Posted on: Monday, November 4, 2002

COUNTERPOINT
So much for academic freedom

By Robert M. Rees
Moderator of 'Olelo Television's "counterpoint" and Hawai'i Public Radio's "Talk of the Islands"

University of Hawai'i President Evan Dobelle and Manoa Chancellor Peter Englert have worked hard to provide a vision of great things to come. Yet, when they came across a genuine test of a great university, both covered their eyes while the UH distinguished itself as a closed and even backward society.

The incident began when Ken Conklin, who holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston University, and who has been vehemently aggressive in his opposition to what he sees as race-based special programs for Hawaiians, was signed on as a pro bono teacher by a UH outreach program, the Academy for Lifelong Learning. Conklin, at the request of the elderly students, was invited to teach a non-credit course — "Hawaiian Sovereignty: Another Perspective" — on a weekly basis for five weeks beginning Sept. 18.

When the course was announced, academy coordinator Rebecca Goodman began to receive threatening calls. On Aug. 28, according to her report to campus security, a man visited her office. He called her "a Hitler lover," and informed her that "bad things" would happen to the students if the class wasn't canceled.

The class was canceled, but Goodman contacted the dean of social sciences, Richard Dubanoski, for help. Wrote Goodman: "I am fearful ... (but) I feel it's important to stand up to intimidation."

Dubanoski, who along with Goodman and the elderly students is one of the heroes of this story, sent Goodman's e-mail to the Bachman Hall triumvirate of Dobelle, Englert and Karl Kim, the vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Noted Dubanoski: "The issue presented (here) strikes at the heart of our university's values. May I suggest that we meet to discuss how we want to address this matter."

The reactions of the recipients were less than stalwart. Dobelle did not respond. A month later, he explained to Ka Leo O Hawai'i, the student newspaper, that "no direct response" had been required of him.

Englert also failed to respond, and later described Dubanoski's e-mail as "non-information."

Englert has explained to this writer that there seemed no "urgency" to the matter. Besides, added Englert in what became a recurring mantra, "With the class canceled, there was no reason to do anything."

Kim did do something. Whereas Englert had detected no urgency or even information in Dubanoski's e-mail, it prompted Kim to call campus security.

After that, however, Kim, too, closed his eyes. "The class got canceled," he explains. "If it had been a regular class, I would have gotten more involved."

The event would have been rationalized out of existence had not The Honolulu Advertiser gotten wind of it. It published an account of the incident, followed by a Sept. 6 editorial, "Unpopular opinions must thrive on campus."

Englert states that he did not see The Advertiser story or editorial. It was on his own accord, he says, and "within a week or so" of receiving Dubanoski's e-mail that he turned the issue over to the senate faculty executive committee with a request that the senate faculty develop a presentation on academic freedom for "toward the end of the semester."

The president of the senate faculty, Michael Forman, recalls there was concern on Englert's part, but "no feeling of immediacy because the course was canceled."

In spite of all these heads in the sand and the mantra of "course canceled," the Academy for Lifelong Learning, prompted by The Advertiser's editorial and the pleadings of Conklin, did take action on its own. In a decision that Englert only learned of a month later, the course was quietly reinstated.

A student in Conklin's class reports that the students, who gather at an undisclosed location on campus for safety, have done something almost unheard of. Excited by what they were learning, they asked their volunteer professor to extend his course for another two weeks.