So the Kushner affair ends with the City University of New York (CUNY) Board of Trustees reconvening, and overturning unanimously their decision on granting Kushner an honorary degree. Mr. Tony Kushner has stated that he will accept the degree despite all the hoopla that was associated with it. Kushner has given an interview to the CUNY Graduate Center’s publication “The Advocate”, by clicking this link.
There is the need to tie some loss ends here though. During the Kushner Affair, Mr. Stanley Fish, a professor of humanities and law, wrote an article titled: New York Times | The Kushner Flap: Much Ado About Nothing. Mr. Fish makes a few points as to how the Kushner Affair was not about the freedom of speech, had nothing to do with academics (he labels this as an extra-curricular activity), and that the granting of honorary degrees is a political matter and involves extraneous factors, such as advancing the reputation of the school or donorship.
The problem with Mr. Fish’s argument is that he is looking at the issue through a very narrow lens. And these are the reasons why:
Mr. Fish has pointed out that Mr. Wiesenfeld (the Board member who led the charge against Kushner) was correct in denying Kushner the honorary degree because such decisions are entirely within the discretion of the Board. I have to ask though, what is the reasoning? What was Mr. Wiesenfeld’s reasoning behind it? Mr. Wiesenfeld makes it clear what it was himself, the transcript can be found here. It was for his political beliefs, which were distorted (and this could be a separate matter of discussion), not even extremist in the conventional sense. If, as Fish says, that extraneous factors listed are part of it, the decision of the Board and the Wiesenfeld acted foolishly on the matter. And Mr. Fish might right.
Except that this was not an isolated incident. With the firing incident of Mr. Kristofer Petersen-Overton at Brooklyn College for his criticism of Israel (this matter was overturned because as Fish has pointed out, it is illegal), Mr. Wiesenfeld and the CUNY BoT has shown a pattern of behavior that aims to suppress dissent and free speech. That is what makes this an issue of free speech, a pattern of behavior with a specific aim. While Wiesenfeld did not initiate Petersen-Overton’s dismissal, there is an institutional problem within CUNY (and I will only speak about CUNY) when the goal is to suppress dissenting ideas. Petersen-Overton comments in more detail about this and the Kushner affair here.
Freedom of speech and expression in academics is protected by our Constitution and the potential for penalization in a public university violates the very principles of our country.
But Fish states that the honorary degree and Kushner fall into the extra-curricular area, and that we must be careful to not overextend the bounds of what is academic. The problem here is that Fish seems to only be looking at the potential honorary degree recipients (such as Snookie). No, this becomes an example TO the academics that they can be denied future honors and considerations if they don’t watch what they say.
It is one thing to submit your ideas to a rigorous review by your peers and then get it discredited. It is another to simply not allow you to speak what your ideas are. If Wiesenfeld and others wanted the things he allegedly said to be discredited, then let them be discredited on their own merit. Let Petersen-Overton’s ideas be discredited on their own merit. I think most people who pay attention to Israel and the Middle East would wonder what a playwright knows about those issues anyway. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. But the First Amendment protects those who don’t know what they are talking about too.
Filed under: Governance, New York City Local, Free Speech, Rights, US Constitution
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