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David Brodsky wrote:

Dear Friends,
My apologies for cluttering your in boxes, but the situation here
is looking bad.

The campaign by right-wing forces in Missouri against higher
education and civil liberties is escalating.  The Missouri Senate
voted 19-12 on April 25 to support the House's $100,000 budget
cut to the University of Missouri, based on its scapegoating of
UMKC Professor Harris Mirkin.

Mirkin is being targeted by both houses of the Legislature
because of his professional study of pedophilia, which the
right-wing is deliberately misrepresenting as advocacy.  Senator
John Loudon (R-St. Louis County) called Mirkin's publications a
"perverse and dangerous attempt to make our children prey"
(Kansas City Star, 4/26/02)

The Senate action is a calculated attack on UMKC.  It quietly
restored $620,000 to the university system budget, an amount cut
by the House in order to pressure two other campuses to
discipline employees targeted by the right-wing.  But the message
the unified Missouri Legislature is sending constitutes a threat
to the academic freedom and civil liberties of all faculty and
all non-right-wingers in Missouri.

The situation here has the potential to pose an even greater
danger than the scapegoating of Professor Sami Al-Arian in
October of last year, since in his case the University of South
Florida was not targeted as such, and the organized movement to have him fired came from alumni and community groups, not from
elected officials.  But Senator Loudon's additional remarks
constitute a declaration of ideological warfare on the University
of Missouri.  And a comfortable majority of the Senate is backing him.

Raising the hoary spectre of outside agitators and subversives,
and banking on traditional latent regional resentment, which he hopes is widespread, Loudon juggled the stereotypes of the
innocent (and right-wing) heartland as opposed to the radical and
corrupt coasts, ranting that Mirkin is not "some Berkeley
professor.  It's someone from the heartland using the state's
flagship university to promote disgusting views" (KC Star, op
cit).

This is pre-purge language, familiar from the McCarthy and
earlier eras.  Missouri is the home of John Ashcroft, who would
be delighted were his domestic war on terrorism to catch fire on
his home turf.  If the Missouri right-wing can generate purge
momentum, it can be extended to other states, using its success
here as a precedent.  Thus it poses a potential threat to the rest of the country as well.

The accommodating climate of mainstream opinion following the
Senate vote may be indicated in the biased reporting of the
Kansas City Star.  While it earlier chided House members for having a "legislative tantrum," the news story about the Senate
vote openly sides with the right.  It begins, "Prof. Harris
Mirkin ... flunked another test in the Missouri Senate on
Thursday."  That is, it blames Mirkin for being targeted, rather thanSenator 
Loudon for demagogy.

Another danger signal here is the local mass media suppression of
opposing views, and above all, of the crucial issue of academic
freedom and civil liberties.  While Mirkin has been interviewed
by the national media, for the Missouri public and the Legislature these issues, and widespread support for them, remain
a well-guarded secret.

For example, resolutions by the UMKC AAUP and UMKC Faculty
Senate, calling on university officials for a public defense of
academic freedom, and responses by the Chancellor of UMKC, the
President of the University of Missouri system, and the
University of Missouri Board of Curators have not appeared in the
mass media (they will be published in the next issue of The
Faculty Advocate, now at the printer).  A local TV station
suppressed a series of interviews (under the usual pretext of
technical problems), which included a strong UMKC AAUP statement
on the significance of academic freedom.  Thus the opinion of the
general public and the Legislature is being manipulated to give
the false impression of right-wing unanimity lacking any
significant opposition.

 For these reasons the Education for Democracy Network is issuing
an urgent appeal to all its members.  Whether or not you
responded to the first call for letters in defense of academic
freedom, we are asking you to do so now.  The budget must still
be approved by Missouri Governor Bob Holden (a Democrat).

In your message please ask the Governor to:

1) take a strong public stand in defense of the principles of
 academic freedom and civil liberties

2) speak out to end the scapegoating of university professors and
higher education in Missouri

 and 3) set an example by vetoing the budget bill, or pressuring
 the Legislature with the threat of a veto in order to restore the
$100,000 cut to the University of Missouri.

 Because of the local mass media blackout on opposition to the
Legislature's actions, we need strong support from all over the
country (and from abroad).  Please forward this appeal to all
your networks and urge your friends and colleagues to write.

Many thanks.
David Brodsky
 
 

There are various ways you can contact Governor Bob Holden.
US mail:
Governor Bob Holden
Office of the Governor
State Capitol
Jefferson City, MO  65102
FAX: 573-751-149
TEL: 573-751-3222
e-mail: constituentaffairs@mail.gov.state.mo.us