ACADEMIC FREEDOM AFTER SEPTEMBER 11TH: A CONFERENCE

February 27, 2004 8:00AM- 4:30PM
Ida & Robert Sproul Rooms, International House

In the aftermath of 9/11, the Bush administration has pushed through legislation, including the Patriot Act, that seriously threaten fundamental civil liberties. The impact on institutions of higher learning range from the creation of blacklists of “Un-American” professors to the imminent passage of H.R. 3077, which seeks to create an Advisory Board of political appointees to monitor the activities of federally-funded Title VI National Resource Centers (including Berkeley's CMES). Some of the questions to be raised in this conference are: How has the academy as a whole, and Middle Eastern Studies in particular, been affected by the transformations of post-9/11 America? In what ways are these changes related to the larger processes that have shaped the academy over the past generation? How have students and faculty, especially those with academic or cultural ties to the Middle Eastern and Muslim states targeted by the “War on Terror,” responded to threats to their academic freedom?

Participants:
Professor Robert Post, Yale University; Professor Beshara Doumani, UCB;Professor Kerwin Klein, UCB; Professor David Hollinger, UCB; Professor Kathy Frydl, UCB; Professor Philippa Strum, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; Professor Joel Beinin, Stanford University; Professor Laura Nader, UCB; Professor Amy Newhall, University of Arizona and the Middle East Studies Association; Professor George Bisharat, U.C. Hastings College of the Law; Mr. Michael Hindi, New School for Social Research; Mr. Snehal Shingavi, UCB

Co-sponsors with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies: Institute of International Studies, Human Rights Center, Townsend Center for the Humanities, and the Department of History