Tag Archives: Georgetown University

Loyalty and Academic Freedom

Posted on by under activism, anarchism, Fatwas, Neutrality and Complicity, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

The case of Jonathan A. C. Brown
A friend is circulating an Open Letter to Interim President Robert Groves of Georgetown University in defense of Professor Jonathan A.C. Brown, the Alwaleed bin Talal chair of Islamic Civilisation in the School of Foreign Service. Apparently, during the recent US-Israel-Iran war, Brown made this comment on X:

“I’m not an expert, but I assume Iran could still get a bomb easily. I hope Iran does some symbolic strike on a base, then everyone stops,” Brown wrote on X.

Brown has tenure and a chaired professorship at Georgetown, but apparently the comment was regarded as frightening enough to call for his suspension. The President forced Brown to delete the tweet, and he’s now been suspended. He’s also been removed as chair of his department, which I believe was intended as punishment. Continue reading →

The Lives of Others

Posted on by under COVID-19

Some universities have honor codes that oblige students to inform on other students who have broken provisions of the code. Some of these codes govern off-campus behavior, and some govern non-academic behavior. Under some conditions, you can be expelled for violation, and once expelled, you don’t get a pro-rated tuition refund. Incredible, isn’t it? Sounds a lot like the Stasi under East German Communism, no?

Not really. It just sounds that way if you’re completely consumed in self-righteous hysteria, have zero real-time, feasible proposals for how to stop the spread of the coronavirus on campus, but prefer to watch its spread from the Olympian heights of your suburban home, relieved of the responsibility of having to do anything about it. At that level of tone deafness, of course, anything will sound like anything.