Recently, The New Republic ran an important piece titled “Are We Sliding Toward McCarthyism?” The author, Emily Tamkin, answers in the affirmative, arguing that “in the wake of Hamas’s October 7th attacks, efforts to silence pro-Palestinian speech are ramping up.”
While signs of this repressive atmosphere are everywhere, college campuses are without doubt the principal sites of contention, placing students and faculty members who challenge Israeli policy, U.S. policy, or Zionism itself in the cross hairs of right-wing politicians; right-wing Zionists, both Jewish and Christian; and beleaguered and often-cowardly administrations eager to crack down on what they see as “antisemitism.”
Indiana University at Bloomington, where I have taught for almost four decades, might well be ground zero of the new McCarthyism, especially for the political-science profession.
In recent weeks, intense pressure has been brought to bear on the university by right-wing Congressman Jim Banks and right-wing Zionist groups, all leading to trumped-up bureaucratic charges used to justify the unprecedented suspension — along with a threat of permanent termination — of a tenured faculty member.
And that person is Abdulkader Sinno, an Arab American political scientist with expertise on the Middle East and on the politics of Arab and Muslim inclusion, who has taught at Indiana University for over 20 years. To make a long story very short, Sinno, the faculty adviser for the Palestine Solidarity Committee, assisted the student group by submitting a room-reservation form for their event, a public lecture by Miko Peled, an Israeli American peace activist. The event was approved by the registrar. Sinno was then informed that the interim dean of the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies had determined that his reservation form had been improperly filled out, and was instructed to cancel the reservation.
The dean also issued a warning to Sinno that such improper filling out of forms was a serious offence for which he might face punishment in the future. Sinno withdrew his form and advised the student group to submit their own reservation request, which it did — only to be told that the request did not give the university enough lead time, and that they must cancel the event. The students explained that everything was already in place for the event, including the speaker’s airfare and hotel reservation. They were told, a few hours before the event, that rules are rules, and the event would not be authorized. They held the event anyway. It was well-attended and proceeded without a hitch — until the university’s chief security officer filed charges against Sinno for organizing an unauthorized event that supposedly endangered public safety. The vice provost then organized a so-called “inquiry” into the matter and concluded that Sinno had indeed endangered campus “safety.” The “serious concerns about the effect” that Sinno’s “behavior may have on members of the campus community,” the vice provost said, warranted his suspension.
Because the suspension crosses so many lines related both to faculty due process and academic freedom more generally, it has received much national attention.
On January 11, Inside Higher Education published a news report on the suspension. Then there was the “IU Faculty Letter in Support of Professor Abdulkader Sinno” that received almost 400 signatures. On January 12, PEN America issued a “Call for Indiana University to Reinstate Professor After Suspension for an Event With Israeli American Writer-Activist.” On January 16, the Middle Eastern Studies Association’s Committee on Academic Freedom published a similar letter. The same day, a group of prominent scholars published a statement from “Scholars of Afghanistan in Support of Professor Abdulkader Sinno” that was signed by 40 colleagues. Moreover, investigations have been opened by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and the Academic Freedom Alliance.
At the same time, Sinno’s suspension has received little attention from the principal disciplinary institutions of political science — the American Political Science Association, the professional association charged with serving and representing the discipline, and individual political-science departments.
The case of political-science departments at colleges is complicated, for political-science departments are not free-standing institutions. They are units of the colleges of which they are a part, and they are governed by the higher administrative authorities — deans, provosts, presidents — of these colleges, which are typically large, bureaucratic, corporate institutions, themselves overseen by boards of trustees drawn mainly from the corporate elite. Political-science departments, typically governed by department chairs, enjoy some forms of academic autonomy and faculty governance. But all of this is advisory to the administration. And department chairs, even if their selection is legitimated by faculty election, are appointed by deans, serve as intermediaries between faculty and higher administration, and are legally responsible to the administration and serve at its pleasure.
It is thus almost impossible for academic departments to speak, with one voice, on anything. As I have argued elsewhere, I do not think that it is legitimate for departments as such to take broad political stands, like “We support Joe Biden,” or “We support the liberation of Palestine,” or “We support the right of Israel to exist.” (Keith E. Whittington offered a similar argument in these pages last week.)
Nevertheless, there are a great many areas where it is almost “natural” for departments to take official positions about college affairs. It is impossible to imagine a department remaining silent if its budget were to be peremptorily cut in half, its faculty ordered to give up their offices on a moment’s notice, or its graduate program suspended.
But the suspension of a tenured colleague who for decades has been judged to be a good teacher through departmental peer review, on the grounds that his way of advising a student group called the Palestine Solidarity Committee made him a danger to his students? It would appear that such a situation — exactly the situation facing Abdulkader Sinno — is too contentious for the department here at Indiana University.
This is a complicated matter, and in writing about it, I am mindful of my own professional duty to be discreet about and respectful toward my colleagues, who hold a variety of views, as will be the case in any pluralistic setting.
As I understand it, there are three interlocking reasons that have caused some colleagues to resist the idea that some kind of departmental statement is warranted: (1) It is not legitimate for a department to weigh in on a controversial political matter; (2) it is not at all clear that all faculty members consider the suspension an injustice, and some might even agree with the administration’s approach to “cracking down on antisemitism”; and (3) the department is a unit of the university, and is duty-bound to respect its forms of authority and its administrative procedures. And since our colleague is pursuing these procedures by filing a grievance, the most appropriate thing to do is to wait for the matter to be adjudicated through normal channels.
Those who oppose collective action by departmental faculty articulate real concerns. And departmental leadership that insists on respecting the hierarchy of college authority is right to be careful. Even if I might be inclined to pursue a riskier approach, I cannot fault those more inclined toward moderation, especially when they are navigating some very rough waters.
But adopting a posture of departmental neutrality is not as simple a matter as it may seem, and defaulting to the status quo is not without its drawbacks.
If we fail to protect conditions of free inquiry and further public understanding of academic freedom, are we really living up to our responsibilities as scholars?
APSA’s “Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science” clearly states that “special problems arise if departments or schools endorse or sponsor political activities or public policies in the name of the entire faculty, the department, or the school,” and discourages departments from endorsing political positions. But it also states that “as colleagues, professors have obligations that derive from common membership in the community of scholars. Professors do not discriminate or harass colleagues. They respect and defend the free inquiry of associates … As citizens engaged in a profession that depends upon freedom for its health and integrity, professors have a particular obligation to promote conditions of free inquiry and to further public understanding of academic freedom.”
When a colleague is suspended on the basis of charges that strain credulity, and in response to external pressure being placed on the college, is the silence of a department consistent with defending “the free inquiry of associates” or the “obligation to promote conditions of free inquiry and to further public understanding of academic freedom?” If we fail to protect conditions of free inquiry and further public understanding of academic freedom, are we really living up to our responsibilities as scholars?
These questions must be asked, privately and publicly, and every political scientist deserves to agonize over them before coming to a conclusion.
I confess that in this case, I am torn. I refuse to be silent. And I have joined together with other colleagues across the university — including some departmental colleagues — to make our opposition to this injustice known. It is frustrating to me that some of my departmental colleagues feel that the department ought to be neutral. But I respect that this is how they feel. All things considered, I ultimately think it is almost impossible for a department to act in such a situation, either as a faculty or through its chair, without a strong consensus that, in most cases, including this one, will be almost impossible to achieve. Does this mean I support unanimity as a decision rule? No. But I am mindful of the importance of collegiality. If I could persuade my colleagues, I would. But I can’t. And I believe that it is still possible for faculty colleagues to act, outside of and across disciplinary and department identities, to defend academic freedom. Perhaps a departmental imprimatur simply does not matter all that much.
When it comes to APSA, the situation is less complicated. APSA is not a unit of any college. It is a free-standing, member-supported professional association, and it has rules, short of consensus, that allow for collective decisions about a wide range of issues. It often takes stands when it comes to federal lobbying, and it often makes statements when its leaders and its council believe principles of academic freedom are at stake. In doing so, it is supported by Article 2, Section 2 of its own constitution, which states: “The association shall not be barred from adopting resolutions or taking such other action as it deems appropriate in support of academic freedom and of freedom of expression by and within the association, the political science profession, and the university, when in its judgment such freedom has been clearly and seriously violated or is clearly and seriously threatened.”
In the past three years APSA has issued 26 statements, criticizing violations of academic freedom at U.S. and foreign colleges, defending affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts more generally, and even condemning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol.
But it has yet to issue a statement on Sinno’s case, in spite of it being brought directly to the attention of the APSA council and executive committee — by me.
As far as I understand, APSA’s decision-making processes — which I have never really understood! — are still undergoing due diligence. And due diligence is always a good thing.
But providing strong and timely support to a faculty colleague who is running afoul of a form of academic repression that is spreading throughout the country like wildfire is also a good thing.
Apparently PEN America was able to complete its due diligence weeks ago. So too the Middle East Studies Association. So too the American Association of University Professors chapter at Indiana University at Bloomington, which has issued a very clear and strong report outlining the serious procedural violations involved in Sinno’s suspension.
I know how challenging and stressful it can be to hold any position of disciplinary leadership. And I know that those in an official position of leadership face cross-pressures, legal obstacles, and serious problems of political judgment. I am not now questioning the professionalism or seriousness or basic human decency of any disciplinary leader anywhere. Nor am I calling, even implicitly, for any kind of protest or denunciation or even intense public pressure.
Yet I am hoping that every political scientist in the United States, and every department chair or APSA official, will think hard about what is happening now at Indiana University, how it relates to similar things happening at colleges across the country, and what this all means for academic freedom, civil liberties, and our very ability to write and teach and advise in accordance with our own judgments and not in accordance with the preferences of higher administrations seeking to police us.
The assault on academic freedom and civil liberties now underway is very serious, obviously linked to broader threats to liberal democracy itself. The situation is of course not analogous to pre-1933 Weimar (though I strongly encourage all readers to read William E. Connolly’s 2017 book Aspirational Fascism: The Struggle for Multifaceted Democracy Under Trumpism). But the famous words attributed to the Rev. Martin Niemöller resonate still. If we are silent now, who will speak for us when it is our turn to be investigated and silenced?