Scholarly Scofflaws

By J. LORAND MATORY
Harvard has known me for 31 years. I was promoted from within, by two separate departments, an outcome of the closest examination of scholarship, citizenship, and collegiality known in the academic world.

Moreover, I am the faculty co-chair of one of the largest University-wide associations of faculty and administrators. Yet those who feel chastened by my complaint now comfort themselves by whispering the self-serving rumor that I am “not a team player.” The kind of team player who would comfort such detractors might have felt at home in Dixie, Nazi Germany, or the Bush White House, but he or she does not deserve tenure in the Acropolis of world education.

Tenure affords and demands a finer moral compass. We must act on the wisdom that justice withers when intended for just us. And “free speech” is nothing but the self-congratulation of the moneyed and the mighty when the university does not fulfill its unique calling to defend this principle for all. (full article)