other' will be the target of police searches," says Gould. "Now it's potentially all of us. Does that, or should that, change our view of privacy rights?"

At Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, academic departments offered responses informed by their unique strengths and perspectives. Members of the women's studies program, for example, assembled links on a Web site to statements bv women and women's groups about the events of September, and the religion department sponsored a series of lectures on topics including religion and violence and the rise of radical Islam.

The English department held a teach-in that, like other such events, drew a crowd. "I think the turnout spoke to people's need to get together and talk about what is going on," says Kristie Allen, the event's moderator and a graduate student in the department.

One graduate student panelist talked about his father, who was killed in the World Trade Center. A professor gave a historical overview of Afghanistan and its role in Russian and American foreign policy. Another talked about the West's response to Islamic religion and culture and about her personal experience as a Lebanese American. Other panelists spoke about the media's role in presenting information to the public and about the public's desire for information and military action.

"Real disagreements between presenters and between audience members were discussed openly," says Anthony Lioi, assistant director of the department's writing program. "In times of crisis, people are tempted to suppress disagreement in the name of solidarity, but discussing differences is critical to the search for an ethical response to what happened on September 11."

Copyright American Association of University Professors Jan/Feb 2002
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