Reply to Critic: A Professor Lashes Out
By Jacob Laksin
FrontPageMagazine.com
March 27, 2006
Professor Larry Estrada is none too pleased about being profiled on the pages of David Horowitz’s new book, The Professors. Estrada, an associate professor of ethnic studies at Western Washington University, was interviewed about the book by
freeexchangeoncampus.org, a Web site created by the teacher unions and radical campus groups for the sole purpose of denouncing the Academic Bill of Rights and The Professors. Estrada’s interview is posted in a section of the site called “Horowitz Fact Checker” as part of a leftwing campaign to discredit the author. In the interview Estrada complains that the profile of him in The Professors “is full of inaccuracies that take the form of distortions, damaging inferences and out-and-out fabrications.” Serious charges indeed. As one who conducted the research on which Estrada’s profile is based, however, I can report with confidence that the charges are merely hot air.
Begin with Estrada’s claim that the book “misrepresents” him as a “radical ethnic separatist who believes that ‘Aztlan’ should secede from the United States…” But this description rests first of all on Estrada’s longtime membership in the Moviemento Estudiantil Chicana de Aztlan, otherwise known as MEChA, a radical ethnic separatist organization that believes “Aztlan“--the stretch of territory comprising the U.S. Southwest that some Mexicans believe to be their mythical land of origin--should secede from the United States.
The so-called “Plan Espiritual de Aztlan,” a foundational document adopted by MEChA in 1969--the year Estrada joined the organization-- states: “Once we are committed to the idea and philosophy of El Plan de Aztlán, we can only conclude that social, economic, cultural, and political independence is the only road to total liberation from oppression, exploitation, and racism.” Similarly, Article II, Section 1 of MEChA’s constitution makes clear that “general membership shall consist of any student who accepts, believes and works for the goals and objectives of MEChA, including the liberation of AZTLAN, meaning self-determination of our people in this occupied state and the physical liberation of our land.” It’s difficult, to say the least, to reconcile these official declarations with Professor Estrada’s assurance that “MEChA doesn't advocate secession.”
Likewise his insistence that the “vast majority of MEChA members are proud to be both Latino and Americans.” If that’s true, why then do MEChA’s members describe themselves as “a bronze people with bronze culture,” supposedly dispossessed by the “brutal ‘gringo’ invasion of our territories”? And what of their claim that “Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent”? Such sentiments betray many fervent views, but an appreciation of America is not one of them. Finally, perhaps the professor can enlighten confused readers how precisely the organization’s notorious slogan--Por la Raza todo. Fuera de la Raza nada (“For our race everything. For those outside our race, nothing.”)--attests to its supposed good will?
Just as he cannot bring himself to admit the truth about MEChA, Professor Estrada declines to offer an honest account of his remarks about Ward Churchill. Churchill, it may be remembered, is the University of Colorado professor who argued in an Internet article that the September 11 terrorist attacks were justified. Estrada would have readers believe that his defense of Churchill was a simple matter of standing up for free speech. “I do not condone [Churchill’s] words on 9/11. I defend his right to say what he wants to say as an academic. The inference that I agree with his analogy is totally fallacious,” the professor indignantly claims. Were that in fact the case, his comments would not have merited a mention in The Professors. After all, David Horowitz himself defended Churchill’s right not to be fired for his article and opposed a legislative effort--led by his friend and Colorado governor Bill Owens--to force him from his job.
As it happens, however, Estrada went far beyond supporting Churchill’s right to express his obnoxious views. As recorded in The Professors, on at least one occasion he went so far as to suggest that Churchill had made an important contribution to scholarship, one that deserved serious attention, not admonition. “Churchill is really getting a bad rap for what he was trying to do, which was to explain why events like 9/11 transpired,” said Estrada in February of 2005. One wonders which part of Churchill’s “explanation” Estrada found most compelling: His belief that the “American public” bore the blame for the “genocide” allegedly carried out by its government? His theory that the World Trade Center was a legitimate “military target”? His conviction that the victims of the Word Trade Center were the functional and moral equivalent of Nazis--“little Eichmanns” in Churchill’s malevolent phrasing--who deserved the “penalty” visited on them that tragic day?
Possibly it was Churchill’s assertion that the 9-11 attackers, far from Islamic fanatics and terrorists, were “combat teams” engaging in traditional warfare. Estrada himself seemed to harbor doubts that terrorism was a real phenomenon when he advanced his view that the attacks on Churchill were part of a sinister “right-wing” crusade to find enemies of America where none existed. “If we can’t find terrorists, we’ll create terrorists in our midst,” was how Estrada put it then. That the professor believes such views make him a “moderate in terms of my political viewpoints” is a telling insight into the cultural insularity and political extremism that have taken up refuge in our nation’s universities.
In his Parthian shot, Professor Estrada grumbles that The Professors aims to “create fear and distrust of higher education and to spread the notion that our colleges and universities are full of dangerous people.” Distrust and fear may be the proper responses to the current academic climate. But if so, it is the casual mendacity and political radicalism of professors like Larry Estrada, rather than a book chronicling their habitual abuse of academic standards, that has brought matters to this regrettable pass.
FrontPageMagazine.com
March 27, 2006
Professor Larry Estrada is none too pleased about being profiled on the pages of David Horowitz’s new book, The Professors. Estrada, an associate professor of ethnic studies at Western Washington University, was interviewed about the book by
freeexchangeoncampus.org, a Web site created by the teacher unions and radical campus groups for the sole purpose of denouncing the Academic Bill of Rights and The Professors. Estrada’s interview is posted in a section of the site called “Horowitz Fact Checker” as part of a leftwing campaign to discredit the author. In the interview Estrada complains that the profile of him in The Professors “is full of inaccuracies that take the form of distortions, damaging inferences and out-and-out fabrications.” Serious charges indeed. As one who conducted the research on which Estrada’s profile is based, however, I can report with confidence that the charges are merely hot air.
Begin with Estrada’s claim that the book “misrepresents” him as a “radical ethnic separatist who believes that ‘Aztlan’ should secede from the United States…” But this description rests first of all on Estrada’s longtime membership in the Moviemento Estudiantil Chicana de Aztlan, otherwise known as MEChA, a radical ethnic separatist organization that believes “Aztlan“--the stretch of territory comprising the U.S. Southwest that some Mexicans believe to be their mythical land of origin--should secede from the United States.
The so-called “Plan Espiritual de Aztlan,” a foundational document adopted by MEChA in 1969--the year Estrada joined the organization-- states: “Once we are committed to the idea and philosophy of El Plan de Aztlán, we can only conclude that social, economic, cultural, and political independence is the only road to total liberation from oppression, exploitation, and racism.” Similarly, Article II, Section 1 of MEChA’s constitution makes clear that “general membership shall consist of any student who accepts, believes and works for the goals and objectives of MEChA, including the liberation of AZTLAN, meaning self-determination of our people in this occupied state and the physical liberation of our land.” It’s difficult, to say the least, to reconcile these official declarations with Professor Estrada’s assurance that “MEChA doesn't advocate secession.”
Likewise his insistence that the “vast majority of MEChA members are proud to be both Latino and Americans.” If that’s true, why then do MEChA’s members describe themselves as “a bronze people with bronze culture,” supposedly dispossessed by the “brutal ‘gringo’ invasion of our territories”? And what of their claim that “Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent”? Such sentiments betray many fervent views, but an appreciation of America is not one of them. Finally, perhaps the professor can enlighten confused readers how precisely the organization’s notorious slogan--Por la Raza todo. Fuera de la Raza nada (“For our race everything. For those outside our race, nothing.”)--attests to its supposed good will?
Just as he cannot bring himself to admit the truth about MEChA, Professor Estrada declines to offer an honest account of his remarks about Ward Churchill. Churchill, it may be remembered, is the University of Colorado professor who argued in an Internet article that the September 11 terrorist attacks were justified. Estrada would have readers believe that his defense of Churchill was a simple matter of standing up for free speech. “I do not condone [Churchill’s] words on 9/11. I defend his right to say what he wants to say as an academic. The inference that I agree with his analogy is totally fallacious,” the professor indignantly claims. Were that in fact the case, his comments would not have merited a mention in The Professors. After all, David Horowitz himself defended Churchill’s right not to be fired for his article and opposed a legislative effort--led by his friend and Colorado governor Bill Owens--to force him from his job.
As it happens, however, Estrada went far beyond supporting Churchill’s right to express his obnoxious views. As recorded in The Professors, on at least one occasion he went so far as to suggest that Churchill had made an important contribution to scholarship, one that deserved serious attention, not admonition. “Churchill is really getting a bad rap for what he was trying to do, which was to explain why events like 9/11 transpired,” said Estrada in February of 2005. One wonders which part of Churchill’s “explanation” Estrada found most compelling: His belief that the “American public” bore the blame for the “genocide” allegedly carried out by its government? His theory that the World Trade Center was a legitimate “military target”? His conviction that the victims of the Word Trade Center were the functional and moral equivalent of Nazis--“little Eichmanns” in Churchill’s malevolent phrasing--who deserved the “penalty” visited on them that tragic day?
Possibly it was Churchill’s assertion that the 9-11 attackers, far from Islamic fanatics and terrorists, were “combat teams” engaging in traditional warfare. Estrada himself seemed to harbor doubts that terrorism was a real phenomenon when he advanced his view that the attacks on Churchill were part of a sinister “right-wing” crusade to find enemies of America where none existed. “If we can’t find terrorists, we’ll create terrorists in our midst,” was how Estrada put it then. That the professor believes such views make him a “moderate in terms of my political viewpoints” is a telling insight into the cultural insularity and political extremism that have taken up refuge in our nation’s universities.
In his Parthian shot, Professor Estrada grumbles that The Professors aims to “create fear and distrust of higher education and to spread the notion that our colleges and universities are full of dangerous people.” Distrust and fear may be the proper responses to the current academic climate. But if so, it is the casual mendacity and political radicalism of professors like Larry Estrada, rather than a book chronicling their habitual abuse of academic standards, that has brought matters to this regrettable pass.
2 Comments:
I'm one of Mr. Horowitz's dangerous professors. When Mr. Horowitz began agitating for his particular version of "academic freedom" in Colorado in 2003 I listened carefully to student testimony at legislative hearings and studied their written accounts of alleged professorial bias. I offered comprehensive and respectful analysis to local legislators, columnists, and radio talk show hosts. I agreed to publicly discuss student concerns with SAF's paid operative at my university (an offer that was not accepted). Since 2003 I've held seminars with students on our campus and talked to students on other campuses about their educational experiences—and discovered a very different reality than the one that Mr. Horowitz is selling. I've given salons and talks about academic freedom to local citizens. I've published letters addressing the problematic aspects of Mr. Horowitz's campaign in newspapers in Denver and Philadelphia.
For my efforts I'm now included in a book that promises to reveal "radical academics" who "spew violent anti-Americanism, preach anti-Semitism, and cheer on the killing of American soldiers and civilians". By association I'm a suspected terrorist, racist, murderer, and sexual deviant. I've been smeared by newspaper columnists in the Denver papers, and received hostile emails from citizens in Colorado and beyond. Now we have a Horowitz shill warning parents to consult his book before making a school choice for their kids.
All of this nonsense is provoked by a man whose own views are deeply contradictory. Mr. Horowitz says that he wants professors to be academic and scholarly, yet his book research is superficial and sloppy, and should inspire no confidence that his accounts of rampant student persecution are accurate. He wants professors to stick to their subjects, yet he fails to realize that disciplinary boundaries have become increasingly permeable to the point where everything happening in intellectual and social life is conceivably relevant to the classroom subject at hand. He stands for eliminating political bias from the classroom, yet he ignores a century of scholarship showing that biases of all kinds inevitably intrude, and that these biases can actually work to education's advantage if teachers and students are aware of them. He claims to be a pro-democracy patriot, but he rejects Jeffersonian ideals of teaching for citizenship in favor of an elitist model of tweedy professors filling up empty-headed students with disinterested knowledge. He wants to promote intellectual curiosity, yet he bailed on his own graduate program because, in his stunningly impoverished view of intellectual life, "everything had been mined…there was nothing to research that was interesting anymore" (Chronicle of Higher Education interview, May 6, 2005). He supposedly is a student advocate, yet he clearly disrespects the ability of students to think for themselves, and he underestimates the resolve of our very best students to battle test their ideas in the classroom. He says he stands for civil discourse, yet his online magazine is an unreadable hate sheet. Clearly, if we want to encourage intellectual curiosity about how the world works and promote inquiry in pursuit of truth, this is not a man from whom we should take much advice.
At his Duke University lecture on March 7, 2006 Mr. Horowitz said he "respects people who show him respect". He might consider that those of us on the other side of the academic freedom issue feel the same way. Instead, his campaign has become one that is reckless and morally-reprehensible. He and his media shills are impugning the character and reputation of anyone who uses the classroom to provoke and foster the free exchange of ideas. Mr. Horowitz claims that his book is not a blacklist, but it is certainly be used as one. Like he also said at Duke, ideas have consequences.
"He supposedly is a student advocate, yet he clearly disrespects the ability of students to think for themselves, and he underestimates the resolve of our very best students to battle test their ideas in the classroom. He says he stands for civil discourse, yet his online magazine is an unreadable hate sheet. Clearly, if we want to encourage intellectual curiosity about how the world works and promote inquiry in pursuit of truth, this is not a man from whom we should take much advice."
Mr. Siatta, that is exactly the thought that many conservative students, parents and academics entertain about radical professors on their own campus. You can insist all you like that liberal professors promote intellectual curiousity and inquiry in pursuit of truth. They do, if it suits them. I was once a conservative student on a liberal campus, and I witnessed liberal "shills impuning the character and reputation" of conservative individuals who used the classroom to provoke and foster the free exchange of ideas." It is now the liberals' turn to open their mind and accept the fact that conservative idealogy is on campus, and merits not only acknowledgement, but respect. No one is advocating any loss of freedom for you. We are merely seeking a level playing field.
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