UCLA Distinguished & Emeritus Professors

"The intellectual tradition is one of servility to power, and if I didn't betray it I'd be ashamed of myself."

Noam Chomsky

On UCLA Distinguished & Emeritus Professors

In 2007, I contacted UCLA Distinguished Professor, Edward Keenan, to ask if he would be willing to join other UCLA faculty members to examine the facts of my termination and then possibly take up my case with UCLA administrators.

In response to my question, Distinguished Professor Keenan wrote back:

"[T]o be clear, I am not willing to form a committee with you and some other faculty you might round up in order to launch a move to reinstate you. I regard this as hopeless, because a random collection of faculty (however distinguished) has no status within the university power structure. No one would be obliged to pay any attention to us."

(page in progress...)

"Incidentally, part of the genius of this aspect of the higher education system is that it can get people to sell out even while they think they're doing exactly the right thing. So some young person going into academia will say to themself, "Look, I'm going to be a real radical here"— and you can be, as long as you adapt yourself to these categories which guarantee that you'll never ask the right questions, and that you'll never even look at the right questions. But you don't feel like you're selling out, you're not saying "I'm working for the ruling class" or anything like that — you're not, you're being a Marxist economist or something. But the effect is, they've totally neutralized you." (original emphases)

Noam Chomsky

<< Previous | Page 22 | Next >>

· Weeding 101 at UCLA ·

The University Offers A Lesson On How It Weeds Out Students