"The diamond that cuts through illusion."

Nelson Plays Victim, Grows Slander Campaign

Earlier today on the contingent-academics listserv adj-l, Cary Nelson complained about an article critiquing his support of Steven Salaita's ouster from the University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign. His complaint rested on two charges: the first, that the Electronic Intifada had perpetrated "vicious slander" against him for describing his monitoring of Salaita's tweets as "monitoring" (which the article in question referenced), and, secondly, that the listserv member who posted the article exhibited "deep hatred" for Nelson simply because he circulated the article, one of numerous circulating critiques of Nelson at the moment.

Other listserv members rallied to our colleague's side, including one who called for Nelson to recant his remarks, another who posted a number of readings on Nelson and the Salaita case, and a third who questioned Nelson's denial that he monitored Salaita's tweets. I also responded to Nelson, a response which I include here along with his statements to the listserv (the original one and a follow-up) as well as the quote from the article that caused his ire. I have redacted the first names of listserv members, except when I have received permission to include them, so that they aren't dragged publicly into the current debate vis-a-vis Nelson because I chose to post my response publicly.

A link to the article in question was posted along with this quote:

Professors and educators, who are experiencing a steady erosion of academic freedom along with pay and job cuts, should take Nelson's involvement in the Salaita case as a warning. They can put no faith in a "union" whose most prominent member publicly boasts of monitoring the statements of a new faculty hire and defends that hire's dismissal on grounds of objectionable speech—even when university administrators are not openly making such a claim. [Emphasis in original.]

Nelson responded as such:

This "monitoring" charge is a vicious slander by The Electronic Intifada, now amplified by [redacted] in McCarthyite style. I have been writing about the BDS movement for a year and have just completed editing a book titled THE CASE AGAINST ACADEMIC BOYCOTTS OF ISRAEL. I try to keep up with the work of all the major BDS supporters, from Judith Butler to David Lloyd to Steven Salaita, etc. I READ their books, I read Steven's essays, I read his tweets. I explained all this to The Electronic Intifada when they asked me how long I had been READING (their word) Salaita. They then turned this into "monitoring," which [redacted] has now amplified into a broad political charge. In the past I've "monitored" Adrienne Rich, monitored W.S. Merwin. On this list I "monitor" [redacted]. I guess the rest of us are doing so as well, but all of you apparently read, while I "Monitor."

Although [redacted] and I have had our differences in the past, I've always respected his energy and dedication. I didn't realize he'd developed a deep hatred for me.

Cary Nelson

Later, after the first round of reaction to the above, Nelson responded as such:

I understood [redacted] to be agreeing with and elaborating on the "monitoring" remark.

Cary

I discovered Nelson's intervention in the list when I was copied on a response to the listserv, which I saw upon checking my email about an hour ago. I responded to Nelson, and the listserv, as follows:

It's amazing but unsurprising that Prof. Nelson brought his "McCarthyite style" "vicious slander" campaign, currently deployed against Steven Salaita, here to this listserv to accuse [redacted] of the same. [Note: Upon rereading Nelson's original statement, I see he accused the Electronic Intifada of "vicious slander," but as he explained in his follow-up statement, he "understood" the listserv member as "agreeing with and elaborating on the 'monitoring' remark."] Not only that, but then to claim that "critique"—and by a third party at that, since [redacted] was quoting from a source—is somehow equivalent to "deep hatred."

This is incredibly troubling rhetoric from someone who apparently played a role—though he's yet to fully disclose it—in the firing of an academic for his political views and the consequent upheaval in that academic's—and his family's—life. Please don't play the victim card, Prof. Nelson, when it's you that has caused so much damage.

As Ana [M. Tamayo Fores, of Adjunct Justice and this petition] avers, Prof. Nelson was quoted directly as follows in the Electronic Intifada piece about his "monitoring" of Prof. Salaita: "There are scores of tweets. I have screen captures. The total effect seems to me to cross a line." If that's not "monitoring," then apparently its definition has changed—but given that Prof. Nelson doesn't believe that Gaza is under Israeli occupation, as he also stated in the Intifada piece—in contradiction of all accounts except for Israel's mystifying "facts on the ground," of which Prof. Nelson is a chief promulgator—he's not necessarily referring to material reality when he discusses Palestine, Palestinians, and their advocates such as Prof. Salaita.

Among the readings [redacted] helpfully posted, the CCR one makes clear that an individual's constitutionally protected political views cannot be separated from the manner in which they're conveyed, as the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled. And Corey Robin's itemized account of Prof. Nelson's contradictions on "civility," academic freedom, and academic boycotts is especially helpful in seeing how far Prof. Nelson has drifted from his days of embracing justice, not, as he does now, working against it.

To these resources I will add Mondoweiss's extensive review earlier this year of Prof. Nelson's longtime machinations regarding Israel, especially vis-a-vis his role at AAUP.

As Noura Erekat put it today on Facebook, "Opponents to Palestinian freedom, liberty, & dignity have made a policy of censoring & punishing scholars who dare to speak on Palestine. Supporting Steven [Salaita] is also about resisting entrenched practice in academia that has harassed/stifled scholars for decades."

I stand with the countless others who reject Prof. Nelson's—and the Israeli government's and its global lobby's—campaign against Palestine, Palestinians, and their supporters, and I join [redacted]'s call for Prof. Nelson to retract his vicious ad hominem against [redacted].

I will also be posting this to my blog to document and circulate Prof. Nelson's actions here.

Regards,

Sean

I'll post and circulate any further responses by Nelson.

UVA, Sullivan, & Online Education

I like a good conspiracy theory as much as anyone, but unfortunately the one about Goldman Sachs's embattled Education Management Corporation and the UVA coup isn't true. According to the theory proposed by my fellow UVA alum Anne-Marie Angelo, President Sullivan was sacked because she declined to go into business with EDMC. As Angelo writes, EDMC

wanted to make or made a bid to offer online education through UVA. From this endeavor, EMC [sic] would invest profits back into the University, helping to heal some of the University’s fiscal woes. When Sullivan was reluctant or refused to agree to the venture, key members of the Board threatened litigation related to her performance as a fundraiser for the University.

But this couldn't have happened, for several reasons:

1) EDMC has been embroiled in multiple legal proceedings, including an ongoing "multibillion-dollar fraud suit" brought by the Justice Department and four states. Along with the market-leading University of Phoenix, EDMC is a caricature of for-profit education unscrupulousness. What university, public or private, would go near EDMC given its radioactive status? Sullivan could've been cited for negligence per her employment contract.

2) EMDC doesn't provide online-education services to extant institutions like UVA: it creates and runs its own universities, most of which are online. (It has four main brands: the Art Institutes, Argosy University, Brown Mackie College, and South University.) Accordingly, it would be unprecedented for the company to offer services "through" UVA. EMDC doesn't license other university brands.

3) Angelo says an EMDC investor presentation occurred in the Charlottesville area this February or March, but the exact details are unclear. According to an EMDC press release, there were indeed investor presentations in February and March (as there are at other times of the year), but they occurred in Boston and Arizona; furthermore, they were investor presentations, not meetings with universities seeking EMDC's services.

4) The "online education" to which Sullivan subscribed per her leaked strategic memo is clearly a "hybrid" course model, in which some introductory classes would contain an online element. Sullivan wasn't referring to any sort of Virginia-branded online education that might be offered for profit—nor has any such suggestion surfaced from others.

5) Within a wider context of peer institutions, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Penn, and Michigan have so far embarked on free online courses for non-matriculated students. If UVA wanted to keep pace, it would take a similar approach and not strike out on its own into the uncertain for-profit sphere.

Based on these facts, it's impossible to see how EDMC played any role in Sullivan's ouster. Indeed, it seems dubious at best that online education itself influenced Dragas's actions. Sullivan's strategic memo certainly shows that she was attuned to online solutions as one way of closing the "reputation gap" that previous university leadership, both administrators and the board, had allowed to develop.

(NB: Dragas was appointed to the board in 2008 and served on the presidential search committee that led to Sullivan's election. So did former rector Thomas Farrell, who some have speculated is interested in the UVA presidency. Farrell runs the Dominion power company, on whose board Dragas and vice-rector Mark Kington sit. Farrell also chairs Virginia's Higher Education Commission.)

As for the real reason Dragas took the action she did, that remains a mystery. As Angelo notes, the board of visitors met in closed "executive" session at its February 2012 meeting to discuss "personnel matters" regarding fundraising and gifts to the university's ongoing capital campaign. At the same meeting, the minutes reveal, a host of changes to the board's manual were approved, including this:

The President shall promote the development of the endowment funds of the University and shall be authorized to accept any gift or grant subject to the approval of the Governor as required, making a report to the Board of such gifts or grants

But though the capital campaign missed its target last year, total philanthropic giving was up almost 14% in the first two quarters of the university's current fiscal year from the previous year. In the third quarter, however, the gain was only 3.25% year over year. (See the board minutes here.) This slowdown, combined with the missed capital-campaign target, may have triggered Dragas and her backers "strategic dynamism" (bye, Kiernan!).

Who knows—the Sullivangate scandal turns more bizarro by the day.

Related: "UVA, Sullivan, & the Renegade Board"

UVA, Sullivan, & the Renegade Board

The 1895 Rotunda fire. Image courtesy the University of Virginia Library.

"This is the most egregious case I have ever seen of mismanagement by a governing board. It's secretive, it's misguided and based on the public statements, there's no clear rationale.” Hunter Rawlings, president of the Association of American Universities

"We encourage all of us, even as we adjust and absorb this change, to focus constructively forward in preparing the institution for its next stage of leadership..." University of Virginia provost John Simon and COO Michael Strine

On day five of the UVA debacle, in which the university's renegade board acted unilaterally and secretly to oust President Teresa Sullivan after less than two years on the job, the gap between perceptions only grows. The university's board of visitors, on the one hand, remains insular and tight-lipped, its effort at damage control now engulfing Sullivan's two hand-picked executives, Simon and Strine. (Their message posted to the university's website has been likened to a "hostage" stunt, and rightfully so. Earlier this week, Simon, formerly of Duke, called Sullivan "one of the stars" of higher education and said they had "all kinds of projects in the works" to "advance" the university. He and Strine should do the right thing and resign, though both presumably are under consideration for the interim presidency. Ethical failures everywhere at the top of Mr. Jefferson's university!) On the other hand, more and more observers both inside and outside UVA, typified by Rawlings of the AAU, are seeing the board's coup for what it is: something rotten in the state of Virginia. UPDATE: This afternoon the executive council of UVA's faculty senate "unanimously declared"it had no confidence in Dragas, vice-rector Mark Kington, or the entire board of visitors.

Simon and Strine's encouragement (thanks!) to "focus constructively forward" is plainly disingenous: how can anyone in the university community think constructively when we don't have any facts? Constructive, collaborative engagement occurred during the process to select Sullivan as president, the result of a 19-member search committee that was half board members, half faculty (six of them), students, and alumni. Yet the decision to remove Sullivan apparently rested with one person, board rector Helen Dragas, a real-estate developer. Dragas may know about business, but she has no higher education credentials. What she does have are connections to UVA's Darden School of Business, being not only an alumna but also a confidant of the Darden foundation's chairman, Peter Kiernan. Update: Kiernan resigned this afternoon, thus further isolating Dragas. (See another UVA alumna's provocative discredited theory about the possible role of Goldman Sachs's for-profit online education sideline in Sullivan's ouster; Kiernan is a former GS partner.) What is it that Dragas, Kiernan, and others have to hide that they can't offer any specifics about Sullivan's ouster? All Dragas does is issue meaningless sleight-of-hand remarks that exemplify Stein's mystical description of her hometown of Oakland: "There is no there there."

I, too, am a UVA alum, and I remain involved in university affairs through my membership on the board of directors of the Serpentine Society, the LGBTQ alumni interest group, which I currently co-chair. I have a stake in the university's well-being as much as anyone. But I'm also dismayed by Sullivan-gate as an emerging academic—I've taught at Rutgers University and I'm beginning the PhD English program at the CUNY Graduate Center. I keenly feel an affinity with Virginia faculty who describe themselves, correctly, as the "stewards of [the] mission of higher education." I'm also a Rutgers grad—I earned my MFA there this May—so I'm a double product of public institutions. As New Jersey's flagship undergoes its own turmoil regarding the power of governing boards, UVA is a sad example of the damage a group of political appointees can do when unfettered by limits.

At UVA, people like to talk about two things: Jefferson's legacy, and the university's stature among peer institutions. The renegade board's abject ouster of Sullivan is a detriment to both, and will likely remain injurious for some time. In explaining Sullivan's removal, Kiernan of the Darden foundation referred three times to "strategic dynamism," an empty management euphemism for purposeless explosion. (Perhaps Kiernan had seen Prometheus, which repeatedly invokes the false notion of destruction for the sake of creation.) But as the university's own history reminds us, dynamite usually has unintended consequences, as manifest in this moment as in 1895, when the Rotunda—the centerpiece and symbol of UVA—was felled by fire. In order to save the now-landmarked structure, an engineering professor "tried dynamiting the bridge" between it and its annex. The result, however, was even more disastrous:

Unfortunately, this blew a hole in the Rotunda, and the fire spread more rapidly. Before it could be brought under control, the annex, dome and interior of the Rotunda had been destroyed. Only the Rotunda’s charred circular brick walls remained.

As the University of Virginia suffers from another dynamic calamity, I fear we onlookers are as helpless as those who watched the Rotunda burn from inside out. There's no way to undo the board's fiat; Sullivan will get a job elsewhere, no doubt at a "peer institution" (that is, competitor). If the current board remains, the replacement president could only be a lackey. Dragas and her cronies maintain their interest is only fiduciary, but instead they've set the whole university ablaze. For UVA's sake—and for the ideal of higher education—I hope they don't remain. We need a new board—one capable of governing.

Financial Prophylactic

Triptych on 'Hide/Seek'

Rich; Cotter (review); Cotter (commentary).

Executive Orders and 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

My reporting on how nondiscrimination will be achieved upon repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" is now up at New York mag's Daily Intel blog.

Last Thursday an amendment to do away with the ban on open service by gay troops was attached to the annual defense-authorization bill in both the House and Senate. However, the measure—for yet-to-be-determined reasons—doesn't include a nondiscrimination mandate. Since then, advocates have said they'll push Obama to issue an executive order explicitly banning discrimination against gay servicemembers. But, as former Clinton White House adviser Richard Socarides tells me in this piece, an executive order already exists barring anti-gay discrimination in the federal workforce. Once DADT's off the books, the EO should apply...

Related: Nondiscrimination Isn't in 'DADT' Repeal. Why?

Ex-SLDNer Speaks Out on 'DADT' Compromise

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': When Compromise Goes Bad

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' 'Deal': Just Say No

Nondiscrimination Isn't in 'DADT' Repeal. Why?

I try never to rain on people's parades. Really, I do. But now that the compromised "don't ask, don't tell" repeal is moving forward in Congress after historic votes last night, I don't want momentum to obscure how we passed legislation to undo discrimination against gay servicemembers without legal nondiscrimination protection for them. As I've suggested all week, this lack renders the repeal process null in my eyes. Yes, there's been much speculation President Obama will issue an executive order barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation when repeal is finally "certified" next year (we hope), but a White House directive doesn't have the symbolic power of law. It also can be discontinued by Obama's successor. (This is what happened in Virginia earlier this year when new governor Bob McDonnell stopped nondiscrimination protection for gay state employees after eight years of such under his Democratic predecessors.)

But the evacuation of a nondiscrimination mandate from the DADT repeal process raises two greater questions for me. One is political: Why was the provision dropped? The second is conceptual: What does it mean that our advocates went along with it?

As my friend and former Advocate colleague Kerry Eleveld describes in the best analysis of the compromise so far, LGBT advocates were greeted with news of the mandate's removal when they arrived at the White House on Monday to be "briefed" on the new legislation. Though it's still unclear who decided to drop the mandate, Eleveld's description suggests that it happened without input from advocates. If that's the case, the DADT compromise shows once again how limited the LGBT community's power is—that is, legislation to ameliorate injustice on our behalf, spurred by our activism, was finalized without our say. It bespeaks the major structural change that still needs to happen in Washington—we need more LGBT people in the room when decisions like this go down. (And don't point to Barney Frank, please—he's sold us out before, like the time he tried to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act without protections for trans people.)

Nevertheless, our advocates could've walked away from the deal, which lacks the fundamental tenet of the LGBT civil rights movement: equality. (After all, that's what nondiscrimination is.) Would Congressional leaders still have moved forward without the de facto support of the LGBT community? Who knows, but it would've been interesting to see—for once—what happens when our advocates stop kowtowing to Democrats. At the very least, our advocates could've negotiated further—but again, we don't know what they did when they learned that nondiscrimination was gone.

All I know is that the press releases came fast and furious Monday night once President Obama—nay, budget director Peter Orszag—offered his blessing of the compromise. The inexorability of legislative process demands you go along with the course once it's been set or risk suffering bad precedent. I know this. But what about the bad precedent that results from endorsing a plan that betrays the very essence of what we're fighting for?

Equality—nondiscrimination—should be non-negotiable. Yes, we had political victories last night, but at what cost? The means matter as much as the end, and I fear our movement for justice has now been tainted. I can't help but wonder what might've been if our advocates pushed on for a vote on Rep. Murphy's original bill and the creation of a companion bill in the Senate—or if we simply waited for the conclusion of the Pentagon study in December. That's what was signed off on last night, don't forget. People will call me naive, I know, but the alternatives are worth considering—as are our mistakes.

Perhaps a reporter will figure out what happened behind those closed doors on Monday, or perhaps it'll be left to a historian. Either way, accountability requires that we know.

Related: Ex SLDN-er Speaks Out on 'DADT' Compromise

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': When Compromise Goes Bad

The 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' 'Deal': Just Say No

Ex SLDN-er Speaks Out on 'DADT' Compromise

When I first heard the crushing news Monday night that our leaders had settled on a compromise that guts repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" of any force, I thought of Steve Ralls, the former communications director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. As a former news editor of The Advocate, I'd worked with Steve on many stories (including one that featured the first on-the-record comments from an active-duty gay servicemember). I figured he'd be similarly upset about the disappointing turn of events—and he is.

Steve worked at SLDN from 1999-2008. At a moment when so many seem to be forgetting the history of "don't ask, don't tell" or overlooking crucial details of the compromise, he's not. In his own words:

"I worry that something similar to 1993 is about to happen all over again, and too few people are paying attention to the details of this plan. In my view, it is problematic on several levels.

"Unfortunately, we are not getting a solution that will put the issue to rest. Instead, we're getting one half of an ideal solution, which will leave the debate continuing on for, I fear, a long time to come. And, the worst part of it all, is that service members will continue to be stuck in the middle. 

"This 'compromise' is far less than what our men and women in uniform deserve. I honestly (and literally) got a knot in my stomach when I read the proposed amendment. Repeal is drastically undermined without a second, critical piece: A policy of non-discrimination mandated by Congress, signed by the President and enforced by the Pentagon. That second action must be the centerpiece of any acceptable proposal, and I believe it could have been accomplished while still satisfying the desire of the Pentagon to wait for its working group report before implementation begins.

"The plan we now have, instead, simply returns authority to the Department of Defense, without specific instructions for open service. That's where we were pre-'93, and it's far behind what we owe the LGBT troops who have already been held to a separate standard than their straight colleagues for far too long. They have more than earned an actual policy that welcomes their service and explicitly prohibits any discrimination against them. I worry when we propose settling for anything less."

Thanks for sharing, Steve. You're the best.

Related: 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': When Compromise Goes Bad

The 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' 'Deal': Just Say No

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': When Compromise Goes Bad

My issue with Congressional action on the so-called "don't ask, don't tell" compromise is this: There's no there there. The legislation being considered (as Chris Geidner of Metro Weekly describes here) makes repeal, such as it is, entirely discretionary. It says the law barring open service by gay men and lesbians will be repealed if various undefined conditions are met. That's it. There's not a deadline for when these vague but contested criteria—military readiness, unit cohesion, etc.—must be resolved. Only three men in a room (as DailyKos's Clarknt67 describes here) get to conclude this indefinite process. Worst of all, the only standard that matters vis-a-vis a policy of discrimination—nondiscrimination—isn't mandated by this putative repeal measure. As former President Clinton adviser Richard Socarides, who knows from history, has called the legislation, it's a "conditional future repeal"—which isn't a repeal at all.

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA), whose previous version of repeal legislation was actually substantive, tells Geidner above that he's "very confident" repeal will happen swiftly after the end of the Pentagon's study on the subject this December. But what will that repeal consist of? As I wrote on Monday, the language of the current legislation endorses the exact military concepts used to disallow open service by gays—concepts that were proved wrong before "don't ask, don't tell" was enacted. Essentially, if repeal happens, it'll be on the military's terms—not the clear terms of equality, fairness, and inclusivity. The military could very well decide, for instance, that because of (groundless) unit cohesion concerns, gay troops would need to be segregated. The military could decide, for instance, that all their concerns will be handled internally, without a transparent system to implement open service. The military could decide, for instance, that there will be no oversight for the above, or any recourse for gay servicemembers to challenge their treatment. Under the proposed legislation, these scenarios and more could be allowed and "repeal" will still be certified.

Despite these dangers, we're being asked by advocates and others to accept this compromise because supposedly the present is our best shot at Congressional action, or because it's an Important First Step towards binding repeal. But just as no one's asking the aforementioned questions, no one's asking these: If this toothless legislation becomes law, how do we enforce it? If President Obama can't or won't make the military come around now on substance, why do we expect him to convince the military at some later date? And if this "repeal" passes, haven't our advocates given away their leverage? After all, "don't ask, don't tell" was repealed. What else is there to be done?

Meanwhile, gay servicemembers are stuck in limbo, while attention to their plight shrinks in subsequent months because (again) "don't ask, don't tell" was repealed. That seems like a worse state than the status quo—which is exactly what happened when another vaunted compromise was made law in 1993. (Don't believe me? Read the annual reports from Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. The military exploited "Congressional action" then and made a monster out of "don't ask, don't tell.")

Beckett couldn't have written a better shell game.

The 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' 'Deal': Just Say No

"The proposed amendment will...enable the Department of Defense to assess the results of the review, and ensure that the implementation of the repeal is consistent with standards of military readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, recruiting and retention." These words from White House budget director Peter Orszag (posted by Politico, among others) sealed a dubious deal on repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" reached today by the Obama administration, Senators Lieberman and Levin, Rep. Murphy, and Servicemembers United, Human Rights Campaign, and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.

It's quite a turn of events to see these aforementioned advocates endorsing the very talking points that military brass and other opponents of repeal have consistently used since day one to prevent gay and lesbian servicemembers from serving openly. Military readiness, effectiveness, unit cohesion, recruiting and retention—all canards that have been debunked for years, since before the original "don't ask, don't tell" "compromise" in fact. (Look what compromising the first time around did!) As my friend and "don't ask, don't tell" expert Nathaniel Frank likes to say (as he does in this March Center for American Progress report), the policy isn't "based on sound research because no research has ever shown that openly gay service hurts the military." The military's own studies in the 1980s turned up no risks; neither did a 1993 RAND study that was totally ignored at the time.

Military leaders have never been honest brokers on this issue, despite the fact that a majority of servicemembers have no problem with gays serving openly (as shown by numerous polls). So why are our leaders, elected and de facto—who are supposed to be honest brokers—ceding all control of repeal to the military? The history of activism against the ban has been to force the military to get in line with equality. Instead, in a (rightful) rush to get repeal done as soon as possible, we're giving the military giant loopholes with no mechanism for enforcement, or a deadline for such.

Orszag's letter doesn't even call for open service by gays, or for an end to discrimination against them. Instead, it allows "our military and their families the full opportunity to inform and shape the implementation process through a thorough understanding of their concerns, insights, and suggestions." Families? That sounds awfully close to "family values," a bogus phrase that ought have nothing to do with repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."

Then again, this whole "deal" is bogus. I hope it fails. Our servicemembers—all of them—deserve better.