Today in Labor History—January 7

Semana Tragica

January 7, 1919 – This date marked the beginning of Argentina’s "Bloody Week" (AKA Tragic Week) in Buenos Aires. Workers (led by Italian anarchists) were demonstrating for the 8-hour work day and were fired upon by the authorities, leaving four dead and nearly 30 wounded. Clashes with the authorities on the day of the funerals left another 50 dead. A General Strike was called and strikers were attacked by trade union reformists and paramilitary groups collaborating with the police. By January 16 the strike was crushed, with as many as 700 dead and 2000 wounded, many of whom were Jewish-Russian immigrants targeted by racists and anti-Bolshevik hysteria.(From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

January 7, 1939 – Tom Mooney, a labor activist wrongly convicted of murder in the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916, was freed after 22 ½ years in jail, granted an unconditional pardon by Governor Culbert Olson.(From the Daily Bleed)

UCLA Professor Wins Academic Freedom Fight

This spring, UCLA professor David Delgado Shorter was asked to remove a link from his website that called for the boycott of Isreal. He was accused of advancing a political agenda that was inappropriate in the classroom, though he argued the link was one of many suggested links available in a “clearinghouse” of views for students to peruse in his Tribal Worldviews course. In his class, he discussed not only the boycott, but presented the views of those who oppose the boycott.

Last week, the UCLA faculty senate’s committee on academic freedom ruled that Shorter’s use of the boycott link was not a violation of UCLA policy, according to the Los Angeles Times. The policy allows faculty to present controversial material as long as it is relevant to the course no student feels pressure to adopt a point of view.

Censorship and Suppression of Academic Freedom at UCLA

UCLA Professor David Delgado Shorter has been asked to remove a link on his website that calls for the boycott of Israel, according to the Los Angeles Times. The university has asked him to remove the link and claimed he has agreed to not use the link in the future. Shorter claimed he never made such an agreement. In fact, he thought they had agreed to continue discussions over the issue and to provide an explanation of the campus policy on the matter.

Shorter said the link was one of a number of suggested links for his course “Tribal Worldviews.” The links were not required reading and were provided only as part of a “clearinghouse” of ideas.

The UCLA leadership was acting on a complaint by the Zionist AMCHA Initiative organization, a group of Jewish faculty that has accused other UC campuses of ignoring anti-Semitism and allowing harassment of Jews and that has acted as an apologist for the state of Israel.

While it is commonly believed that a professor’s job is to teach students how to think, not to think for them, exposing students to political movements, protests and other partisan activities cannot be banned or limited without also diluting or undermining the very nature of many courses. Furthermore, it’s a stretch to argue that exposing students to a cause is in any way condoning it or recruiting for it.

A political science teacher might ask students to visit the MoveOn.org website in order to study how digital fundraising can influence an election, while an ethnic studies professor might ask students to visit a hate group’s website to study how they recruit new members or to analyze the content of their speech.

Prohibiting political links on a professor’s website could prevent a philosophy of science teacher from posting links to organizations opposing stem cell research or those denying evolution or climate change, even those there are pedagogically sound reasons for asking students to study such organizations.

Such academic policies suppress academic freedom, critical thinking and learning and do little, or nothing to prevent the proselytization of students. Merely posting a partisan link as one of many in a clearinghouse of resources available for students is not at all the same as espousing or condoning a particular viewpoint. If our goal as educators is to teach students how to think, and not what to think, we must be allowed to expose them to a variety of resources and viewpoints, including controversial ones and ones we may ourselves oppose, while at the same time encouraging them to assess the content critically.

Today in Labor History—January 7

Semana Tragica

January 7, 1919 – This date marked the beginning of Argentina’s "Bloody Week" (AKA Tragic Week) in Buenos Aires. Workers (led by Italian anarchists) were demonstrating for the 8-hour work day and were fired upon by the authorities, leaving four dead and nearly 30 wounded. Clashes with the authorities on the day of the funerals left another 50 dead. A General Strike was called and strikers were attacked by trade union reformists and paramilitary groups collaborating with the police. By January 16 the strike was crushed, with as many as 700 dead and 2000 wounded, many of whom were Jewish-Russian immigrants targeted by racists and anti-Bolshevik hysteria. (From the Daily Bleed and Wikipedia)

January 7, 1939 – Tom Mooney, a labor activist wrongly convicted of murder in the San Francisco Preparedness Day bombing in July 1916, was freed after 22 ½ years in jail, granted an unconditional pardon by Governor Culbert Olson. (From the Daily Bleed)

Arizona Assassinations Tied to Reactionary Right

The mainstream media are portraying Jared Lee Loughner, the 22 year old who critically wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, as a lone wing nut. They are distancing themselves from the liberal bloggers who are trying to connect his act to the Tea Party movement and other conservatives. They’re not even particularly keen on reporting Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, who blamed the shooting on the “political vitriol” from the right wing and who called Arizona the national center of bigotry.

The problem is that his assassination spree was premeditated and his victims we’re specifically targeted, not only by him, but by numerous ultra-right organizations, while his actions had indeed been egged on by conservatives, including Sarah Palin.  The Department of Homeland Security has linked Loughner to American Renaissance, an anti-government, anti-immigrant, and anti-Semitic organization that advocates white supremacy and racial separation. One of his victims, Judge John Roll, was the subject of hundreds of death threats in 2009. He had been vilified by right-wing talk shows for his role presiding over a case brought by undocumented immigrants against a local rancher.

Giffords was Jewish, which would be reason enough to make her a target of anti-Semitic groups. However, she had also just recently beat a Tea party candidate, Jesse Kelly, another violent wing nut who had organized an event encouraging people to join him in firing M16 assault rifles to “help remove Giffords from office.” Furthermore, during Giffords campaign, right-wing protesters would carry signs with the slogan “It’s time to reload,” a thinly veiled reference to assassination. When Giffords warned that people “have got to realize there are consequences,” Sarah Palin responded on Twitter with, “Don’t retreat, reload.” In conjunction with the rifle crosshairs on her website, it’s difficult to not to see Palin as a deliberate provocateur who was well aware of the potential for political violence.