I received a copy of the following letter sent to UC Berkeley Chancellor Berdahl by San Francisco State University alumnus Alex Horovitz. In general, I agree with the letter, with one caveat: I am not sure that Hatem Bazian is qualified for every position he holds at UC Berkeley, irrespective of his recent comments. (For example, the Chancellor should never have made a supporter of suicide terrorism a member of his "Special advisory committee on Iraq-related matters.")

I'm not exactly sure what job Dr. Bazian holds at Berkeley.* I sent an email on April 16 to the Near Eastern Studies deparment inquring about his position; so far, that e-mail has gone unanswered.

I should note that Chancellor Berdahl came to Berkeley as a strong supporter of the State of Israel, and I have no reason to believe that his position has changed. (See the post directly below this one.)

Here is Alex Horovitz's letter:

Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl
Office of the Chancellor
200 California Hall #1500
Berkeley, CA 94720-1500
Telephone: (510) 642-7464

Chancellor Berdahl,

Let me say at the outset that I find the things that Dr. Bazian tends to promote to be, for the most part, beyond the pale of what civilized people encourage from each other in a free exchange of ideas. I was a student at SFSU with him in the late 80's and he went so far as to ensure that I was prevented from being confirmed as an appointee to the Student Judicial Council. He did so on the grounds that I supported the state of Israel. As a supporter of Israel I was therefore a Zionist; and, because I was a Zionist I was therefore a racist. Needless to say, I am not Dr. Bazian's biggest fan.

That being said, I urge that you continue to allow Dr. Bazian to promote his views unfettered by the University without any consideration whatsoever to the contents of his speech. Berkeley has a long and proud tradition of promoting the free expression of ideas and certainly it would be wrong bow to public pressure of the moment, no matter how strong, and curb the free and unfettered expression of an individual.

By way of example, people seem to be very upset about a speech he gave at a rally in San Francisco on April 10th of this year. Dr. Bazian in addressing the crowd can be heard saying the following:

Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Are you angry? [Yeah!] Well, we've been watching intifada in Palestine, we've been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don't have an intifada in this country? Because it seem[s] to me, that we are comfortable in where we are, watching CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, and all these mainstream... giving us a window to the world while the world is being managed from Washington, from New York, from every other place in here in San Francisco: Chevron, Bechtel, [Carlyle?] Group, Halliburton; every one of those lying, cheating, stealing, deceiving individuals are in our country and we're sitting here and watching the world pass by, people being bombed, and it's about time that we have an intifada in this country that change[s] fundamentally the political dynamics in here. And we know every-- They're gonna say some Palestinian being too radical -- well, you haven't seen radicalism yet!

[ http://users.lmi.net/zombie/sf_rally_april_10_2004/movies/SF_4-10-4_Hatem_Bazian1.avi ]

That Dr. Bazian clearly calls for an uprising here in the United States should have no bearing on his constitutional right to promote his ideas. I have always believed that people, especially people in a University environment, should have the freedom to explore and promote any idea. We should not care about the idea itself for the marketplace of ideas will sort out the strength or weakness of the idea in time.

I ask that you trust the many reasonable people who will counter the views of Dr. Bazian. Their criticism will be far more effective than any policy or action the University might come up with in checking the views of Dr. Bazian. When we allow people the freedom to speak, we also allow them the freedom to be criticized for their speech. No further checks or balances are needed nor would they benefit us in the future when other unpopular ideas (and perhaps even important and just ones) arise.

Thank you for your consideration,

Alex

Alex Horovitz
Chief Technical Officer &
V.P. Software Engineering

Brookeside Group, Inc.
524 Main Street
Acton, Massachusetts 01720

www.brookeside.com

EDIT: * On June 14, 2004, the Near Eastern Studies department at UC Berkeley replied to my e-mail, explaning that a technical error caused much of the Department's email to go to an account that was not in use. Dr. Bazian is a lecturer.

To agree with tis letter is to misunderstand free speech. Bazian has the constitutional right to lable all supporters of Israel's right to exist as racists, to support the violent destruction of the democratic state of israel and it's 6 million citizens, even to say that the sun revolves around the earth (the only astronomical theory that can legally be taught in a Saudi univerisyt.)

What Bazian does not have is a "right" to a Berkely job and salary line.

Berkely has not only the right but the responsibility to choose the best professors. An astronomer who taught the Ptolomaic astronomy that Saudi Arabian sutdents are taught would be a poor choice for the Berkeley Department of Astornomy.

And a man who so misunderstands nationalism as to teach that Zionism equals racism is a poor choice for the Berkeley Department of Islamic Studies.

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Just with choosing responsible scholars to staff our public universities.

I think that you are mixing up two issues here, (a) academic freedom and (b) freedom of speech (as guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution). If my understanding of Mr. Horovitz's letter is correct, he is using the former, and not the latter, as the basis for his argument.

I am not going to argue here over whether Dr. Bazian is qualified for his position at UC Berkeley. I don't even know what his position is, as the Near Eastern Studies department never replied to the email I sent over a month ago.

I will say, however, that I do believe that the priciple of academic freedom should protect faculty members from being fired for political opinions expressed off of campus. Otherwise, pro-Israel academics will lose their jobs in droves...