Kevin MacDonald, Ph.D.
CSULB, Department of Psychology
Letter from Barry Dank
List Members: Maybe I am not as cynical as most of my CLA [College of Liberal Arts] colleagues who have read the most recent NEW TIMES LA article on the continuing MacDonald controversy, but I must confess that I am surprised that to date no CLA faculty member has come forward to question/criticize/dispute the quotes from Sharon Sievers as presented in this article. I was hoping that Sharon would come forward on the CLA-list and disavow the quotations that have been attributed to her. Unfortunately, such has not occurred. Such is unfortunate since Sharon Sievers stated the following in the article:
'Faculty can make him (MacDonald) uncomfortable. And I think we have made him very uncomfortable. And we are not done yet.
Is making Macdonald uncomfortable what the response to Professor Macdonald has been all about? Note that Sievers says 'we'. She embraces faculty in general as to the sharing of her goal. And make no mistake about it what Sievers is doing as reported in the NEW TIMES is advocating for de facto harassment of Professor MacDonald. Harassment is not involved in the pursuit of truth; harassment does not deal with intellectual engagement; harassment represents the antithesis of academic freedom. It has no place at this university or any other university. If such is actually the case, it is not surprising that Sievers views the MacDonald''s web page as representing an attempt by Macdonald to contain discussion within his web site (see her comments in the NEW TIMES article), and I gather to the electronic CLA list. Sievers wants something more. She wants some type of in person public forum. What could possibly be gained at such a forum that has not already been achieved thru exchanges posted on KM's web page and thru the CLA list. In Siever's terms what could be gained is making KM uncomfortable via (in my terms) an in person thrashing and censure. I agree with Don Schwartz (see article) that the faculty response should not be about the censuring and expulsion of Kevin MacDonald. However, it appears to me that Sievers is calling for such an action, at least in an informal sense, and it seems to me that faculty should respond to Sharon Sievers. Faculty should respond when the principle of academic freedom is not respected. Respect for academic freedom tends to be suspended when there is an attempt to apply it to unpopular professors, professors with unpopular views; with no unpopular profs with unpopular views, the need for academic freedom would be zero. Kevin MacDonald is unpopular; his views are unpopular. If we can't speak up for academic freedom for MacDonald and speak against those who would undermine it, then we have effectively trashed academic freedom here at csulb. I am speaking up in defense of academic freedom on this campus. Might others do so as well?
Barry Dank
Sociology
