Eugene Coyle writes that in the early 70s when he was fired from a teaching
position, the newly appointed Poet Laureate, Robert Haas, an avowed
"Marxist" at the time, "kept his head down" and "was not evident in the
battle over my (and others) dismissals."
While not quite up to the high standards of political scandle to which we
have become accustomed today, it ought to be interesting enough in academic
circles: the new Poet Laureate is an untrustworthy fink. Coyle even suggests
that Haas' finking-out greased the road to the Poet Laureateship.
It is rare indeed that a Marxist fink gets to be Poet Laureate. So I asked
Coyle for the grounds on which he accuses Haas of being such a reprobate. I
do not know Haas, in fact I never heard of him until the appointment. But I
do believe it is unfair to make a public accusation without documenting the
charge, even if it happened over 20 years ago.
I was intrigued by Coyle's outing Haas as a self-proclaimed Marxist who
ducked the good fight. There seemed an implication that Haas, because he was
a Marxist, had a political obligation to defend Coyle almost without regard
to merit.
In a follow-up posting, Coyle tells us that he was "fired for the content of
the micro course I was teaching." Are we to concluded that Marxism, of one
kind or another, bestows the knowledge to judge the merit and achievement in
any field of academic endeavor; - economics, sociology, anthropology, linguist
ics, history, statistics, health care, etc? I hope Coyle is not resurrecting
this Stalinist perversion..
On the other hand, it is possible that Coyle is right to charge that Haas
slinked away when his political friends were being fired or denied tenure for
political reasons. When I was an AFT representative at the University of Calif
ornia in the 70s, from time to time we were able to get the evidence of
political victimization of radical faculty. The most egregious one I recall
was the denial of tenure to Tony Platt in Criminology at Berkeley even after
political discrimination was documented. And how many instances were never
unearthed because of the secrecy of the tenure evaluation system?
But there is no way of knowing what happened from Coyle's meager information.
Besides, is it not possible that Haas may not have had a high regards for
Coyle either as a teacher, economist or Marxist? Who knows?
To my mind the importance of the many fights over political discrimination in
academia is the value we need to place on fairness. No one ought better to
understand this than someone who claims to have been victimized. Fairness
demands that if you are not prepared to give the details to back up a public
accusation, then you don't go public. But to make the accusation or inuendo
without evidence is reprehensible. It is sad to see someone waste their 15
seconds of fame on a petty vandetta.
Sam Bottone
