Professors Quotes
McCarthy accused thousands of people of being communists and disloyal. He claimed to have lists of communists in universities, the Army and other agencies of government, but never produced such lists. In addition to being a overbearing demagogue, he suffered (and died from) from a serious case of alcoholism. McCarthy’s false and irresponsible attacks eventually caused the Senate to censure him. That and his drinking destroyed his career. Not a single person “exposed” by McCarthy was ever convicted of anything. Many had their careers destroyed however. A number of universities fired Professors because at an earlier phase of their careers, they had been a member of an organization that was communist or affiliated with communists, and then left. These firings led to intensive efforts to strengthen the rules of tenure and academic freedom so that the McCarthy abuses could never be repeated. McCarthy could not be sued for his defamatory lies as he always made his accusations from the floor of the Senate where there is absolute protection even for malicious and irresponsible statements.
Congress was at the time considering the possibility of a National University. Dr. Eliot was one of the national leaders to kill the idea using oratory like this. Not the extreme sarcasm of the last sentence. At the time Congress was notorious for its conditioning appointments on almost any variable except merit.
Horowitz who preaches against tenure and academic freedom gives his opponents wonderful ammunition to support the concepts. His definition of “idiot” is people who have what he believes is a naïve liberal view of politics whom he argues should not be paid to speak, write and possibly indoctrinate students. So a mathematics professor, teaching algebraic topology, but supports Hezbollah for example should be purged from his job. It is just that point of view that was responsible for having tenure and academic freedom in universities in the first place.
Explaining the reason for recruiting 18 year olds as FBI informers and infiltrators
Even sophisticated societies have anti-intellectual movements. This happened in revolutionary France, but also at times even in the United States. In 2012, for example, Rick Santorum a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination called President Obama a “snob” for wanting to enable all students to go to college. Santorum was appealing to an anti-intellectual movement in the country that distrusted intellectuals as “elites.”
