Commentary

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es

A decision by the University of Western
Ontario to take no action against a staff
member involved in racist research raises
some complicated questions about what
constitutes academic freedom.

Professor Philippe Rushton, a tenured
psychology professor at UWO, has made
himself a job out of researching a theory
that used to keep his counterparts going in
the 1920s and 30s: different races have
different brain sizes. Asians’ brains are
heavy; Caucasians’ just right; while Blacks
have small brains. He notes other similari-
ties concerning racial proclivity to sexual
activity and law and order.

UWO president George Pedersen has
fended off calls from a wide range of
groups and individuals, including Premier
David Peterson, who have demanded
Rushton’s removal. Pedersen cites aca-
demic freedom: tenure is tenure, you
touch it and the walls of academia will
come tumbling down. .

Some may question the irony of
Pedersen’s willingness to use academic
freedom in the defence of a staff member
preaching racist theories. UWO is known
asa pretty conservative bastion where left-
thinking faculty members quickly learn to
keep quiet about their views if they hope to
join the tenured few. ;

Tenure is the brass ring that academics
strive for. It is the pinnacle of academic
freedom. It gives an intellectual the free-

Kerry

McCuaig

NEWS

dom to explore, research or espouse ideas
without fear of where her/his next pay
cheque is coming from. Because academic
research sometimes challenges the think-
ing of the governments and the status quo,
tenure is a protection against being bitten
by the hand that feeds them.

The system is not without detractors.
Submissions from the business sector to
the Bovey Commission on education in
Ontario were unanimous in calling for its
end. To business, tenure, is an impediment
to restructuring the university system to
meet its needs. With this in mind it will
come as no surprise that tenure is most
under attack in British Columbia, and in
Thatcher’s Britain where it has been
seriously undermined.

Many left academics fear that in a neo-
conservative era in particular, an attack on
tenure would more likely be used against
them, rather than against racists.

Does this mean Rushton’s “right” to

ANALYSIS

preach racism must be championed?

No. The response from delegates at the
San Francisco conference where Rushton
made his presentation was immediate.
They argued his statistics were manipu-
lated and he had ignored important stu-
dies done in the area of genetics and
human behaviour. Closer to home, 2,000
UWO students signed a petition refuting
his claims and charging him with perpe-
tuating racism. They also organized a
debate last week between Rushton and
noted geneticist Dr. David Suzuki.

But they have stopped short of demand-
ing he be fired. Why? “Because academic
freedom is important to preserve,” says
Duncan Ivison, a researcher with the
Ontario Federation of Students.

To OFS it is more important for Rush-
ton to “be pushed out” politically rather
than administratively. “He should be dis-
credited,” says Ivison, “by his colleagues,
by students in the classrooms who won’t

/

Academic freedom can’t include racism

allow this (his views) to be taught.”

Some in the academic community feel
Rushton should be fired for shoddy
research, which is grounds for dismissal
under already established procedures. Still
others believe he should be charged with
inciting racism under existing hate laws.

Members of the Black and Asian com-
munities can be forgiven for being skepti-
cal of such approaches. Educators without
tenure protection seem to exist for years in
the classroom, exposing their racist views
without challenge. When caught, hate
laws seem virtually impotent in dealing
with the Jim Keegstras and Malcolm
Rosses.

Minority groups may also question why
they should be willing to endure racial
hatred in order to protect a tenure system
they have little chance to participate in.

Suzuki’s address at UWO didn’t mince
words with academic mores. “There will
always be Rushtons in the world,” he said.
“We must be prepared to root them out

. His claims must be rejected, his
research grants revoked and his position
terminated.”

What is required is a broader interpreta-
tion of academic freedom, one which
would include the right of everyone to
participate in an educational system free
of racism.

There would be no place for Philippe
Rushton in such a system.

NEB, B.C. Hydro ‘playing games with public’

Readers of the Pacific Tribune should be
aware of the games being played by B.C.
Hydro and the National Energy Board to
deny public input in the upcoming hearing
for an application by B.C. Hydro to extend
their electrical export licence to the U.S.,
and to activate the Burrard Generating

Plant.

On Friday, Feb. 10, I received from B.C.
Hydro a letter and hundreds of pages of
material which has been prepared by Hydro
managers and lawyers for submission to the
National Energy Board at a hearing which
is supposed to be held on March 6, 1989.
Accompanying the B.C. Hydro material
was a letter from the National Energy
Board to B.C. Hydro drawing their atten-
tion to the fact that they had failed to act on
a NEB order dated Jan. 16, 1989 to notify
all interested intervenors of the details of
their application and ordering them to do so

at once.

The letter from the NEB to B.C. Hydro
was dated Feb. 9. The B.C. Hydro material
was delivered to the Communist Party,
which has been an intervenor in previous
hearings, on Feb. 10.

But the amazing thing is that the
National Energy Board has now decided
that the deadline for intervenors to have
their submissions in is Feb. 16, 1989 — only
six days after I received the notice.

They obviously don’t want interventions
by the public. I have written the National
Energy Board charging that the dates set are
an insult to the public and show a complete
lack of interest in public involvement in the
upcoming hearing.

The letter says: “The issues in the hearing
are of vital concern to British Columbians.
The continued export of large quantities of
firm power to the U.S. and the proposal to

bring into operation the Burrard Generat-
ing Plant and its accompanying environ-
mental problems, deserve a much more

serious approach than either B.C. Hydro or

the National Energy Board has shown.”

The Communist Party letter urges the
National Energy Board to immediately
order a postponement of the hearing to give
the public the opportunity to intervene on
this important issue. Your readers would do
well to write the NEB at: 473 Albert St.,
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0E5 and demand a
postponement of the hearing.

Maurice Rush,
B.C. Leader
Communist Party of Canada

With B.C. Hydro turning over our
water, gas, oil and coal to private corpo-
rations to generate electricity for export
to the U.S., the Social Credit government
will have only one thing left to give away
and that is our water.

Asa lifetime resident of 60 years in this
province I have seen our great land plun-
dered at an accelerating rate.

With our forests stripped, our miner-
als dug out, our energy sucked out at an
ever increasing rate and our land and
industry sold to foreign interests, all we

B.C. selling off its future

have acquired is a massive debt while the
corporations have taken billions of dol-
lars out of our province.

All of this done in the name of
prosperity yet the average person is rela-
tively worse off than ever. If these sell-
outs are not stopped the next generation
will inherit a province stripped of its
resources and they will be living as
tenants in their own land.

Pete Zagar,

Vancouver

Omissions cited in article on Middle East

I think that Professor Adel Safty is mis-
taken when he blames Israel for all the diffi-
culties between Arabs and Jews in the
Middle East for the last 50 years (“Uprising
is forcing Israel to confront its own history,”
Tribune Feb. 6, 1989).

I think that Professor Safty himself must
have an inkling that the Arab leadership
was not completely peace-seeking in all
these years. Otherwise why would he speak
of the recent PLO declaration recognizing
Israel as “tan event of undeniable historical
significance?” If the Arabs always recog-
nized Israel, as he suggests in his article, why
are the latest declarations so path-breaking?

lam afraid also that Professor Safty was
not quite attentive enough in his citation
from the excellent book by Tom Segev,
1949, The First Israelis. Professor Safty cites
Segev as follows: “The Arabs recognized
Israel and were ready to discuss peace, but
Israel did not accept the conditions.” And

then Professor Safty goes on to explain

(regarding the conditions) “of allowing the
Palestinian refugees to return and permit-
ting the establishment of a Palestinian Arab
state as provided for by the United Nations
resolution.” These last words are Professor
Safty’s.

The citation comes from page 23 in Seg-
ev’s book. Actually, it reads as follows:
“The Arabs ‘recognized’ Israel ...,” with
quotation marks carefully placed around
“recognized” to indicate that the author,
Segev, was unwilling to take that word at
face value. These quotation marks change
the meaning completely. Why did Professor
Safty omit them? (Ask yourself whether the
following two statements mean the same
thing: 1.The United States is a democratic
country. 2. The United States is a “demo-
cratic” country.)

Immediately following the sentence that
Professor Safty quotes, still on page 23,
Segev goes on to explain what the condi-
tions were that Israel was unable to accept

at that particular moment. Egypt required
that the Negev district of Palestine become
an independent Arab state, although the
Negev had been allotted to the Jewish state
by the United Nations partition resolution.
So the conditions were quite the opposite of

what Professor Safty says they were when

he says that they concerned a “Palestinian
state as provided for by the United Nations
resolution.” In fact, these conditions
demanded an Arab state in territory that the
UN had said should be Jewish.

Those of us who wish to contribute to
peace with justice between Arabs and Jews
must start with the proposition that both
nations have legitimate rights and legitimate
grievances. To place all the blame on one
side, as Professor Safty does in his article, is
more likely to contribute to enmity rather
than amity. And of course neither peace or
justice is served by carelessness in reporting
historical events.

Werner Cohn, Vancouver

Pacific Tribune, February 20, 1989 « 5