Rumsfeld’s plan to become a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution has become the focus of protest. Now I think that Rumsfeld fucked up Iraq pretty badly and is thereby responsible for thousands if not millions (remember the Iraqis) of deaths. Given his popularity, especially among the left, it is no surprise that some liberals would protest this appointment. Some people would protest the fact that he was getting any job more prestigious than janitor. However, for Stanford professors to demand he not be given this appointment is an unacceptable attempt to tear down academic freedom and turn academic appointments into popularity contests.

First of all let’s make it clear that the protesters really are trying to subject academic appointments to a political test. Sure, they might raise a smoke screen about Rumsfeld not having authored many (any?) academic papers but if this was really the pivotal concern they would be demanding universities end the general practice of hiring ex-politicians as fellows. No one has given any plausible reason to believe that Rumsfeld would not have at least as much to offer the campus community in terms of real world experience in government and inside knowledge of his eventful years in government as other politicians who are offered these kinds of appointments. In other words it is as clear as day that those protesting this appointment of Rumsfeld are demanding that an otherwise valuable addition to the campus community be passed over for his political views¹.

Indeed this isn’t too far from what is being said in the petition against Rumsfeld’s appointment. A petition the New York Times says is being signed by many professors.

We view the appointment as fundamentally incompatible with the ethical values of truthfulness, tolerance, disinterested enquiry, respect for national and international laws and care for the opinions, property and lives of others to which Stanford is inalienably committed

Whoa. This is fucking nuts. Are they saying that Stanford should refuse to hire professors who argue against respecting national laws? What about academics who argue that government lie more or that the values of tolerance are overstated? Even if you actually believe that these sorts of views should disqualify one for a fellowship it’s merely a political belief that Rumsfeld is particularly at odds with these values. A good case could be made that Rumsfeld is more truthful than many of his equivalents and cares more for the property and lives of others than the protesters. He may have made a stupid mistake in invading Iraq but at least he seems to be concerned about the fate of the Iraqi people unlike many of the anti-war protesters who don’t seem to have even stopped to seriously consider what is in their interest. Ultimately what you believe about how good a defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld was is irrelevant. Rumsfeld is not advocating any anti-scientific or beyond the pale view like intelligent design or white supremacy and however strongly you might disagree with his politics or choices as defense secretary these aren’t good reasons to oppose his fellowship.

So several professors have called into the kqed show about this topic while I’ve been writing this and justified their opposition to the appointment by claiming that Donald Rumsfeld’s involvement with Abu Gharab make him a human rights violator and a violator of international law. Presumably the argument is that it would be reasounable to deny Hitler or Stalin appointments no matter what their academic credentials and it is thus reasonable to deny Donald Rumsfeld an appointment on the same grounds. This is pure sophistry to justify acting on their strong emotional reaction to Rumsfeld.

Not only is there insufficient evidence that Rumsfeld was more than negligent or cultivated an approving attitude of harsh terrorism to deny him a job even if he had personally tortured prisoners for information this still wouldn’t justify denying him the appointment. The view that it is reasonable to torture people for information when you believe it will stop more suffering than it causes is hardly beyond the academic pale and if you believe that we’ve made Iraq worse than it was in Saddam you are tacitly agreeing that sometimes human rights violations are a net positive (when they hold sectarian violence in check). The international law point is pure bullshit since there is more clear cut reason to believe Clinton violated international law with his (laudable) intervention in Bosnia than Rumsfeld did and if people really believed in this justification they would be getting out treaties and citing chapter and verse instead of using them to stand in for their vague emotional feelings on the issue.

Ultimately I’m skeptical of the idea that any views or prior actions justify denying academic appointments² but even if some views or actions are beyond the pale the mere fact that Bush was reelected just four years ago with Rumsfeld by his side is enough to show that Rumsfeld doesn’t fall into this category. You can try to play clever word games to reclassify just the people you really really don’t like fall outside the protection of academic freedom but if academic freedom is going to be worth anything it needs to offer a robust protection of divergent views and there is no robust distinction that can be drawn between Rumsfeld and other similar appointments. Ironically Rumsfeld is just going to come give some talks at Stanford, his days of causing harm are over, but the professors protesting his appointment are attacking important academic values. Does that mean that by their standard it would be fair to oppose hiring them?