I agree that the reaction here was overblown (assuming all the facts are correct - all we've seen so far is a complaint, and as a lawyer, I've noticed many complaints tend to get the facts wrong), but I *haaaaate* this oft repeated logical fallacy:

"It's quite sad, I think, that these university professors are responding to offensive ideas not just by arguing against them, but by trying to coercively suppress them."

Look, analogizing back to the school library thing, you don't have time to actively dismiss every crackpot racist and bigot. Or, analogizing another way to a more extreme but similiar logic, should the OSU faculty respond to a position to make a Jewish-global conspiracy book mandatory reading by saying "good idea, but we can balance it with a book that says Jews aren't half bad after all?"

In the end of times, the optimal strategy to bad ideas is sometimes *not* to present a logical argument against them, but to ignore or minimize them. While we should be careful to protect free speech in making such decisions, that doesn't mean that more speech is always a nonnegative thing as a matter of practical consequence.

I doubt that a sexual harassment complaint is the way to handle this fellow's book suggestions. It's impossible to know the interpersonal relationships at a distance, but there is no question that some of the suggestions are anti-gay crap. Not crap because they're anti-gay, but just crap because they're crap.

If these are his serious suggestions for "conservative ideas", either he is remarkably unqualified to make suggestions or there is little on the right of academic value. I would hope that conservatives here would agree with me -- a dyed-in-the-wool liberal -- that the former is the case.

Suppose a student goes to the library and asks this fellow for a good book on the role of Judaism in Western European history, and he (Savage) hands him a copy of the Protocols. Protected academic/workplace speech? Or actionable incompetence?

Simon:

I guess it depends how you look at it. Certainly if the librarian ONLY suggested the protocols and called it the "definitive history" or something like that, it would be odd.

But I doubt you would argue that the Protocols DIDN'T have an effect on western European history in relation to jews, no? Anyone researching the "role of Judaism in Western European history" would probably want to take a look at the protocols, not as scholarly work but as historiographical background, right? Censoring the work would LIMIT one's understanding of the subject matter at hand.

But ultimately, the protocols is a ridiculous choice for the librarian not because it's false, but because it's a limited subject matter, not different than the diary of anne frank. Any librarian who is asked for "a good book on" and gives someone something other than a survey text should probably be removed for librarial(?) incompetence, not ideological viewpoint.

Justin:

Have you read Kupalian's book?

Since it's about as clear as it could possibly be that the librarian did not in any way "harass" the complainants, but they publicly claimed he did, and not just as part of their complaint, any thoughts on whether he could, as the ADF letter implies, successfully sue for defamation?

Oh, and one of the complainants also stated that he no longer feels "safe" on campus, implying that the librarian was a violent gay-basher.

BTW, it was pretty foolish from a professional point of view to mix serious scholarly suggestions (Bat Ye'or) with political tripe.

If the purpose of the Academy is to provide students with answers, then 'correct' texts are important. But if its purpose is to teach critical thinking, then 'bad' texts are as important as 'good' ones, or maybe moreso.

The 'Protocols' may say nothing true about the Jews, but one understands the history of the Jews in Europe better by reading them; and the most vile racist rantings reveal the racist, if not his targets. We appear to be headed for a regime where, amusingly, it will be impossible to teach about bigotry (except that it's B-A-D) because the source documents will be verboten.

Whether "The Marketing of Evil" is in fact bigoted, I don't know. But if it is, then it's banning doesn't logically follow unless the object of education is Right Thought.

I would like to ask the question:

In what way is the book in question "anti-gay"?

Does it make discrimination against homosexuals a normative reference for moral thought?

Does it engage in arguments which assume that homosexual behavior is inherently evil?

Does it engage in derogatory remarks about homosexuals without ever seriously considering their claims to social acceptability in society?

Does it disagree with leaders of the homosexual movement about the desirability of legal/cultural change that they advocate?

I assume that the book wasn't recommended solely because of its commentary on sexual norms of society. Why was it recommended?

Was it recommended with any specific reasons or commentary about its usefulness as a learning tool? If so, what were the comments?

The letter cited above claims that the professors used Amazon.com reviews as evidence of the book's anti-gay slant in their charges against Mr. Savage. Did they find any reviews in more serious publications about the book? Or can Amazon reviews be considered authoritative for faculty discussion of a book?

In my position at the University I currently study at, I've seen some discussion of textbooks by academic departments. (Happily, Calculus textbooks tend not to inflame heated debates that might draw in sexual-harrassment charges.) However, I would hope that the instructors had skimmed the books in question to get a grasp of thier central thesis and argument style, rather than depend on the reviews available at Amazon.

Did anyone do that in this case, before responding to allegations of anti-gay-ness of the books?

If being gay is morally the equivalent of being Jewish, then it's OK to punish anti-gay comments. Wouldn’t everyone agree that a librarian should at least be criticized for trying include a book that treated Judaism as an evil on the Freshman reading list? But if you take the perspective that being gay is itself immoral, then a whole different set of rules apply.

Right now, we have no idea what it means for the book to be "anti-gay". It could say all homosexuals should be burned at the stake. It could also just make claims about homosexuals that are the equivalent of complaining about Islamic countries in a book about Islam. Or it might claim that homosexuality is evil in some theological sense without advocating that anything should be done to homosexuals.

Only when we know that can we decide what kind of Judaism book this one is comparable to.

Two university professors are attempting not just to censor others, but to punish them for daring even to hint at the existence of heretical works. This is beyond medieval.

Just as disturbing, there seem to be some posters to this thread who are not only unappalled by the situation but seem to think that they have an appropriate system for censoring the contents of university libraries. I'd like any one of these persons to explain what advantage their system of censorship might have over any other, e.g., one I might suggest, in a way that is completely rational and will be accepted by all Volokh readers.

It's a category error to compare Protocols to Marketing of Evil, or even the homosexualist movement to the authentic civil rights movement.

There seems to be some suggestion that the books Savage suggested were inappropriate for some reason. Explaining how these books differ from, say, Jimmy Carter's, won't be as easy as some seem to think.

Can you point to one instance where someone has objected to inclusion of the Protocols where they were used in their proper historical context--I doubt it.

I think there have been some such but I can't recall specifically. My point is more that if we insist such sources can only be studied with warning flags attached ("in their proper historical context," as you put it), we are teaching 'what to think' rather than 'how to think'. Becoming foolishly attached to foolish ideas and then disabused of them is all part of the college experience.

Operation Bookworm will have to be cancelled now. The moonbat professors are on to us! We'll have to find a new way to indoctrinate students other than recommending four mainstream books.

Curses! Foiled again!

:-)

Just as disturbing, there seem to be some posters to this thread who are not only unappalled by the situation but seem to think that they have an appropriate system for censoring the contents of university libraries. I'd like any one of these persons to explain what advantage their system of censorship might have over any other, e.g., one I might suggest, in a way that is completely rational and will be accepted by all Volokh readers.

Even from the ADF's filing, (which of course has to present Mr. Savage's argument in the best possible light) it is extremely unclear what the basis of the sexual harrassment claim is. The ADF filing implies it is simply Mr. Savage's book recommendations, but never directly states it. It sounds like Mr. Savage got a bug up his ass when the committee rejected his original suggestion to the reading list (Freakonomics), felt he was dissed by all those leftist, snooty professors and set about painting himself as the poor, oppressed rightwing librarian trying to bring balance to the leftwing indonctrination and decided to submit a list of books by a bunch of rightwing kooks (and yes I am calling Santorium a rightwing kook) just to make a point.

It sounds more like that somewhere along the line, Mr. Savage lost his cool, and called the professors "fags" or some other such derogatory term, and that is the basis of the sexual harassment lawsuit, not his silly list of books.

And by the way I love how the ADF characterizes the list as leftist--Dawkins I'll give them, but the rest? The wife of the Republican governor of California, a former president? Jared Diamond really gets me. I assume that the book in question is Guns, Germs and Steel. In what way is that book leftist? Because it advocates the theory that the European dominance of the last 500 years of world history is due more to geographic and genetic luck (and the fact that we liked living in close proximity to our pigs, chickens and cows) rather than our moral, intellectual, and religious superiority over the savage races of the world? Where is Marx, Lenin, Sartre, or even Upton Sinclair?

If I were teaching a modern European history class, I might well encourage students to read The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, and then ask them a series of questions:

1. If you were organizing a plot to take over the world, would you write it down?

2. If you did, would you characterize your intentions as evil, as the speakers in Protocols do?

3. If your conspiracy had any significant influence over governments, would you have allowed this book to have seen the light of day?

4. How would you prove "conspiracy too weak to suppress the book" isn't the same as "no such conspiracy exists"?

I suspect that anyone that didn't find Protocols laughably absurd is probably too deranged for rational discussion anyway.

The bigger problem is that homosexual activists are terrified of any serious debate on the subject--hence the need to engage in suppression of free speech.

My point is more that if we insist such sources can only be studied with warning flags attached ("in their proper historical context," as you put it), we are teaching 'what to think' rather than 'how to think'. Becoming foolishly attached to foolish ideas and then disabused of them is all part of the college experience.

I don't understand your point. Do you think the Protocols should be introduced in college courses as though they are actual historical documents produced by the Elders of Zion because some people actually believe this and then let college students figure out they are actually forgeries penned by the Romanov secret police and there are no Elders of Zion? Should we also teach as fact David Irving's lies about the Holcaust along with the proven historical facts about the holocaust? Should every science class teach every theory that has been disproved along with the valid one and then require the students to figure out which one is correct?

I'm surprised so many are surprised at the professors' actions; I'm sure they would be surprised too.

Many, if not most, academics are in the job NOT to deal with anything they don't like. They teach the classes, write the exams, and grade students so they don't have to encounter any ideas that they don't already approve.

Any deviation from this is simply unthinkable and, in their opinion, unconsciousable, so of course they took action.

There is a ideological requirement in most departments, unspoken, but there and if you don't like it, please seek employment elsewhere. I did!

So a priori, a book by a former President can't be leftist, but a sitting Senator is a "leftwing kook"?

Considering that the last time this country elected a president that could even remotely be called "leftist" was 1944 (and I would argue that FDR was the only "leftist" president ever elected in this country--and by international standards he was barely leftist), yes a book by a former President--at least one written by any president other than FDR, can't be leftist, as much as Jimmy Carter is now a favorite whipping boy of the right. And I called Santorium a rightwing kook, not a leftwing one.

Hm, I guess my comment about the Protocols hit a nerve, because it was deleted, though not before it engendered a flurry of reaction. (It was about #5 at the time I wrote it.) I understand that "exaggeration" is discouraged here, but I wanted to raise a point about the division between what is considered legitimate opposition to an opinion and what is considered unacceptable libel or simply trash.

As a gay man, it is plain as day that there is really no debate as to whether homosexuality is "acceptable" or not. It's not even the right question. I'm born with it, I'm stuck with it. It is, in itself, neither good nor bad... it simply is. And no, Clayton, I was not molested - I was gay before I knew what sex was, before I even knew the basics of the birds and the bees. One can legitimately discuss the implications of fact for American culture, discuss the ways both good and bad that people of similar bent form communities, ande even the (very real) pathologies of those communities, if one starts from the position of recognizing the basic humanity of the people involved.

But to start with the presupposition that this orientation is a consequence of "evil", as this book appears to do... well, that's right up there with young-earth creationism as an intellectual foundation. If a suggested text is going to be based on something so flatly counterfactual, what IS off limits? What COULD be a legitimate basis for a human rights complaint? One might answer that this "harrassment" complaint is not the correct basis for challenging ANY book on the reading list, and I would accept that. But is there a good alternative?

For a university to leave this book on the reading list with the goal of providing balance... well, I couldn't imagine a better example of "relativism" overwhelming common sense. To include this book would be to admit no academic standards whatsoever, and I am dead serious when I say that the Protocols would be a better choice.

While Maria Schriver is a "democrat" the idea that she's a "leftist" is absurd on its own, regardless of who she married.

As a gay man, it is plain as day that there is really no debate as to whether homosexuality is "acceptable" or not. It's not even the right question.

In short, you refuse to even consider any discussion of it legitimate. I suppose that you should be glad that 40 years ago, straight people were more open to debate about this than you are.

I'm born with it, I'm stuck with it. It is, in itself, neither good nor bad... it simply is. And no, Clayton, I was not molested - I was gay before I knew what sex was, before I even knew the basics of the birds and the bees.

The belief that "I've always been gay" is widespread among homosexuals, but that you believe it doesn't make it true. A serious debate about the subject would be very worthwhile, especially because there seems to be a lot of different forms of homosexuality. For example, this incident is an extreme example of the S&M gay subculture--but even in the less extreme forms, it is pretty clear that someone has a serious confusion about pain, pleasure, sex, and domination. (Gee, rather like you might expect if someone's first sexual experiences involved pain, pleasure, sex, and domination.)

Unfortunately, there will be no serious debate about this subject, because homosexuals will not allow it at a place like Ohio State, or just about any other university.

"Leftist" doesn't mean anyone past the 50% mark of the political center, and you know it.

Indeed, when "leftists" get attacked for believing in outrageous things, and liberal bloggers respond that they're making straw men arguments, the rejoinder tends to be, "well maybe I wasn't talking to you. I was talking about leftists, the cooks to the left of you - what, you agree with them""

Clayton writes:
The belief that "I've always been gay" is widespread among homosexuals, but that you believe it doesn't make it true. A serious debate about the subject would be very worthwhile...

Tell me, does there exist a subject which, in your mind, is so settled in the minds of reasonable people that "serious debate" is not "worthwhile"? Or are you of the belief that all knowledge and understanding is up for grabs?

I ask this as a frank and unapologetic postmodernist who is inclined to be skeptical of everything, yet even I recognize that some subjects are so in-your-face obvious that continuing to debate them is a waste of time.

I didn't even have to click on your link to the castration incident to know what you had linked to. This is getting off on a tangent, but you know what my reaction to that story was? I looked up "castration" on Wikipedia and learned quite a bit about the long history of voluntary castration in spiritual contexts, and concluded that perhaps labelling it as pathological was premature. Maybe, like homosexuality itself, it's a deeply rooted expression of primal drives that we still only dimly understand, something that is part of what makes us human. (I also can't help but notice that you gravitate to this, rather than the more timely and widespread spectacle of heterosexual Catholics around the world flagellating themselves and getting nailed to crosses this weekend. Eeech... I'd take castration over that any day, thanks! Those Catholics must be "confused", no surprise when they're confonted with the violence and gore of crucifixion from early childhood, no?)

But to start with the presupposition that this orientation is a consequence of "evil", as this book appears to do... well, that's right up there with young-earth creationism as an intellectual foundation.

We don't know that the book does this. We only know that the book has the word "evil" in its title.

The book could be
-- using the word as a rhetorical exaggeration
-- using the word seriously in reference to gays, but in some way that falls short of harassment (for instance, they may believe that God prohibits homosexuality but not want to do anything to homosexuals)
-- using the word seriously in reference to some group that is smaller than all gays (for instance, particular groups of gay activists)
-- using the word in some technical way (for instance, according to original sin, all people are "evil")

It's also possible, as someone pointed out, that the book is in fact saying that gays are evil, but that the librarian proposed it as a way of pointing out that the accepted books are as bad as this one rather than because he agrees with the sentiment.

And I would be very wary of judging a book on the basis of an amazon.com review quoted by one of its opponents.

Clayton,

Is there any 'serious debate' about heterosexuality? Would you be eager to put up for 'debate' your own sexuality? Are you really heterosexual? How do you know? Were you born heterosexual? Were you converted to heterosexuality?

Tell me, does there exist a subject which, in your mind, is so settled in the minds of reasonable people that "serious debate" is not "worthwhile"? Or are you of the belief that all knowledge and understanding is up for grabs?

I would say that the flat Earthers are not going to be taken very seriously on a college campus...or anywhere else. Universities are filled with faculty taking positions that the real world finds at best, bizarre, and yet here's a position that leads to harassment charges.

I ask this as a frank and unapologetic postmodernist who is inclined to be skeptical of everything, yet even I recognize that some subjects are so in-your-face obvious that continuing to debate them is a waste of time.

You mean a subject that you are emotionally invested in, and therefore can't afford to have seriously questioned.

Those emails, and many of the comments here, confirm every conservative stereotype about academia as a bastion of bigotry and narrowmindedness.

Savage, the Librarian, was a member of a University Committee tasked with choosing books for a specific course. As an employee of the University, serving on that Committee, he had a professional employee's duty to aid the committee's work. That means behaving cooperatively, and it means that his suggestions ought to reflect the application of professional standards. This was not a platform for personal expression, where he would deserve the full panoply of 1st Amendment protection; this was professional work.

Obviously, we don't know all that went on here. On the basis of incomplete evidence, though, it appears Savage, in making the four "suggestions" was being an ass, and failing in his duty, as an employee, to cooperate productively in the work of the Committee, of which he was a member.

It does not appear to me that Savage's suggestions were any less professional than the other members of the committee, who apparently see the First Year Reading project as some sort of political indoctrination activity.

Look, if the objection was that Savage's suggestions were not scholarly works, okay, that might be a worthy suggestion. But suggesting works by Maria Shriver and Jimmy Carter isn't exactly setting a high standard for academic rigor.

I realize that it is a great source of frustration to professors to realize that their beliefs aren't generally held by those outside the ivory tower. This insistence, however, that the purpose of a university is to tell students WHAT to think, rather than teaching them HOW to think, is discrediting the entire notion of a liberal arts education.

I do not want universities turned entirely into high-end trade schools (computer science, electrical engineering, math, physics, chemistry)--but this sort of creeping totalitarianism makes me very skeptical of the rest of these institutions.

Professor:

It looks to me that we're missing copies of several of Savage's e-mails in the link you provide. Accordingly, in assessing the claim of harrassment, it seems that we have only some of the relevant materials. I think it's a mistake to reach a conclusion on this matter until we see all the e-mail records relating to this episode, including the follow-up emails that Savage apparent sent to his detractors but which have not been produced.

von

P.s. I would agree with your conclusion if the linked e-mails consituted the entire universe of e-mails. Since they apparently do not, I can't join you yet.

I suppose it's a sort of masochism that I have kept returning to your writing, because I believe in the critical approach and genuinely welcome dissent... to a point. But there comes a time when it's simply over and done with, when there is nothing more to be listened to.

Yeah, that's certainly how many people feel about homosexuality. Fortunately for you, the majority is more open minded than a bunch of OSU professors, and the majority isn't prepared to silence the homosexual perspective (which is constantly pounded into us through newspapers and popular media). We do draw the line at being forced to recognize gay marriage.

I seriously hope that Mr. Savage sues the University and the accusers for their scurrilous charges and attempts to damage his career and reputation.

Yeah, that will teach everyone how wrong it is to supress speech.

Cranks get free speech too.

Boy, that link anon? gave to the first chapter of The Marketing of Evil was a stunner. Thanks! What an excellent and useful piece of writing. Based on that excerpt, every Ohio State freshmen should read The Marketing of Evil. Lots to think about and discuss there! Kupelian even predicted this incident:

You might wonder: Where and when will this "gay rights" public relations steamroller stop? The end game is not only to bring about the complete acceptance of homosexuality, including same-sex marriage, but also to prohibit and even criminalize public criticism of homosexuality, including the quotation of biblical passages disapproving of homosexuality.

In other words, total jamming of criticism with the force of law. This is already essentially the case in Canada and parts of Scandinavia. "Why?" you might ask. "I thought gays just wanted equal rights and to be free to do what they want in their own bedrooms." No, they've had that for years.

Their campaign will not end until Christians and other traditionalists opposing homosexuality are shut up, discredited, and utterly silenced – and all because of a little factor we've forgotten about in our cleverness, namely this: In truth, there is something wrong with homosexuality.

I hope Tony (among others), who sounds like a lovely and reasonable man reads and understands what Kupelian is trying to say. Kupelian is giving the responsible Christian viewpoint on homosexuality. He is compassionate, warm, understanding and forgiving.

Yours,
Wince

My question is for Eugene Volokh and the other administrators of this site more than for the various commenters here. Eugene, your original criticism of the lawsuit was from the principled position that it's a silly, over-sensitive attack on open debate in universities, regardless of the merit of the ideas under attack.

Now re-read Clayton's comments. They have degenerated into a gay-bashing diatribe. Granted, he isn't calling for blood or pouring kerosine onto stacks of logs, but the tenor of his comments is openly hostile to the very idea of homosexuality. He thinks people like Tony are deluding themselves.

Here's my question. What is it like, Eugene and VC administrators, to link arms with such people as our Clayton? Perhaps your offense at this lawsuit really does stem from the principled position that leftish academic intolerance is baleful. I don't doubt that some conservatives legitimately hold that view, without more--and I think they probably have a point. (Sydney seems to fall into this category.) But what is it like to realize that many of your fellow travelers are simply bigots?

...the use of the word "niggardly" (which of course has a completely different entomology than its homonym...

When people confound "entomology" with "etymology" it bugs me! :)

My point is more that if we insist such sources can only be studied with warning flags attached ("in their proper historical context," as you put it), we are teaching 'what to think' rather than 'how to think'. Becoming foolishly attached to foolish ideas and then disabused of them is all part of the college experience.

A good history professor (or other professor) generally places the works he is teaching in some sort of context. It is not illegitimate for a teacher to point out that a work is outside the mainsream of thought in a field, that it contains errors, or that the errors portray individuals and groups in a worse (or better) light than appropriate. The question is whether this is done with the appropriate judgment and balance. Considering four works that portray Jews in a more or less bad light-- The Protocols, Oliver Twist, The Merchant of Venice, and Gogol's stories-- a good teacher would approach these in different ways. None should be banned from university curricula, but all should be taught by teachers who advise students to be skeptical of their depictions.

The same thing could be said of books portraying other ethnic groups. Nights with Uncle Remus, Puddinghead Wilson, and Uncle Tom's Cabin might all be included in curicula, but hopefully not without some instrution that they do not represent an accurate depiction of the life of Black Americans in the 19th century, and hopefully with some balance that would nudge students toward a different view.

Bruce Wilder writes:

A reasonable guess about what went on, from the record we have, would be that Savage first suggested Freakonomics -- a perfectly sensible suggestion, a serious book, which might be a good introduction for Freshman to serious academic thinking -- and that suggestion was not treated with what Savage regarded as sufficient respect. So, Savage made his 4 suggestions, escalating the confrontation.

Savage may have been provoked, but that should not excuse bad behavior. And bad behavior should not be an automatic claim on 1st amendment privilege.

But what was the "bad behavior"? Suggesting books that provide some balance to what was otherwise a left of center bias? If that is "bad behavior," stop demanding my money to fund your leftist circle jerk.

A sexual harassment claim does not seem appropriate here either, but unless there is some evidence that the University is not competent to figure that out, and deal appropriately with the charge and those, who made it, I see no reason for a Federal court to intervene. Administering a University is hard enough, without groundless Federal Court intervention in what appears to be a rather trivial personality clash.

It went from "a rather trivial personality clash" to a serious matter when the gay thought police started a sexual harassment claim against Savage. When a public institution starts to decide whether to discipline someone for expressing a political opinion, that's a First Amendment violation.

I am not surprised that you wouldn't want the federal courts sticking their nose into how a public university operates. Why, they might actually insist that OSU follow the law: tolerate freedom of speech and equal protection of the law--and then the entire leftist control of the academy would start to collapse.

Michael O'D: There are vile people on every side of every political issue. Finding yourself in agreement with a person you find distasteful on a particular issue has nothing whatsoever to do with the underlying merits of the position.

Note that this is a different issue from mainstream anti-war activists who directly ally themselves with Stalinists like ANSWER. Eugene Volokh simply happens to agree with bigots on a particular issue; he is not openly cooperating with them or endorsing their organizations. There is no shame in that.

As a gay man, it is plain as day that there is really no debate as to whether homosexuality is "acceptable" or not. It's not even the right question. I'm born with it, I'm stuck with it...It is, in itself, neither good nor bad...it simply is.

Assuming for the sake of argument that sexual orientation is innate, this does support or refute any argument with regard to the appropriate status of homosexuality in society. Whether a given sexual orientation should be discouraged, tolerated, accepted, or promoted does not follow from whehter it is biologically based.

By analogy-- if the propensity to alcoholism were biologically based in some or all alcoholics to a greater or lesser extent, this would not argue either for toleration of copious alcohol intake or for euthenasia of people that carry a gene that makes it especially likely that they will engage in such behavior.

To the Baby Boomers,
You've been great parents, and we appreciate all that you've given to the world.

But it's sad that you're wasting your last few productive years like this. Seriously.

In the name of apathy,

truly yours,
Gen. X
Gen. Y

I do not want universities turned entirely into high-end trade schools (computer science, electrical engineering, math, physics, chemistry)--but this sort of creeping totalitarianism makes me very skeptical of the rest of these institutions.

As a chemist and currently getting my masters in civil engineering (and someone who was disgusted by the lack of intellectual rigor in law school), I am heartily offended by the notion that the hard sciences are nothing but "high-end trades". What kind of liberal arts, elitist, nonsense is that? Is an education only worthwhile or useful only when it isn't practical? Does enlightment only come from the liberal arts.

If I can figure out who you really are I plan to sue you for discrimination, you anti-technite bastard!

By analogy-- if the propensity to alcoholism were biologically based in some or all alcoholics to a greater or lesser extent, this would not argue either for toleration of copious alcohol intake or for euthenasia of people that carry a gene that makes it especially likely that they will engage in such behavior.

By the way, that's the analogy to homosexuality that I find most persuasive. There's no question that alcoholism has a genetic component. It is arguable, but I think not absurd, to suspect that early exposure and use of alcohol probably plays some part in why some people who may be prone to it become alcoholics.

I don't hate alcoholics anymore than I hate homosexuals. I've worked for functional alcoholics--guys with important jobs who had (even by their own admission) serious problems with controlling their use of alcohol. But just because some alcoholics don't let it destroy them, doesn't blind anyone to the fact that alcoholics are more likely to end up damaging themselves, their families, their friends, and anyone that has the misfortune to get in their way.

I blog frequently about the enormous damage that alcohol ends up doing in our society, and yes, there are jobs that I would not want an alcoholic to do. Does that make me a alcoholophobe? Would I be upset if a university made it a form of harassment to criticize alcoholism or alcohol abuse? Yes, I would.

Does this seem absurd? Less absurd than it would have seemed in 1960, if you had told someone that a day was coming when it could get you in trouble to criticize homosexuality.

I'll go on record as agreeing with Michael O'D that Clayton's comments about gays are bigoted diatribes. Having said that, I don't think that they should be censored, and I didn't take Michael to be saying that.

Michael did wonder why some weren't disassociating themselves from Clayton's arguments (which is not a "call for censorship" in real time or otherwise). And Michael asks a reasonable question.

It really goes back to Public Defender's point, which explains much of this thread. IF you think discrimination against gays is like discrimination against blacks, Jews, Catholics, etc., then it's entirely reasonable to ask sensible/sane people, even those on the opposite side of the political spectrum from you, whether they might consider denouncing such speech. But, if you think discrimination against gays is like, say, discrimination against pedophiles, then you wouldn't feel that way.

Clayton repeatedly places himself on one side of that fence. But it's just as legitimate, by any objective standard, to place oneself on the other side.

Oh, and in my personal opinion, Clayton, you're dead wrong. And I must say, I hear in your tone sometimes a tacit admission that your side is losing this battle.

Oh, and in my personal opinion, Clayton, you're dead wrong. And I must say, I hear in your tone sometimes a tacit admission that your side is losing this battle.

We lost the battle in the universities, no question. Some people insist on looking at the greater tolerance of homosexuality among the under-30 demographic as a sign that homosexuals are going to eventually win the fight among the general population. I rather doubt it. When I was under 30, and my knowledge of homosexuals was from the very pro-gay media coverage, I didn't understand what the big upset was. But as with most things, you get older, you learn, and you discover that an ounce of experience is worth a pound of theory.

Clayton Cramer:
"what was the "bad behavior"? Suggesting books that provide some balance to what was otherwise a left of center bias?"

Savage's bad behavior was: suggesting some books, which were clearly inappropriate -- not serious suggestions, but books chosen for their predictably inflammatory effect on other committee members, affecting the collegiality and effectiveness of the Committee.

Pretty early on, Savage involved FIRE in his e-mail exchanges. It seems quite possible Savage was just playing agent provocateur here, creating a controversy, for the purposes of advancing a reactionary political agenda.

I agree with Michael, and with JosephSlater. The problem with extreme, and often vicious rhetoric like Cramer's is that it poisons the dialogue. Many people who are interested in this discussion, and sympathetic to Volokh's argument, may see comments like Cramers and assume that the call for "academic freedom" is merely an excuse to rant about homosexuality. Of course that's not the case with Prof. Volokh's argument, but frequent (and to my mind vile) commentors can taint the more serious points being made upthread.

Of course neither Volokh nor anyone else has any actual responsibility or duty to disassociate themselves from Cramer's hysteria. But I think that the professor's argument is diluted when his most vocal backers conflate his argument with a separate and noxious message.

Clayton

I find it laughable that you assumed I was homosexual. I am heterosexual and have always been that way. I view homosexuality the same way. There nothing wrong or 'unnatural' about either.

1. Sexuality is natural. Reproduction is not completely tied to sexuality. Homosexuals can certainly reproduce, they aren't sterile or anything. As far as I know, no mammallian species is exclusively homosexual. How that is an arguement against homosexuality? Some mammalian specials are bisexual.

2. I know I am heterosexual. If you grew up in a society with little negativity about homosexuals, how did you get your current anti-gay bias?

3. How is heterosexuality a 'default' setting?

Clayton Cramer:
"what was the "bad behavior"? Suggesting books that provide some balance to what was otherwise a left of center bias?"

Savage's bad behavior was: suggesting some books, which were clearly inappropriate -- not serious suggestions, but books chosen for their predictably inflammatory effect on other committee members, affecting the collegiality and effectiveness of the Committee.

What made them "clearly inappropriate"? Freakonomics was inappropriate for what reason? The other books were inappropriate because they didn't fit in the with leftist orientation of the professors?

Clayton

I find it laughable that you assumed I was homosexual. I am heterosexual and have always been that way. I view homosexuality the same way. There nothing wrong or 'unnatural' about either.

"On the Internet, no one knows you're a dog." Sorry, but I've had commenters change sexes before to try and win arguments. A straight person wouldn't be able to ask those questions with a straight face.

1. Sexuality is natural. Reproduction is not completely tied to sexuality. Homosexuals can certainly reproduce, they aren't sterile or anything. As far as I know, no mammallian species is exclusively homosexual. How that is an arguement against homosexuality? Some mammalian specials are bisexual.

Care to name some examples of mammalian species (outside the primates) that engage in sex for non-reproductive purposes?

Your claim about bisexual mammals is amusing. There are dominance rituals that are similar, and if you crowd rats badly enough, they start to engage in those dominance rituals. Please list mammals (other than humans) that engage in either anal intercourse or oral intercourse.

I'm waiting.

2. I know I am heterosexual. If you grew up in a society with little negativity about homosexuals, how did you get your current anti-gay bias?

I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and found out that the propaganda was lies.

3. How is heterosexuality a 'default' setting?

Let's see: because 98% or females and 96% of males are heterosexual? Sounds clear enough to me.

Cramer's statements aren't extreme, aren't vicous and aren't gay-bashing. If you think they are you are either skimming or not thinking deeply enough. To say it in the least offensive way: Homosexuality, for most homosexuals, is non-optimal. For one thing, it seriously hampers their ability to reproduce. Reproduction is a key feature of life itself. Many people, both hetero and homo sexual, want to reproduce and have trouble doing so, whether it is the simple trouble of not being able to find a suitable mate, or the more difficult fertility questions. This is a personal tragedy. Other aspects of the typical homosexual lifestyle are also non optimal or unhealthy.

Now, if you believe that homosexuality is unhealthy - and there are plenty of good reasons to so believe - than it is loving to try to change that behavior, just as it is loving to try to change smoking behavior and alcoholic behavior. I grant you that condemnation does not work well for this. But if there are some people whose unhealthy behavior hurts others, such as the minority of people who drink and also drive, and the minority of smokers who smoke in bed and the minority of homosexuals who target underage people, both children and teens, then it is perfectly correct to condemn that subset behavior.

Those who call Clayton, Kupelier and I bigots are failing to acknowledge the loving and strong ethical and moral underpinnings of our stance. Mothers Against Drunk Driving are not anti-alcohol bigots. They are adressing real problems that harm real people. So are we.

Yours,
Wince

FXKLM:

I don't think you and I disagree I said in the first of my two posts in this thread that I understood the argument that filing a discrimination complaint was an over-reaction and not the proper response. If the facts are that the discrimination complaint was based on the suggestion of the book and that alone, I will say that is WAS an over-reaction and not the proper response.

Clayton and Wince and Nod:

Describing homosexuality as a result of abuse, as a disease, as a pathology, etc. is indeed bigoted in the minds of an increasing number of Americans.

And Clayton, I'm willing to make a bet with you that in the not too distant future, even more Americans will agree with me, and not you, about this issue. For example, look at gay marriages in Mass.; more and more heterosexuals are attending them, and seeing them for the loving events that they are. Age and experience with this issue will bring wisdom, not the bigotry you're preaching.

Peculiar argument, that Eugene or other Conspirators should explicitly dissociate themselves from displeasing commentators in their threads. Socially conservative commentators represent themselves; who else would they represent?

If it upsets you to read opinions you find noxious (not a wholly unreasonable reaction to parts of the present thread), perhaps you should invest in a "page down" key before you delve into discussion fora.

Colin wrote: "Of course neither Volokh nor anyone else has any actual responsibility or duty to disassociate themselves from Cramer's hysteria. But I think that the professor's argument is diluted when his most vocal backers conflate his argument with a separate and noxious message." (bolding by Diva)

Colin, I fail to see where the professor's argument is affected or degraded by the "rants" of those commenting. His argument is the same and it is not intrinsically tied to the opinions or arguments of those commenting.

As for the topic at hand, this is just another glaring example of overly PC Liberals living by their own standards and their version of the Golden Rule, Do as I say, not as I do. Liberals can ban books they disagree with but if anybody they disagree with attempts to do the same e.g "ban a book" - then they are called bigots, sexual harassers, homophobic, intolerant and the list goes on and on.

Clayton and Wince and Nod:

Describing homosexuality as a result of abuse, as a disease, as a pathology, etc. is indeed bigoted in the minds of an increasing number of Americans.

Well, at least those with .edu mail addresses, like you. You'll notice that in EVERY state where the voters have had a chance to vote on this, they have voted to prohibit gay marriage. EVEN IN CALIFORNIA.

And Clayton, I'm willing to make a bet with you that in the not too distant future, even more Americans will agree with me, and not you, about this issue. For example, look at gay marriages in Mass.; more and more heterosexuals are attending them, and seeing them for the loving events that they are. Age and experience with this issue will bring wisdom, not the bigotry you're preaching.

That's why you had to force it on one of America's most liberal states, in a place where there was no practical way for voters to stop it before marriages started to take place.

I'm sure that there are gay men and even more so, lesbians who see these as "loving events" and a permanent, faithful relationship. But one of the first marriages under the new Massachusetts law was, by the description of one of the participants, an "open marriage." The article is no longer free at the Boston Herald website, but I quoted the interesting text at the time:

Yarbrough, a part-time bartender who plans to wear leather pants, tuxedo shirt, and leather vest during the half-hour ceremony, has gotten hitched to Rogahn, a retired school superintendent, first in a civil commitment in Minnesota, then in Canada, and now in Massachusetts, the first U.S. state to recognize gay marriage.

But he says the concept of forever is "overrated" and that he, as a bisexual, and Rogahn, who is gay, have chosen to enjoy an open marriage. "I think it's possible to love more than one person and have more than one partner, not in the polygamist sense," he said. "In our case, it is, we have, an open marriage."

I've read too many accounts over the years in soc.motss where homosexual men have referred to a "wife" or "husband"—but that's just who they go home to after a night of sex with strangers in gay bars and rest stop restrooms.

The homosexual lifestyle? Where did you get the idea that there is a single homosexual lifestyle?

I work with women every day, but there's only one woman that I have sex with--and I don't even work with her!

Of that I have no doubt. I'm workng with a definition here. Alcoholism, your example is a tendency. This tendency is triggered by the consumption of alcohol, if one does not drink alcohol in the first place, or take the first "sip" one does not become an alcoholic.

You tried to analogize that to homosexuality. Homosexuality is a sexual attraction to members of the same sex just as heterosexuality is a sexual attraction to members of the opposite sex. Presumably if who would be sexually attracted to other men (gay) never met another man he would never have homosexual attractions to act on. This however is impractical.

I'm not saying gays cannot be celibate, of course gays can be so. But comparing homosexuality (orientation caused by attraction to something ever present) to alcoholism (a dependancy on alcohol which is caused only after drinking in the first place) seems rather ridiculous. One seems to be somewhat passive in that a person needs take no particular action beyond their daily life to trigger it, and one requires active steps on the part of an individual.

Clayton:

Ah, I have an "edu" ending to my e-mail, so therefore my opinions must be discounted. Unlike, apparently, your stories of what you've "read in soc.motss" or seen in San Francisco. You can do better than ad hominem arguments, can't you? FWIW, I grew up in a small town in the midwest and practiced law for over a decade before entering academia. I'm sure I've met as many gays and lesbians as you (and I'm guessing I know more better). So save the mau-mauing for people that might actually be swayed by it.

Oh, and arguing by anecdote about one gay marriage is pretty pathetic too. But if you like that, here's one to match. My sister got married to her partner last year outside Boston, and they're doing just great thank you. It's not just a matter of gays and lesbians seeing these as loving events: a whole bunch of straight folks, like me, my wife, my son, my mother, and my mother-in-law and father-in-law (all from Michigan, not San Francisco, mind you) and many other heterosexuals in attendance all saw this as a loving event. And there's going to more such events.

Sure, I know the results of the gay marriage amendments the Republican leadership trumped up to get part of their base out to push GW over the edge. "Marriage" is a hot-button issue. But by pretty much any other metric, as you sometimes admit yourself, gays and lesbians are clearly winning more acceptance.

Look at employment discrimination laws, for example. More and more states and cities now prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, as to more and more companies simply by policy where not required by law.

And you ignored the part of my post you quoted: you're not just against gay marriage, you're describing homosexuality as a result of abuse, as a disease, as a pathology. And that, to the minds of many, is bigotry. I don't want you censored, but it's not inapproprate for folks to call you on it.

Try Bruce Bagemihl, Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity. Or take a look at the Wikipedia entry on Homosexuality in animals.

By the way: how do you know that they are engaging in sex for non-reproductive purposes? Failure to get pregnant doesn't mean much.

Copulating outside of estrus.

If we conducted thousands of outstanding empirical studies and found that lesbianism was strongly correlated with a healthy "lifestyle" (by whatever definition we're using--I'm not entirely clear on that part), would we conclude it was good to try to convert as many hetero women as possible to girls?

Clayton,

1. Bonobos (a species of monkey/chimpanzee) engage in non-reproductive sex as well as same-sex. I don't know if they engage in oral or anal sex specifically. There is that famous same-sex Penguin couple. I don't know if they engage in sex.

2. What propaganda? And isn't propaganda equivalent to lies? Truthful propaganda seems an oxymoron to me.

3. What I meant was, is there any medical/genetic studies that prove that heterosexuality is the 'default' setting? What is the 'red flag' genetically that determines if you are homosexual or heterosexual? They haven't proven conclusively that homosexuality is exclusively nature or nuture. As far as I know they haven't proven what determines sexuality itself, so how is citing percentages proof that heterosexuality is the 'default' setting if there is no indication of how sexuality is determined? They've done studies that indicate that fetuses are female by default until testosterone kicks in during development. I see no such study about sexuality.

Genes for homosexuality do not have to piggyback on other survival traits; they can act directly. Consider a gene for sexual attraction to men that causes women to mate more often and men to prefer men; the gene will propagate by making its female carriers have more offspring, up to the point that the gene crops up too often in the potential mates for its female carriers. Similarly, a gene that prevents men from having offspring and redirects their paternal instincts into caring for their sisters' children will support the survival of those children.

Men who find sexual excitement from contact with excretory products. (You know things are bad when you read an article shocked by someone's sexual behavior in that well-known publication of Moral Majority--Playboy.) Most boys get past their fascination with this sort of thing pretty young. Hmmmm. Why I do not find the high rates of reported child sexual abuse among homosexuals surprising?

Either provide a source for the outrageous claim of a statistically signifigant portion of the homosexual community COMPARED TO THE HETEROSEXUAL COMMUNITY being at all interested in coprophilia or please stop trying degrading your claims with information that seems unsupportable.

Clayton,

Google for any straight porn sites and you'll see the exact same stuff. There are straight men out there who apparently like to see women have sex with horses or straight men who like to slap women around a little. Men, gay or straight seem to have a higher tolerance for violence and pain. I don't see how you've proved your point, if you have one.

I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and found out that the propaganda was lies.

Lest anyone be misled, Clayton lived in Rohnert Park, a good hour and a half from SF, hardly a hotbed of homosexual culture. His "homosexual experience" consists, as far as I can tell, of reading nasty emails sent to him in reponse to his nasty ideas and nasty posts in response to his nasty posts. Oh, and listening to Rush. A LOT, I suspect.

I'm curious as to what you would say if a heterosexual person had a similar desire? Would you consider it a healthy option for a straight person to seek to be attracted to the same sex because for them it might be easier and make more sense?

Let's see: lesbians are perhaps 1-2% of the population; straight men are about 46% of the population. Homosexual and bisexual men are about 3-4% of the population; heterosexual women are about 50% of the population.

How, exactly, would turning a straight man or woman gay make it easier for them to find a mate? It would reduce the available supply from 46% or 50% of adult population to low single digit percentages.

By the way: how do you know that they are engaging in sex for non-reproductive purposes? Failure to get pregnant doesn't mean much.

Copulating outside of estrus.

This can also be failure to properly understood the chemical and behaviorial cues.

If we conducted thousands of outstanding empirical studies and found that lesbianism was strongly correlated with a healthy "lifestyle" (by whatever definition we're using--I'm not entirely clear on that part), would we conclude it was good to try to convert as many hetero women as possible to girls?

Since lesbians have substantially higher rates of substance abuse, I think you are going have to some problems finding those studies.

Kendall:

Oh, I'll admit it. The Supreme Court of Mass. does exactly what I tell it to do (in e-mails with an .edu address). And Volokh thinks HE has a conspiracy ...!

Getting back to the point, can we all agree that this wasn't a good suggestion for a book to read, but filing a harassment complaint in response to the suggestion wasn't a good way to react?

Let's see: lesbians are perhaps 1-2% of the population; straight men are about 46% of the population. Homosexual and bisexual men are about 3-4% of the population; heterosexual women are about 50% of the population.
How, exactly, would turning a straight man or woman gay make it easier for them to find a mate? It would reduce the available supply from 46% or 50% of adult population to low single digit percentages.

I'm not sure its a numbers question. afterall, isn't it a claim of "your side" that homosexuals have on average 100s of sexual partners a year? (it seems most of my gay friends are SLIGHTLY behind that with 1 at most...) in truth I believe there is one person meant for you regardless and that you're just as likely to find that one person regardless of your sexual orientation.

But the question is not on the practicality. The issue is the exact one Wince and Nod raised. Wink and Nod, as well as NARTH and Exodus claim to believe in tolerance for other views. its just a matter of giving psychiatrists and psychologists the tools to treat patients with sexual orientation issues in a manner the patient feels in consistent with their religious view point. In other words, as long as the patient doesn't want gay affirmation therapy reparative therapy should be portrayed as just as good.

I'm simply asking if this tolerance of viewpoints other than gay affirmation therapy should be applied to other situations. If we should encourage people to have to option of going one way on the sexual spectrum (regardless of the efficacy of such efforts) should we have the option of encouraging people to go the other way if that is the patient's wish?

Clayton: "Since lesbians have substantially higher rates of substance abuse, I think you are going have to some problems finding those studies."

You realize I was asking a hypothetical question, don't you honey?

[Original query: If we conducted thousands of outstanding empirical studies and found that lesbianism was strongly correlated with a healthy "lifestyle" (by whatever definition we're using--I'm not entirely clear on that part), would we conclude it was good to try to convert as many hetero women as possible to girls?]

I'm not saying gays cannot be celibate, of course gays can be so.

And at least among homosexuals who are very interested in doing so, about half are successful at changing not just behavior, but also orientation. If this was strictly genetic, and there was no learned behavior, I would not expect the success rate to be that high.

Of course, it is possible that there are multiple causes of homosexuality. There might be homosexuals who are truly "born that way" and others who are that way as a result of trauma. There might be some that choose it because they can engage in casual sex without having to put any effort into romancing the opposite sex. (Although I understand from my daughter that even this is being abandoned by much of her generation.)

And at least among homosexuals who are very interested in doing so, about half are successful at changing not just behavior, but also orientation. If this was strictly genetic, and there was no learned behavior, I would not expect the success rate to be that high.

I believe you meant, very interested, have an 80% rate of writing publicly on the desire to do so, are hand picked by a ministry, and are self reporting.

And at least among homosexuals who are very interested in doing so, about half are successful at changing not just behavior, but also orientation.

This is crap and I think Clayton knows it. This misrepresents what Spitzer said.

Because this whole thread has gotten so off-topic I might as well throw in a little socio-biological argument that may amuse some and appall others:

Let's assume that (as most now seem to think) there is a strong genetic component to homosexual behavior in men. Then, as Wilson has suggested, this must have had some strong adaptive capacity at the population-level during some time in early human history, since otherwise individual males with this genotype would be less likely to pass their genotype on to the next generation than would males with a different non-homosexual genotype. Absent some population-level selection in its favor, the homosexual genotype(s) would fade out of the human population.

Now let's switch to more recent times. The homosexual genotype(s) seems to express itself at a constant rate of about 1% - 4% in all modern human population phenotypes. (I'm typing quick here, so I can go on a long vacation. Pardon the lax use of scientific terms. I think my main argument will still hold.) Probably this is because social pressures have forced homosexuals to marry and reproduce.

If homosexual behavior is completely unsanctioned there will be little pressure for heterosexual sex among homosexuals. As a result the selection against the homosexual genotype(s) will increase.

Everyone will wind up happy: Current homosexuals can be as sexually wild and crazy as they want. Persons opposed to homosexual behavior can look forward to an essential elimination from the human gene pool of genetic tendencies towards homosexual behavior within not too many generations.

The only complications: sperm banking, spontaneous mutations, and closeted homsexuals who marry and have kids.

If they are raising a penguin, but not having sex, that doesn't make them homosexual.

That penguin couple does have sex.

I believe you meant, very interested, have an 80% rate of writing publicly on the desire to do so, are hand picked by a ministry, and are self reporting.

Not according to the presentation that I saw by the psychiatrist who did the study--and who also led the removal of homosexuality from DSM-III.

Obviously, there's a selection bias involved anytime you sample people who have gone through such therapy. But my point remains: if there was not an element of learned behavior involved, there wouldn't be a 50% success rate.

Bob Van Burkleo said: "If I were a librarian handing out a book titled 'The Marketing of Evil' but it was about evangelican Christianists would you be as supportive of its distribution as a basic informative text on the subject of modern Christianity?"

Bob, there are hundreds if not thousands of professors who spout anti-Christian hatred in classrooms every day, and we pay many of them tax dollars to do so. If you think that Clayton would get hysterical about a librarian handing out an anti-Christian screed, then you really don't understand the conservative perspective.

One of the objections to including the book raised by Professor Norman Jones is that "the book is not scholarly and is designed to be incendiary." So if--as Professor Jones argues--the expert that Savage cites in favor of the book, Judith Reisman, is not especially credible because she is a "fringe scholar" who only has a PhD in communications, then I take it that Professor Jones would likewise object to including the political screeds writings of someone like Noam Chomsky because Chomsky only has a PhD in linguistics and whose writings are no less incendiary. Somehow I doubt it.

Frank Cross: From the data I've seen, it does seem like the median male homosexuals has had more sexual partners than the median male heterosexual, but only by a factor of 1.5 to 3 (rough estimate). It also seems like the median lesbian has had about the same number of sexual partners (the nominal counts are a little higher, but I suspect very far from significantly so) as the median female heterosexual.

Question: is there anyone who can track down what emails were sent by Scott Savage (besides the first one with the book recommendations) so that we can see the rest of the conversation? At this point we’re only being given a small part of the picture and without knowing (a) what Savage wrote in his other emails that are referred to but not shown and (b) what other communications were sent to him, I cannot be certain that this is indeed an overreaction although I suspect it may be.

Those concerned about a gay man's promiscuity might encourage him to stop being a slut, rather than tell him to sleep with women. But...nah, we all know correlation is causation, right?

Diva,

Colin, I fail to see where the professor's argument is affected or degraded by the "rants" of those commenting. His argument is the same and it is not intrinsically tied to the opinions or arguments of those commenting.

I agree with you. I don't believe that the professor's argument itself is affected at all. He made his point, clearly and well, and left it for public comment; the after-commentary doesn't twist what he wrote. But I think it does dilute it by affecting the perception of that argument.

A reader, previously unfamiliar with EV or the VC, who stumbled across this post might read it, consider it, and take away the arguments that the professor made. Or they might skim it and delve into the commentary to see where the discussion wound up, and see post after post by Cramer and others insisting that, as an example of vicious rhetoric, gays by their very nature are really into coprophilia and child abuse.

I don't think it's implausible that a reader might come across the comments and perceive that the academic freedom argument is merely a container for invidious and ugly rhetoric. It's not true, at least as far as the Conspiracy bloggers are concerned, but it's a possible source of confusion. I think that frequent readers are well aware that Cramer's views are not shared by the Conspirators on this issue; in fact, I think I recall a post where one of the regular bloggers explicitly said that he liked Cramer's thoughts on Second Amendment issues, but not on homosexuality. (I apologize if I misremember.)

I merely wanted to say that Michael had a valid point about the tenor of some comments dragging down an otherwise interesting and insightful post. I don't think it's unreasonable that EV might want to clarify matters by saying, "These comments do not reflect my thoughts or my arguments." If it were my site, I would feel very uncomfortable being supported by commentors who also use the soapbox to air out ugly rhetoric. But it's not my site, and I certainly don't think that Volokh or any other blogger here needs to draw those lines. As you said, no commentor's bigotry actually affects the professor's argument-merely the perception thereof.

There are still large parts of the country where people face tremendous social pressure to deny that they are gay. To be more precise, the accepted line is that everyone is straight and homosexuality is unforgivably disgusting behavior. You may lose your job, your parents may kick you out of the house, your friends may stop talking to you, and random people may think it's a good idea to beat the crap out of you.

So, unsurprisingly, people tend to get awfully hot about books that spread that story - especially in hateful ways and especially in freshman seminars. Context matters.

Does that mean that someone suggesting freshmen read a book presuming that homosexuality is "evil" should be disciplined? No. But I would prefer to see this book used only in a more sensible context (possibly in an upper division seminar on a relevant topic, in the context of books taking a different approach) and I don't have the same contempt for the complainants that some others do.

And your claim about the gay marriage controversy being ginned up by the RNC is nonsense. YOUR SIDE caused it by having the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court impose gay marriage on Massachusetts. This generated a firestorm of concern across the U.S.

"Your side"? I don't think every person who supports the SJC of Massachusetts is a liberal or a leftistWill members of the Conservatives For Imposing Gay Marriage Through Judicial Decision please stand up? You know, even among Democrats gay marriage is pretty controversial.

and I do believe the state legislature has since tacitly endorsed the ruling of that court.

More accurately, legislative deadlock prevented them from taking the steps that a majority of Massachusetts voters wanted.

I also wonder what makes you think the SJC of Mass. takes orders from anyone on the other end of the political spectrum from you? I'm reasonably sure those judges were not coerced into the decision or else surely one of their fellow court members would be decrying the undue influence.

I think you have a reading problem. I didn't say that anyone coerced the Mass. SJC; I said the SJC forced the legislature to recognize gay marriage. Go up and re-read it above.

Either support your inflammatory remarks or please refrain from making them.

You might want to take a reading comprehension class.

There are still large parts of the country where people face tremendous social pressure to deny that they are gay. To be more precise, the accepted line is that everyone is straight and homosexuality is unforgivably disgusting behavior. You may lose your job, your parents may kick you out of the house, your friends may stop talking to you, and random people may think it's a good idea to beat the crap out of you.

I've never lived somewhere like that. I've never even lived somewhere where people were under social pressure to deny being gay.

Did you grow up in the Middle East?

Clayton,

I'm not sure what 'side' you think I'm on and anyway I never used classical civilation as an arguement. Besides, even if homosexuality was more accepted in classical times I don't recall it being aaccepted as a permanent 'lifestyle'. Wasn't there was a strong expectation to get married and have children?

Clayton,

I'm not sure what 'side' you think I'm on and anyway I never used classical civilation as an arguement. Besides, even if homosexuality was more accepted in classical times I don't recall it being aaccepted as a permanent 'lifestyle'. Wasn't there was a strong expectation to get married and have children?

Classical civilization's homosexuality was actually a lot closer to pedophilia. Adult, high status men took generally low status teenagers under their tutelage, and the adult man used them for his sexual pleasure. Roman society, for example, tolerated a man sodomizing another male, but to be the recipient--to be a catamite--completely unacceptable, because the recipient was effectively being a woman (a low status position).

The modern notion of homosexuality as two rough equals would have been pretty bizarre to the classical period. Yeah, I know that there are a lot of gay men where one of them is the "top" and the other is the "bottom" but I don't get the impression that this is as rigidly defined as sodomite/catamite was in the classical period.

I've never lived somewhere like that. I've never even lived somewhere where people were under social pressure to deny being gay.

You don't notice any difference between Sonoma County and Boise, Idaho?

Put a rainbow flag on your car, Clayton.

Just in case anyone else has lived a similarly sheltered existence, yes, there are many, many places (and many, many families) in America where being gay is, like, totally un-cool.

As I pointed out on an earlier thread, can't we just agree that homosexual acts are disgusting--unless they are between two (or more) hot chicks.

Clayton and others,

Jew hatred peaked in America in 1944. Pictures of the camps released in late '44 and in '45 and after put an end to that particular hatred as a mass movement in America.

One data point. My mother who is alive and lived through the WW2 era as a 20 something thought that the camps were not bombed because Rosevelt did not want to make it a Jews war. Something that Hitler claimed about Rosevelt. i.e. that Rosevelt was fighting a Jew's War. Luckily you don't hear those arguments much in respectable circles these days.

I hate to feed the trolls, but there's one thing I actually don't get about Clayton Cramer's "arguments" here: He refers a few times to S&M, bondage, etc., as either inherently "disordered" or inherently "gay." Why? I think those things, in various forms and to various degrees, are pretty common among heterosexuals. We don't all have boring sex lives, regardless of what "the gay thought police" want you to think. And I don't think spanking your girlfriend or tying up your wife means you're going to catch The Gay.

BTW victims of sexual abuse are much more likely to abuse drugs.

Heroin

Let me second SLS 1L:
Isn't the natural move from "these people are victims of abuse" to "we should be nice to them and make their lives easier," not to "we should stigmatize them and deny them legal rights"?

Clayton

How young did women marry in classical times? Were there a lot of 'child brides'?

If you're sensing a bit of conservative anxiety over free-speech issues, maybe it's because we went to college (and in some case work in colleges) where liberal "tolerance" is enforced with an iron fist. Liberal speech control on campuses is real, and it has been going on for nearly 20 years. There is no conservative parallel.

All I can say to this is, give me a fucking break. "Liberal speech control" is a deluded figment of your paranoid, conservative imagination. Let's see--Professor Volokh--Oh, he's a professor at that hotbed of liberalism UCLA. And how about Ann Althouse--hippy and commie U, University of Wisconsin. Admittedly, Mr. Fascist Glenn Reynolds is only a Professor at the University of Tennessee. But hey, he only advocates genocide, so you really couldn't have him at a university that has a grand tradition of being a radical leftist university. No, Berkely, that absolute paragon of radical leftist, Marxist, anti-American treasonous disgusting, speech control university can only scrape up John Yoo, that architect of Bush adminstration torture as a tenured faculty.

Yep, universities, especially public ones, sure hate you righties.

Go educate yourself. Then come back and tell me that it's all in my imagination.

Gee, look at this website (operated by a professor at UCLA), Instapundit (professor at UT), Ann Althouse Blog (UW). Show me how oppressed the Young Republicans are on Campus. Or how liberal the entire Greek system is (except for the Black fraternities--oh sorry there is no race-based discrimination in the fraternity/sorority system). And for all your bitching about the "liberal" professors, where are all the liberal business and economics departments?

Quit your fucking whining and act like an adult. For every poor pr-life student who has their crosses ripped down, some slacker has his anarchist poster ripped down by some frat boy or young republican. But instead of whining and crying about it and making a federal case of it, he just shrugs it off, and plans his next action.

<blockquote>
Admittedly, Mr. Fascist Glenn Reynolds is only a Professor at the University of Tennessee. But hey, he only advocates genocide, so you really couldn't have him at a university that has a grand tradition of being a radical leftist university.
</blockquote>
Please point to an instance of Glenn Reynolds advocating genocide.

Please point to an instance of Glenn Reynolds advocating genocide.

Well, here you go, because those barbarian Injuns wouldn't stop fightn', the good perfessor says we were justified in wiping them out, every last man, woman and child. And those Godless Muslims better take heed, what we did to the Sioux and Apache, we can do to them, too.

Also, Freder, by "Fascist," do you mean "Conservative you don't like?" You should look up the entry in wikipedia for that word or something.

Well no, I mean nationalistic, extremely militaristic and authoritarian view of the world. To try and equate fascism with some kind of economic theory is an execise in futility. I know Reynolds claims to be a Libertarian, but I find that laughable.

To try and equate fascism with some kind of economic theory is an execise in futility.

Actually, historic fascism does have an economic element, if Wikipedia can be trusted (emphasis added):

Fascism in many ways seems to have been clearly developed as a reaction against Communism and Marxism, both in a philosophic and political sense, although it opposed democratic capitalist economics along with socialism, Marxism, and liberal democracy...Fascism is also typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic. The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizing) the means of production.

Then there's Merriam-Webster (emphasis added):

[A] political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

Yet 48% of the lesbians and 28% of the gay men reported sexual abuse as children. [EMT Associates, Inc., San Francisco Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Alcohol and Other Drug Use Anonymous Survey Vol. I, p. 24]

Those are pretty startling numbers

Yes and I've help you understand these numbers are far from 'startling' in the past. As you know they did not randomly select the participants most were self-selected from gay newspaper ads or referred from city counseling services. I sent you that information from one of the people who conducted the study, remember?.

As to the numbers the Russell study in 1983 of a random sampling of San Francisco women found 54% had experienced childhood sexual abuse. Wyatt in 1985 found 62% of Los Angeles county women reporting abuse. These are of just the general population of women. So the 48% of a self-selected and counselor-solicited participant study that happens to involve gay women is 'startling' in what way that these studies are not?

With such a high prevalence of abuse in general how can any conclusions of causality be made by similar numbers in the gay community? You know this but it doesn't matter how many times these issues are brought up to you, you just wait a while and trot out the same old data that you know isn't really 'startling' or representative at all but merely titillating like your other examples in this thread.

Freder,

Read that Glenn Reynolds quote again. He's advocating avoiding genocide. Recoginzing that it can happen, sure, but advocating avoiding it.

<blockquote>
Please point to an instance of Glenn Reynolds advocating genocide.

Well, here you go, because those barbarian Injuns wouldn't stop fightn', the good perfessor says we were justified in wiping them out, every last man, woman and child.
</blockquote>
Freder, I think you understand perfectly well that the link you provided doesn't point to advocacy of genocide. It makes a conditional prediction, but you can hardly point to anything resembling a moral justification.

If there is any fixed star in the Volokh Conspiracy constellation, it is that Clayton Cramer will write endless anti-gay rants if given the excuse. Homosexuality: Cramer's idée fixe!

As to the merits of the case, I am in complete agreement with Eugene's post, but there is still a larger consideration here. One one level, if the University of North Carolina can assign Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickle and Dimed - which doesn't even qualify as genuine ethnography - to all incoming freshmen as it did a few years ago, then it certainly seems to me that political trash like "The Marketing of Evil" is at least as serviceable as a starting point for spirited freshmen discussion, no?

But, on another level, why are some universities now requiring all entering freshmen to read and discuss tendentious books of little or no academic value in the first place?

Wince and Nod -

Actually, back before the APA took it off the list of disorders, psychologists had a slightly better success rate helping patients change from homosexual to heterosexual than they did helping alcoholics. That was before NARTH and Exodus. This has not changed in studies since then.

any way you can possibly source that?

regarding:

"Can anyone come up with a system of rules of discussion that does not depend on the speaker's view of the underlying merits?"

Off the bat, I would say no, because neither education, nor religion, nor a body of laws and rules can exist without morality, without determining what is right or wrong.

Theoretically in a democracy, this moral determination should be achieved by a fair debate. But more often than not, this is not what happens.

In practice, morality is determined by the rule of the jungle in a democracy, that is, the most powerful groups determine what is right or wrong, usually by the ability to stifle debate or opponents, or to misguide and misinform the masses about perspectives on issues. Long-lasting prevailing incorrect and harmful ideas are a result of a vicious circle of lack of information or criticism or selfishness or insensitivity from the masses who then give support to the immoral discourse powerbrokers (in law, education, or the media, for example).

At OSU, there cannot be any debate on the issue of homosexuality (and consequently of sexuality), and views on the subject must by shaped by totalitarian control of speech, which amounts to passing down ignorance as education. This entails a totalitarian destruction of not only speech, but the criminilization of knowledge and debate itself.

Elais wrote:

How would you approach making colleges 'neutral' or 'broad' politically?. . .

It would seem that every subject, every professor, every student, every text would have to be slapped with a 'conservative' or 'liberal' label to be able to tell whether a campus is truly 'fair and balanced' and then how would you 'correct' any imbalance found in liberal and conservative universities/colleges?

It wouldn't require such a draconian solution. To start, universities would simply need to recognize that they are politically out of balance. Their faculties are completely out of step with, and often hateful towards, the donors and taxpayers who support them. Simply admitting that fact would be a giant step forward.

Next, increase information flow, which is part of what we're doing here. Put a spotlight on the real wackos, and humiliate them. Let donors and taxpayers see the filth they're funding.

Then drastically reduce the flow of federal funds to universities. Let individual states, donors, and students support the universities directly. The people who pay for universities should have a strong say in what they're paying for, but the intervening federal bureaucracy removes accountability.

On the long term, the only way to maintain the system is the honesty and intellectual integrity of the professors themselves. The core problem with modern academia is not such much that it's liberal, but that it's completely out of touch with---and ignorant of---what most of the country is thinking. Mr. Savage tried to point that out to his fellow committee members by referring to the Amazon rankings of the books he suggested, but the response was typical of modern academia: proud ignorance. They don't know what the rest of the country is thinking, and they don't care, because anyone who doesn't think like them is evil, evil, evil.

If you closely read the email from Mr. Savage that we have, I think you'll conclude that he is not particularly conservative. The fault for which he will be lynched is that he is intellectually honest. He simply couldn't stomach playing along with the idea that reading Jimmy Carter and Maria Shriver is some sort of bold and intellectually stimulating experience.

He refers specifically to the sixties, and I know exactly the point that he was trying to make: In their youth, the sixties kids who now have tenure saw themselves as boldly overcoming the cloistered and unchallenged orthodoxies of their elders. But today they simply cannot imagine that they have created a new orthodoxy, and their orthodoxy is every bit as sclerotic and flabby as the orthodoxy that they conquered in their youth. They're like communists: They honestly believe that their revolution will last forever, and can never be legitimately challenged. They know that they are right, right, right, and everyone who disagrees is wrong, wrong, wrong. They are the antithesis of what academicians should be.

I don't know how we clean the stables of these intellectual cowards and midgets. But it's going to be ugly, because the current situation cannot stand. Taxpayers and donors will not fund these people indefinitely.

Next, increase information flow, which is part of what we're doing here. Put a spotlight on the real wackos, and humiliate them. Let donors and taxpayers see the filth they're funding.

Would that include places like Liberty University or Bob Jones University?

What 'filth' do you object to? Liberal 'filth'?

The people who pay for universities should have a strong say in what they're paying for, but the intervening federal bureaucracy removes accountability

Not sure how that will translate into a 'fair and balanced' university. It seem like letting the people decide will result in an even worse situation. A 'one note' university, with the tune being set by the people. You assume that people wouldn't want a university that reflects their own narrow view, regardless if that is conservative or liberal? How would you guarantee 'fair and balanced' if the 'people' wind up demanding one political ideology?

What exactly is the country thinking? There is a helluva lot of thinking people, but they aren't all of one mind or one thought. One cannot generalize in one fell swoop that they all think the same thing. The most I think can be said is that most people would want their kid to get the best education.

How is Mr. Savage intellectually honest? He maybe be BSing himself.

I judge from your tone that you feel that the 'liberals' are right right right and that everyone else is wrong, wrong, wrong. Cannot the same be said for conservatives? That conservatives believe that they are right right right and everyone else is wrong? Not quite a great arguement.

You are using a great deal of venomous language. Don't suppose you can tone done the emotional rhetoric?

Elais:

Would that include places like Liberty University or Bob Jones University?

Sure, except that I doubt that they receive much federal funding.

What 'filth' do you object to? Liberal 'filth'?

There are so many examples I'll just pick a few off the top of my head: openly anti-semitic rallies led by professors, classes in porn, calling the 9/11 victims "Little Eichmanns", and open hatred in general towards this country, its people, and its traditions. If you want more examples, I'm sure that there are some books with plenty of them.

Not sure how that will translate into a 'fair and balanced' university. It seem like letting the people decide will result in an even worse situation. A 'one note' university, with the tune being set by the people.

There are many people, and many universities. People can fund what they want to fund. Don't you think that's preferable to forcing people to fund viewpoints that they hate?

I judge from your tone that . . .

Don't even bother finishing that sentence. I'm not interested in discussing the stereotypes that you want to project onto me. I wrote some actual words. Judge those.

You are using a great deal of venomous language. Don't suppose you can tone done the emotional rhetoric?

What specific language do you find venemous or emotional?

SLS 1L: For me, it's axiomatic that you shouldn't force people to fund ideas that they hate. If you disagree, then please list the ideas that you hate that I should be able to force you to fund.

Ben,

in your perfect world nobody would be taxed to subsidize a cause they do not support. But the best government we've come up with is a majoritarian democracy. Presently, we are fighting a war (which I happen to support, but), that half the country would just as soon not pay for. Do you propose we give them back their money? We compromise the freedom of our wallets by entrusting it in part to the judgment of our elected leaders. The notion that it's possible to run a country by having taxpayers pay only for things they like is patently absurd.

Freder:

And if you were to define Western liberal democracies by the conditions during the same time period, you would say that it included economic regimentation. The U.S. and Great Britain acheived a much higher degree of centralization of their economies during World War II than Germany or Italy ever did (granted, this was partially due to the extreme corruption, cronyism, and incompetence of the German and Italian governments).

The Wikipedia entry on the New Deal states that Fascism was originally spoken of as an economic philosophy:

"Fascism" in the 21st century has very strong connotations of mass murder and death camps, making it a highly loaded term. However in the 1930s it was treated as a technical term regarding how much control in a capitalist system the government should have over business.

That Fascism began as an economic movement is indisputable. How it differs or resembles European social democracy and the New Deal depends on the types of control, not the levels, that each economic system prescribes.

Michael O'D: "My question is for Eugene Volokh and the other administrators of this site more than for the various commenters here. Eugene, your original criticism of the lawsuit was from the principled position that it's a silly, over-sensitive attack on open debate in universities, regardless of the merit of the ideas under attack.

Now re-read Clayton's comments. They have degenerated into a gay-bashing diatribe. Granted, he isn't calling for blood or pouring kerosine onto stacks of logs, but the tenor of his comments is openly hostile to the very idea of homosexuality."
---------------------------------------
Whence we conclude that pro-homosexuals are working to criminilize any view-point that exposes how dogmatic and ignorant their set of theories on human sexuality is.

Anyone who questions any of your pro-homosexuality tenets is automatically framed as saying a « gay-bashing diatribe ». This hysterical vilification is what poisons an academic department and the pursuit of knowledge and leads to the OSU event that generated this tread.

Michael O'D: "Here's my question. What is it like, Eugene and VC administrators, to link arms with such people as our Clayton? […] But what is it like to realize that many of your fellow travelers are simply bigots?"

It’s not any different than realizing many fellow travelers are so intellectually weak and dishonest they must characterize anyone who disagrees with them as « full of hate » or any other ad hominen attack, when it’s clear as day light that’s not the motivation for questioning your extremely dogmatic hermetic views on homosexuality (or any other aspect of human sexuality).

Clayton is putting forth questions for debate that you want to suppress and censor, moreover that you want to vilify, but not discuss. A perfect form of bigotry.

Suggesting Anti-Gay Book for Inclusion in University Reading Program = Sexual Orientation Harassment?

Desperately grasping at outside "thought law"= Freshman Orientation Harassment!

Ben Bateman,

I judge from your tone that .. ..,
Don't even bother finishing that sentence. I'm not interested in discussing the stereotypes that you want to project onto me. I wrote some actual words. Judge those.

Let it be known to all present here, I am sooooo going to plagerize that for elsewhere!

And yes, I offically de-lurk.

Ben,

I largely agree with you. I don't see a problem, generally speaking, with the government attaching strings to the money it gives to schools. Moreover, insofar as you suggest that we petition government to (1) exercise greater discretion over the spending of taxpayer funds in academia; and (2) to altogether decrease its role in funding colleges, I think I agree. That is of course a long way from giving individual taxpayers an "axiomatic" veto power over things they don't like. :)

Ben,


I'm not sure what stereotype you are, except perhaps a conservative who doesn't like liberals. But you are correct that I should judge your words.

Language I find venomous. 'Wacko', 'humiliate them', 'filth', 'evil evil evil', 'intellectual cowards and midgets'. Doesn't exactly sounds like the language of love does it? It's not even impartial language.

If you are what you eat, perhaps we all are what we type?

Elais wrote:

I also thought one of the foundations of going to a university is not only to learn, but to broaden your intellectual and life experience, not to look in a mirror and admire your own opinion.

Yes, that was the theory twenty or thirty years ago, and it's still a common excuse. But only an excuse.

If broadening your intellectual experience is such a wonderful thing, then maybe the professors who want to lynch Mr. Savage should try it on themselves. That's why this story strikes such a chord. In his email, Mr. Savage was calling his colleagues' attention to how narrow their own thinking was. That's exactly what academicians should do. But the other professors didn't merely refuse to broaden their intellectual horizons; they were indignant at the very idea that they should do so.

Maybe you could ask Larry Summers about how much interest in intellectual breadth and diversity he found at Harvard.

The intellectual breadth argument still held some force fifteen or twenty years ago. But today it's just a cliche. On any issue that touches politics, today's academy isn't about intellectual breadth; it's about ideological purity and conformity.

Elais,

Most sectarian colleges existed before the leftward trend in elite private and public academia. (Most are seminaries, I suspect.) But yes, the commonality of narrow ideology at major universities will create market niches that entrepreneurs will seek to fulfill.

Comparing the intellectual diversity and the degree and means of enforcement of such at sectarian and nominally nonsectarian colleges would make a fascinating study.

JosephSlater:

But let's be clear on one thing: liberals in academia, like liberals everywhere, are very much aware that some folks in the country are homophobic. That fact is really pretty hard to miss. We hear you, we understand what you're saying, and we think you're wrong.

I disagree. You don't understand conservatism's thinking on homosexuality if you think that 'homophobic' summarizes it.
Elais:

I think the ideological 'purity' and 'conformity' is far more in force in conservative/religions colleges.

How would you measure that empirically?

Add one more category: the treatment of dissidents. In one sense the comparison between sectarian and nominally nonsectarian schools is apples and oranges. The former are expected to discriminate with regard to hiring and admissions on ideological grounds - but only if a) the reason for discrimination is in the bylaws, and b) the reason is clearly tied to the school's ideology. A Baptist seminary woudl be PC for excluding blacks, questionable for excluding amillennialists, and not PC at all for excluding atheists or Catholics.

In the realm of civil discourse, sectarian and nonsectarian institutions are apples and oranges. Do students shout down speakers they don't like, or otherwise engage in hysteria-driven protests? Destroy campus publications they don't like? Besiege a professor with crank phone calls in the middle of the night? (That happened at the University of Texas/Austin once to a Professor Alan Gribben.) Demand the ouster of college officials because they express beliefs that have no bearing on their academic qualifications? (*cough* Lawrence Summers *cough*)

One more thing: keep a score on each category being assessed. Two colleges could have the same hypothetical Political Correctness score and differ widely in how PC manifests on those campuses.

Federal Dog,

What I listed are possible empirical studies that COULD be done in response to Clayton's question. I did not claim they already existed. Please follow the thread more closely.

Alan K Henderson,

Interesting suggestions. That ties into the problem of attempting to identify text, students, professors, behaviors etc as skewing to a partisan ideology in order to ensure more 'fair and balanced' campuses that many seem to feel being too 'liberal' for their tastes. I wonder if conservative/religious campuses would appreciate demands to make their own campuses more welcoming of liberal ideology?