For several weeks now, a resolution on academic freedom and free speech I forwarded to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee has languished in bureaucratic limbo. Well, today the inevitable happened, and though I was never given a chance to address the group and state my case, the resolution was torpedoed by a prominent math professor. The resolution was “too wordy,” the complaint went. It would be impossible to pass, because it would get bogged down in all kinds of on-the-floor editing. This notwithstanding the same document passing the faculty senates of such sloppy places as The University of Chicago and Princeton University. But hey, what do they know. They’re not in NWTN. We have standards.
Everything I have tried to achieve this semester has turned to ashes. The thing is, this time I’m not even upset about it because I saw this craven, shortsighted response coming. I now have to decide whether or not I’m going to prepare another salvo and further argument. It may be best to just let it burn.
