Since September 11 teachers, students and people around the country have been targeted for speaking out against theU.S. bombing of Afghanistan in particular and U.S. foreign policy more generally. At the City University of NewYork, for example, the Chancellor issued a statement denouncing students and professors who participated in a teach-in on the attacks and U.S. foreign policy.

The corporate media have generally reflected the position of the US government, agreeing to requests from the White House to engage in self-censorship and in the case of CNN ordering reporters and news readers to use scripted language about Afghanistan harboring terrorists whenever they report on the human impact of US bombing.

Now the American Council of Trustees and Alumni has jumped into the fray. The organization, founded by Lynne Cheney and Senator Joseph Lieberman, has just issued a report entitled “Defending Civilization: How Universities Are Failing America and What Can Be Done About It.” The report says that colleges and universities have been the “weak link inAmerica’s response to the attacks” and that professors and students have been “short on patriotism and long onself-flagellation.” It lists 117 professors and students and their comments as evidence that campuses are hostile tothe US and attacking Western civilization.

Guests:

• Lee Cokorinos, Research Director at the Institute for Democracy Studies.
• Professor Hugh Gusterson, professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• Barbara Corrado Pope, professor Emerita and Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of Oregon.
• Senwung Luk, junior at Yale University in New Haven.

Related links:

• American Council of Trustees and Alumni–click on publications for the report.
• Institute for Democracy Studies