Higher education and Middle Eastern studies following September 11, 2001

Academe, Nov/Dec 2002 by Scott, Joan Wallach, Atkinson, Richard C, Judd, Richard L, Celeste, Richard F, Broad, Molly Corbett

Several changes have been made to the original course section description. The statement "Conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections" has no place in a university course description and was removed from the description very early in this sequence of events. Subsequently, the graduate student instructor further amended the course description to clarify the scope of the course and the methodology for achieving the instructional purposes of the course-that is, the ways in which the course would teach reading and writing skills.

These changes have not assuaged most of the course description's critics. I, too, have been angered and disappointed by the course description. I regard aspects of the description as inflammatory and in no way necessary to describe the course or to convey the perspective from which it will be taught. I also am concerned by the suggestion, particularly in the earlier version, that students were not welcome in the course if they had viewpoints differing from that of the instructor. On balance, were I a faculty member of the committee deliberating on this particular matter, I would not have voted to support the current course description.

However, my obligation as president of the University of California is not to impose my own perspective on faculty and students. My obligation is to safeguard the educational mission of the university by upholding the principles of shared governance. My authority in this matter is prescribed by Standing Order 105.2 of the regents, which delegates directly from the regents to the Berkeley Academic Senate the responsibility to "authorize and supervise all courses and curricula" offered at the University of California. The senate has assigned this responsibility to its campus divisions and, in practice, responsibility for course descriptions is exercised by the faculty's Committees on Courses operating at each campus. The regents have decided that the assessment of teaching is a question of professional judgment, and for that reason they have vested in the expertise of the faculty the responsibility for supervision of courses and course descriptions.

The academic senate, acting first through its Committee on Courses and subsequently through its Divisional Council, has reviewed the course section description for "The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance." The senate has determined, after substantial discussion, that the course description meets the faculty's pedagogical standards. Under Standing Order 105.2, which reflects basic principles of shared governance, the administration cannot overrule this determination.

Like all of you, I am distressed by the hostility and recrimination that this matter has brought to the university. I wish it were otherwise. However, by upholding the right of the Berkeley faculty to approve this course description, we defend commitments that lie at the very heart of the University of California. I cannot emphasize strongly enough that it would be, in my judgment, the far worse course of action for us to abandon these commitments.