Star Professors Channel Sixties

Noted academics seem to view the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations as a means of recapturing the 1960s, particularly if they missed the latter decade on the first go-round.  For one thing, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has endorsed them.

“The AAUP’s Council and Collective Bargaining Congress endorsed the Occupy movement last week–a move that, judging from the volume and intensity of e-mail responses, evoked strong feelings among our membership,” Gwendolyn Bradley writes on the Academe Blog. “For many reasons–including the fact that student access to higher education is increasingly threatened by mounting costs and loans and the fact that faculty themselves have become predominantly low-wage workers with few protections for academic freedom–faculty at more and more institutions are issuing statements of support for or participating in the movement.”

“To name just those that crossed my computer screen in the last day or two: Oberlin College, Temple University, Columbia University, the New School, the City University of New York, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of California, the Cal State system.” Bradley is a senior program officer at the AAUP.

“What are faculty at your institution doing?,”  she asks, challenging her audience of academic insiders.

Speaking of Columbia, one of its star faculty members, Joseph Stiglitz, no stranger to this site, has bonded with OWS participants in Manhattan. “As the new Occupy Wall Street demonstrations bring to a boil long-simmering anger over growing inequality and entrenched corporate power in the U.S., Roosevelt Institute Fellows and staff have been weighing in on their personal experiences with the movement, as well as their hopes and concerns regarding the future of the protests,” the Roosevelt Institute reports.” Click here to see all of our recent activity around the growing movement:”

“From Joseph Stiglitz, Jeff Madrick, and Rob Johnson visiting Zuccotti Park, to Dorian Warren’s appearances on ABC News and Democracy Now! discussing their successes, to Mike Konczal’s explanation of why they are right to target the 1% (which got a record number of hits on New Deal 2.0!).”

As for Stiglitz, I noted recently that “To blame the subprime mortgage crisis on the Iraq War may be merely bizarre.”

“To do so, after letting the likely culprit off the hook before the fact—Fannie Mae—is in another zone of questionable practices, particularly when that agency commissioned the essay Mr. Stiglitz attached his name to.”

One wonders if the politically connected Stiglitz, who serves on a UN panel, exhorted the demonstrators to “fight the power.” If so, he better duck.

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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