[Air-l] british boycott over

[Denise N. Rall]

Ok, I concur with Ellis - thanks for that.

I did participate in an annual meeting where a stand
was taken -  at the Milwaukee Meeting of the Society
for the Social Studies of Science (4 S) meeting in
2002.

The stand was to support the work of a sociologist who
was 'blacklisted' on Lynn Cheney's list of US
academics who support terrorism because he dared to
offer a guest speaker in one of his seminars that was
an academic from country X who had been accused of
terrorism (sorry sketchy on the details).

The stand was neither for nor against the war in
Iraq(although the largest majority at the meeting
would have been against) but the right of an academic
to  offer in his classroom, an invited speaker that he
felt would assist students in developing an
understanding of an issue of the day.

The point is, the vote was held by those present. It
was passed into the minutes of the annual meeting. 
There was a chance to speak for or against the motion.
 Likewise, the motion was 'confined' to an issue of
academic freedom and support this academic while IN
his classroom, neither for nor against anything the
invited speaker might have SAID or NOT said in that
classroom.

I did not have any problem voting with the majority
(the unanimous) vote as it was held on the day for the
motion that went forward.

However, I am not able to see that I would vote in
this situation.  I don't understand the pros & cons,
and even if I did, I prefer to vote for issues
regarding academic freedom to speak pro & con on a
given issue, NOT pro & con any GIVEN issue.

I hope this makes sense. I support, and would vote for
the rights of academics to speak their minds on given
issues of the day.  I do not support any given stand
to go forward that is a concern outside of the issue
of the academic freedom to speak, talk, publish, etc.
on given issues as they arise.

Ok, I hope I haven't hung myself here but it's my
perspective on all this. And in particular, I don't
want to be coerced into someone else's battles,
although I'm happy to defend their right to fight such
battles (verbally) as they see fit . . . . .

Cheers, Denise







Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science,
Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 
Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher
Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html