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"Every institution is going to protect itself. And the way an institution protects itself is by weeding out people who might threaten [it]." Noam Chomsky
"[A]cademics can be activists as long as they do nothing to challenge the structure of the university, or anyone's power within it. If you want to make an issue of labor conditions in Soweto, great, you're a wonderful humanitarian; if you want to make an issue of labor conditions for the janitors who clean your office, that's an entirely different story." David Graeber
"One thing I've learned in academia is no one much cares what your politics are as long as you don't do anything about them. You can espouse the most radical positions imaginable, as long as you're willing to be a hypocrite about them. The moment you give any signs that you might not be a hypocrite, that you might be capable of standing on principle even when it's not politically convenient, then everything's different." David Graeber
"[T]he basic institutional role and function of the schools, and why they're supported, is to provide an ideological service: there's a real selection for obedience and conformity. And I think that process starts in kindergarten, actually." Noam Chomsky
An Education Experiment at
UCLA
How might a person
coming into one of the nation's very top ranked
graduate schools of education test the accuracy of the
above quotes on our educational institutions? That is, given that the
purpose of any
experiment is to test the accuracy of numerous sorts of
claims to knowledge and understanding, what might this experiment look
like?
Before proposing this
experiment, I need to make clear that it rests on the following
assumption: If the UCLA Chancellor's (or any other UCLA faculty
member's) UCLA-going son or daughter were sent home (permanently) from
UCLA with the University documents found on this website, UCLA and its Chancellor
would be reduced to an international laughingstock.
On this
assumption, I propose this fairly straightforward experiment: Get kicked
out of the university. Then collect the documents found on the pages of this website. Next, come back to the university with
the facts and circumstances found in these documents and offer them,
through this website, to faculty members of the university. Then wait
to see if or how these faculty members respond.
In fact, I was
able to see if and how faculty of the UCLA Graduate School of Education
would respond to my advisor's argument and other UCLA faculty statements made
on my termination. In Spring 2007, I sent this letter (below left) with this enclosure to fifty (50) faculty members within the
Graduate School of Education. I received this reply from a departmental administrator. Shortly
thereafter, I sent this follow-up email (below center) to the same fifty faculty members; I
received this second reply from the departmental administrator.
In Autumn 2007, I sent this second follow-up email (below right) to the same fifty faculty
members. I received this third reply from the departmental administrator. (The names of the fifty UCLA GSE&IS faculty members are found at the bottom of the page.)
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| May 24th, 2007
Dear Dr. Reynaldo Macias,
As a UCLA GSE&IS faculty member, you are the first line of defense of the academic and ethical principles at the University. Indeed, your bringing these principles to bear on your own findings of fact defines the mission of the University as well as your own scholarship. The facts of my termination from a doctoral program within UCLA's GSE&IS directly call upon you to defend these founding principles of the University.
I am enclosing a page containing UCLA faculty members' statements made to UCLA administrators or me following my termination. And save for the first, their statements followed out of their careful examination of these facts.
Here I am asking you, in your full capacity as a scholar committed to bringing the University's academic and ethical principles to bear on facts, to examine the facts of my termination for yourself. And as I am also sending this letter to several of your colleagues within the GSE&IS, perhaps you can then meet to decide collectively on a course of action that you all agree will honor (and demonstrate) the depth of your commitment to your academic profession and to the University's own academic and ethical principles.
Should you be interested in examining these facts, I have those documentary records on which the enclosed UCLA faculty members' conclusions were made, and of course I would be happy to share them with you.
Sincerely,
/s/
Tom Wilde
| | [June 11, 2007]
Dear Dr. Peter McLaren,
A few weeks back, I sent a letter to you asking whether you'd like to examine the facts of my termination from the GSE&IS. I also enclosed a page containing statements on my termination made by a few of your colleagues (one of these statements, made by your colleague, Dr. Val Rust, read: "This [termination] seems to be a wrong to right"). Even if you have no interest in these facts, you are surely aware that when the university terminates its students and then its own faculty members follow up on these terminations with such statements as these, the operation of the entire institution is called into serious question. (I've appended the faculty members' statements on my termination.)
A week after I sent you that letter, I received an email from a GSE&IS departmental administrator stating that it "serves as a reply" for you and the other faculty members who received my letter, and that my termination is to stand as it is. In other words, as this administrator's message serves as your reply, you're not only saying you have no interest in the facts of my termination, but also that your colleagues' statements on my termination do not concern (or involve) you in any way.
It also follows from this administrator's message that the university, perhaps without your knowledge, is suspending your obligations to the academic and ethical principles that establish both your own academic career and the university itself. And it seems clear enough that when faculty members allow their university to suspend their own academic and ethical obligations and thereby allow the university to operate in a manner that undermines their own scholarly integrity, the work of the university on behalf of all its students is being irreparably corrupted — and these academics are then properly seen as being active participants in this corruption.
It also seems clear enough that the action you take in the present situation defines, to a crucial extent, your academic profession and the field of education itself. Of course, your inaction (should you choose to do nothing in this situation) appears to have already been defined for you by the university — a definition that is plainly in diametric opposition to the actual meaning of education.
Again, should you be interested in examining the facts of my termination so that you might come to your own conclusions on how the university is operating (in your name), I would be happy to share these facts with you.
Sincerely,
Tom Wilde
| | [September 22, 2007]
Dear Dr. Carlos Torres,
This past spring, I sent you a letter and a follow-up email concerning the facts of my termination from the GSE&IS. I also included a page of faculty members' statements offered to me following my termination. I asked whether you'd be interested in examining these facts, as those faculty members quoted had.
A few of your colleagues' responses to my inquiry suggest to me that I could offer a perspective from which the matter might be more clearly seen.
Let us suppose that you were aware of facts showing that a graduate student was violating the University's academic and ethical principles. Let us suppose further that several of your colleagues also were aware of these facts. Finally, let us suppose that you and your colleagues chose to remain mute on the matter in the face of the University's stated mission and the University's entire faculty and student population.
It is quite unlikely that professors would engage in this conduct, for reasons that hardly need stating. But to be sure, were these professors to knowingly disregard students' violating the University's academic and ethical principles, they would be seen as active participants in conduct that destroys the foundation and credibility of this University (to say nothing of their own credibility).
Another faculty member in the Education Department has told me that he is willing to examine the facts of my termination if he is asked to by one of his colleagues. Therefore, I would like to know if you would be interested in examining these facts along with him.
Sincerely,
Tom Wilde
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| The fifty (50) faculty
members of UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
(GSEIS) who were sent the above letter, enclosure, and follow-up
emails:
Marvin Alkin, Walter Allen, Alexander Astin, Helen Astin,
Alison Bailey, Eva Baker, Stuart Biegel, James Catterall, Mitchell
Chang, Burton Clark, Arthur Cohen, Sol Cohen, Robert Cooper, Annamarie
François, Frederick Erickson, Norma Feshbach, Megan Franke, Francine
Gelbwachs, Kris Gutiérrez, Tyrone Howard, Sandra Harding, Sylvia
Hurtado, Douglas Kellner, Marilyn Kourilsky, Eduardo Lopez, Reynaldo
Macias, José-Felipe Martinez, Patricia McDonough, Peter McLaren, Ernest
Morrell, Bengt Muthén, Edith Mukudi Omwami, Don Nakanishi, Jeannie
Oakes, Marjorie Orellana, John Rogers, Mike Rose, José Luis Santos,
Linda Sax, Michael Seltzer, Daniel Solorzano, Carlos Torres, Eugene
Tucker, Concepcion Valadez, Rae Jeane Williams, Noreen Webb, Carl
Weinberg, Wellford Wilms, Merlin Wittrock, Jeffrey Wood.
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