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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Education : Elections & Legislation : International Relations : Regime |
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CONTACT U.S. SENATE NOW, STOP POLITICAL POLICING OF EDUCATION |
Current rating: 0 |
by David Brodsky via ML
(No verified email address) |
02 Mar 2004
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In October 2003 the House passed HR 3077, a bill reauthorizing
Title VI, the International Studies component of Higher Education Act. The idea
of the International Advisory Board was developed by right-wing
think tanks. Despite its harmless sounding name, the Board is a
centralized, federal, political police agency, with at least two
reserved slots (as the legislation states) for "Federal agencies
that have national security responsibilities" (e.g. Homeland
Security, Defense Department, CIA, FBI, etc.). Since "national
security" is the stated main purpose of the Act, these agencies
will dominate the Board. The Board is given broad powers to
enforce right-wing ideology in the curriculum and in research, to
place academia under surveillance, to regiment thought, and to
purge dissenters, all under the pretext of "national security." |
In the not too distant future, the Senate will vote on
reauthorizing the Higher Education Act (HEA), which provides
significant funding for colleges and universities. The Act needs
to be reauthorized, but without the political policing and
inquisitorial International Advisory Board, which the House
slipped into its version of the legislation (HR 3077). The
Board, its functions, and its mandate represent a clear and
present danger to academic freedom, civil liberties, and the
integrity of education. (For brief background on the legislation
see below).
No date has been publicly announced for the Senate vote, but the
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP)
is holding hearings right now. Given the secretive modus
operandi of the Bush administration, the date of the vote may not
be known until the last minute, which will be too late for
effective citizen intervention.
THUS THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW. Well before the vote, the Senate
must hear the voices of thousands of teachers, students, and
citizens concerned with the future of higher education, academic
freedom, and civil liberties.
1. Please contact as many Senators on the HELP committee as you
can (starting with those from the state where you live and/or
work). E-mail is easiest, but written letters and phone calls
are also effective. Senate contact information is provided
below.
2. In a separate message please e-mail the Education for
Democracy Network (brodskyd (at) earthlink.net) listing the names of
Senators you contacted and the date(s) you contacted them. If
you contact everyone on the HELP committee, just write "all
HELP". PLEASE DON'T SEND US COPIES OF YOUR MESSAGES TO
SENATORS. Your e-mail to the E4D Network is hard evidence of
citizen activism and can help us keep a numerical tally.
3. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO AS MANY INDIVIDUALS, LISTS, AND
NETWORKS AS YOU CAN.
4. PLEASE URGE ALL YOUR RECIPIENTS TO PASS IT ON.
5. Here is the basic message (see below for sample letter):
"I support reauthorizing the Higher Education Act with full
funding, but I oppose the inclusion of the International Advisory
Board established by HR 3077, any similar body, or any similar
functions or purposes. The Board, its functions, and its mandate
represent a clear and present danger to academic freedom, civil
liberties, and the integrity of education."
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BACKGROUND
In October 2003 the House passed HR 3077, a bill reauthorizing
Title VI, the International Studies component of HEA. The idea
of the International Advisory Board was developed by right-wing
think tanks. Despite its harmless sounding name, the Board is a
centralized, federal, political police agency, with at least two
reserved slots (as the legislation states) for "Federal agencies
that have national security responsibilities" (e.g. Homeland
Security, Defense Department, CIA, FBI, etc.). Since "national
security" is the stated main purpose of the Act, these agencies
will dominate the Board. The Board is given broad powers to
enforce right-wing ideology in the curriculum and in research, to
place academia under surveillance, to regiment thought, and to
purge dissenters, all under the pretext of "national security."
Among the many kinds of actions the Board is mandated to take, it
can target as "security risks" students, faculty, programs, or
area studies centers that dissent from US foreign policy and
refuse to fund them on political grounds. It can hold public
hearings to denounce dissenters as "anti-American," like the
House subcommittee hearing on HR 3077 in June 2003, which
featured a crude assault on Edward Said and post-colonial theory
as "unpatriotic." In the name of a specious "broad range of
views," the Board can also impose a political test on academic
employment, requiring the hiring of new faculty (e.g. operatives
from right-wing think tanks) irrespective of professional
qualifications and in violation of standard faculty hiring
procedures.
The language of the legislation makes it clear that the Board's
functions and purposes are not essentially different from the
notorious congressional "investigating" committees of the
McCarthy period (House Committee on Unamerican Activities, Senate
Internal Security Subcommittee, etc.), which condemned teachers
and academics for their political beliefs.
HR 3077 states that the main purpose of federal support for
international education is to harness it to serve the national
security state. Not, for example, to study foreign countries and
cultures on their own terms and for their own sake, or to promote
peaceful and mutually beneficial international relations. In the
service of "national security" (i.e. the expansion of US power
abroad) US scholarly activities and international exchanges,
instead of being public, transparent, and based on academic
integrity, will justifiably be treated with suspicion by foreign
countries. US students and faculty may even be regarded as
potential spies, thus endangering their safety while working
abroad. Suspicion by foreigners is also motivated by historical
precedent, the destructive activities which certain federally
funded international studies programs carried out between about
1945 and 1970, under cover of "national defense."
The International Advisory Board is a test case targeting all
disciplines which deal directly with foreign countries and
cultures. But once the precedent of government censorship and
control of curriculum and research is established for these
disciplines, it can easily be extended to others. Given the
global economy, and the trend in most disciplines to include an
international component, the drive to expand government
ideological control over the content of education is highly
probable. And because HR 3077 also funds pre-college outreach,
the Board's potential victims include all levels of education,
not just academia. Outreach activities in particular were
targeted in the right-wing attack on international studies at the
House hearing last June.
Thus it is in everyone's interest to oppose this blunt instrument
of intellectual regimentation and repression.
For detailed background information and an analysis of HR 3077,
go to http://iml.umkc.edu/aaup/facadv13.htm; in the table of
contents click on "HR 3077--the Education for Empire Act," by
David Brodsky.
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The SAMPLE LETTER can be edited, and personalized messages may be
more effective. Nevertheless, please retain the following core
message:
"I support reauthorizing the Higher Education Act with full
funding, but I oppose the inclusion of the International Advisory
Board established by HR 3077, any similar body, or any similar
functions or purposes. The Board, its functions, and its mandate
represent a clear and present danger to academic freedom, civil
liberties, and the integrity of education."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Senator [name],
I am writing 1) in support of reauthorizing the Higher Education
Act (HEA) with full funding, and 2) in opposition to the
International Advisory Board established by HR 3077, passed by
the House in October 2003, any similar body, or any similar
functions or purposes, irrespective of their means of
implementation.
The Board, its functions, and its mandate represent a clear and
present danger to academic freedom, civil liberties, and the
integrity of education. By imposing an unnecessary layer of
governmental review, the Board also has the potential to
encourage Federal government intrusion into curriculum
decisions--decisions that properly are a faculty responsibility.
Such a body and its purposes will do incalculable harm to higher
education in the US.
I also request that the Senate explicitly instruct the joint
House-Senate conference committee to exclude from the final
version of the bill the International Advisory Board, any similar
body, or any similar functions or purposes, irrespective of their
means of implementation.
Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
[your name,
discipline, position, title, etc.
address,
other contact information you want to include]
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SENATE CONTACT INFORMATION
Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
428 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-6300
(202) 224-5375 - voice
Majority Staff #: (202) 224-6770 [Republican members]
Minority Staff #: (202) 224-0767 [Democrat members]
Total 21 members--11 Republicans and 10 Democrats
5 members have e-mail, 16 have only web mail addresses. The
latter are accessible only from their web sites. You can get to
a Senator's personal web site by going to the Members page:
http://www.senate.gov/~labor/committee_members.html
Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH)
393 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-3324
E-mail: mailbox (at) gregg.senate.gov
10 REPUBLICANS MEMBERS
Senator Bill Frist (TN)
461 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-3344
[Web Form:
frist.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=AboutSenatorFrist.ContactForm]
Senator Mike Enzi (WY)
379A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-3424
E-mail: senator (at) enzi.senate.gov
Senator Lamar Alexander (TN)
302 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202)
224-4944
[Web Form: alexander.senate.gov/contact.cfm]
Senator Christopher Bond (MO)
274 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-5721
[Web Form: bond.senate.gov/contact/contactme.cfm]
Senator Mike DeWine (OH)
140 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-2315
[Web Form: dewine.senate.gov]
Senator Pat Roberts (KS)
109 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4774
[Web Form: roberts.senate.gov/e-mail_pat.html]
Senator Jeff Sessions (AL)
335 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4124
E-mail: senator (at) sessions.senate.gov
Senator John Ensign (NV)
364 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-6244
[Web Form: ensign.senate.gov/contact_john/contactjohn_email.html]
Senator Lindsey Graham (SC)
290 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-5972
[Web Form: lgraham.senate.gov/email/email.htm]
Senator John Warner (VA)
225 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-2023
[Web Form: warner.senate.gov/contact/contactme.htm]
10 DEMOCRAT MEMBERS
Senator Edward Kennedy (MA), Ranking Member
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4543
E-mail: senator (at) kennedy.senate.gov
Senator Christopher Dodd (CT)
448 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-2823
[Web Form: dodd.senate.gov/webmail/]
Senator Tom Harkin (IA)
731 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-3254
[Web Form: harkin.senate.gov/contact/contact.cfm]
Senator Barbara Mikulski (MD)
709 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4654
[Web Form: mikulski.senate.gov/mailform.html]
Senator James Jeffords (I) (VT)
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-5141
[Web Form: jeffords.senate.gov/contact-form.html]
Senator Jeff Bingaman (NM)
703 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-5521
E-mail:
senator_bingaman (at) bingaman.senate.gov
Senator Patty Murray (WA)
173 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-2621
[Web Form: murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm]
Senator Jack Reed (RI)
728 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4642
[Web Form: reed.senate.gov/form-opinion.htm]
Senator John Edwards (NC)
225 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-3154
[Web Form: edwards.senate.gov/contact.html]
Senator Hillary Clinton (NY)
476 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington DC 20510
(202) 224-4451
[Web Form: clinton.senate.gov/email_form.html] |
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