Letter from Francisco Gil-White to Robert DeRubeis, chairman of the UPENN psychology department

Below is the text of a letter that I sent to Robert DeRubeis, chairman of the UPENN psychology department, after getting a second email threat from Paul Rozin.

Francisco Gil-White
__________________________________________________________

From: Francisco Gil-White
Assistant Professor of Psychology
University of Pennsylvania

To: Robert DeRubeis
Chairman, Psychology Dept.
University of Pennsylvania
3815 Walnut Street
Philadelphia PA 19104

I am sorry that I have to take up your time with this matter, but after lengthy consideration I have decided that, since you are my chairman, and since the department is considering my reappointment, I must bring to your attention matters that are critical to the integrity of that process. As you will see below, I am neither acting in haste nor jumping to conclusions. Despite the considerable anguish this has caused me, and despite the fact that it was my right to bring this up, I have waited quite a long time before addressing you in this manner because of the tangle of personal and professional issues.

I am very fond of Paul Rozin, and grateful that he brought my academic research to the department’s attention, which he has loudly championed inside and outside the department, where I have happily made my home. The last thing I would like is to hurt Paul, and what I am doing now gives me no pleasure. I want to give Paul the benefit of the doubt, and I believe it quite possible that he himself has been pressured by others on this matter. But I also cannot reach any firm conclusions on this, and what matters, ultimately, are not Paul’s deepest motivations, but his recent undertakings, for they have material consequences for me. Hence I have a duty to myself.

Paul Rozin is putting my employment at risk in ways that are unethical, contrary to recommended practice and established procedure (not to mention the very spirit of academic evaluations), contrary to what is stipulated in our Faculty Handbook (the statutes of our corporation), contrary to the explicit agreement that you and I reached, and, not insignificantly, illegal under the US Constitution. At the end of this letter I have appended Paul’s last email to me on this matter, which left me speechless, and which I will refer to in what follows.

I expect that you are unaware of these developments. Thus, I must provide you with some context, so that the full meaning of the email may be understood. Paul was assigned to me by the department as my official mentor. As such, he takes a leading role in my reappointment process and is also supposed to coach me through it. One expects that the coaching will have to do with discussions of my teaching, my research, my plans for the future, preparing my CV, and so forth. In fact, however, although Paul and I have met several times to discuss reappointment, our time has been almost entirely consumed by Paul’s attempts to make me desist from writing investigative journalism for Emperor’s Clothes. According to him, my journalism jeopardizes my continued employment at the University of Pennsylvania.

At first this was framed in terms of concern for me. Paul said he doubted that anybody among our faculty would make an issue of my journalism but feared that people outside the department might object and seek to derail my reappointment or, later, my tenure. In one of these meetings with him I was led to understand that you thought my writing for Emperor’s Clothes was a problem. To clarify where you stood, I asked you to meet me, which we did, as you will recall, over a beer. I was relieved to find that your concern was to defend me, not to censor me. You explained that somebody, probably from outside the department, might make a fuss about this work, and you wanted to make sure that you had the right arguments to defend me. You agreed with me that my journalism should have zero bearing on considerations for my reappointment or tenure, and you did not even hint that I should stop writing it. The argument to defend me, we both concurred, was simple and obvious: what I write for Emperor’s Clothes is journalism, written for a media company. It is not published in academic journals. Hence, it is no different from a myriad articles other professors are writing for the New York Times, etc., and which certainly never become part of their dossier for reappointment or tenure -- nor should they. We agreed that some changes to my own webpage would help make this clearer, and such changes were made.

Of course, this agreement between us was not a favor to me. You were simply giving me a private assurance that the department would abide by what is required of it according to the official policy of the University of Pennsylvania. As stated in the Faculty Handbook:

Our meeting led me to think that the matter had been put to rest: the department would defend me, as required, from any attempts to link my journalism to the process of reappointment, and you assumed that responsibility. Any attempts by members of the senior faculty to make me desist from writing for Emperor’s Clothes in order to ‘protect me,’ however well intentioned, would henceforth be in violation of our explicit agreement. The only protection I needed, as you and I had agreed, was protection from precisely this kind of pressure. I thus notified Paul of our meeting and its content. This is documented because I also reminded Paul in writing (as you can see from the emails appended).

The reason a reminder became necessary is that, despite what you told me, and despite my relaying this to Paul Rozin, he nevertheless acted at the expense of the time intended to adequately prepare me for the reappointment process, and in contradiction to the policy pertaining to this very issue, insisting more vigorously than before that I cease from my journalistic endeavors. You may recall that I even sent you an email seeking clarification, and you and I met for a second time, in my office, where you reaffirmed the agreement we had reached before, and explained to me that the department was not changing its policy.

However, Paul’s insistence on this matter intensified further, disconcertingly. I was getting the distinct impression that the person with an objection to my journalism was not outside but inside the department: Paul Rozin. And since Paul is my official mentor, and responsible for coaching me through my reappointment process, and leading it, this was sending a quasi-official message to me that the department’s main issue under consideration for reappointment (since it occupied almost all of my mentor’s time with me on this topic) was my journalism! Seeking to clarify this matter definitively, I wrote to Paul, stating unambiguously that I would not surrender my journalistic activities and that, as per the agreement I had reached with my chairman, I would expect him to honor the department’s policy and vigorously defend me if anybody objected to my reappointment on the basis of my journalism (see appended emails). In response, he sent me the email that is our focus.

In this email, I can agree with the first sentence (“I am afraid you need protection...”), but then only ironically. It is difficult to know where to begin listing its problems, but I suppose I will start in the middle, with Paul’s reply to my statement, which was that he would not defend me. Actually, Paul’s reply is a bit incoherent, because he says:

“I will not defend your right to say anything you want in class. You don't have that right. No one does.”

In fact, the University of Pennsylvania Faculty Handbook explicitly states: “The teacher is entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing his or her subject” (see above), and they set this sentence off as its own paragraph, thus giving it special importance. So it appears that the University of Pennsylvania disagrees with Paul Rozin. Be that as it may, I never said I expected Paul to defend my right to say anything I want in class. And I have never expressed to him that I believe a professor should be able to say anything at all. What I said is that I expected him to defend me from efforts to link my journalism with my reappointment process. But his answer to me was clear: he would not defend me. It thus appears that if anybody inside or outside the department opposes my reappointment on the grounds that I write for Emperor’s Clothes, Paul will take their side—that is, assuming that he does not take it upon himself to make sure the objection is raised in the reappointment committee. If any further evidence were needed on this point, I submit the last sentence of Paul’s email, where he ‘recommends’ that:

I anticipate a natural inclination to give this sentence a charitable interpretation, and so I must stop to consider it. The charitable interpretation says that, lurking behind Paul’s statement is a premise that academics cannot have political convictions, or else that these cannot be so intense as to compel the writing of articles for the press. Thus, if an academic has such convictions, by this logic, he is best advised to pursue an alternative career. From this point of view, Paul is dispensing what he considers realistic and helpful career advice.

Even should we accept this charitable interpretation, it is in direct contradiction to what is stipulated in the University of Pennsylvania Faculty Handbook:

“The University imposes no limitation on the freedom of the faculty in the choice of fields of inquiry or upon the media of public dissemination of the results obtained.”[2]

The various fields of inquiry that figure in my Emperor’s Clothes articles are therefore explicitly not excluded by the university’s policies, and neither is the medium. So the explicit meaning of Paul’s last sentence, and the premise behind its charitable interpretation, both contradict University of Pennsylvania written policy.

I must point out, however, that giving Paul’s last sentence this charitable interpretation really is difficult, because its premise is obviously empirically unsupported. It is certainly not incompatible with my profession to have strongly felt political convictions, even should these lead me to write for the press. Hundreds of professors are writing political articles in the media (most famously, linguistics professor Noam Chomsky). My own investigative articles are not, in fact, political (they make no policy recommendations, they don’t suggest that people call their representatives, or vote for a given political party, etc.). But that is beside the point. Even if my articles were ‘political speech,’ rather than investigative journalism which just happens to document that the US government misrepresents the truth, they would be a drop in the vast ocean of political articles written by university professors in the press. Hence, the charitable interpretation of Paul’s closing sentence plunges us into an absurdity, because even should Paul be unaware of U. of P. policy, it stretches belief that he has not noticed how many professors routinely write political articles for the press.

There is an alternative interpretation of Paul’s closing sentence that does not require positing absurdities. This is the view that, in his capacity as my mentor, who coaches me through reappointment, and takes a leading role in it, which therefore means he exerts a disproportionate amount of power over the process, he is making a threat: cease writing for Emperor’s Clothes, or forfeit your employment as an academic.

I must point out that I am backing into this interpretation, reluctantly, and only because I cannot -- even taking Paul’s closing sentence all by itself -- make sense of the more charitable possibility. And when the sentence is put in context, this second interpretation unfortunately acquires a great deal more support, for it fits perfectly with Paul’s other activities surrounding my reappointment process, which have repeatedly violated the agreement I reached with my chairman, the nature of which was conveyed to Paul more than once, including in writing. Finally, this second interpretation also fits perfectly with the rest of Paul’s email, as we shall see.

Since, in the email I am discussing, Paul now makes what I teach in class the central issue, this deserves some attention. Paul charges that:

As Paul’s email makes clear, this is a reference to the fact that I have a grand total of one lecture in which I tell my students about former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. In this lecture, I demonstrate for my students that Milosevic said one thing in his speech at Kosovo Polje, in 1989, and that the mainstream Western media reported him, with one voice, as saying the diametric opposite (despite the fact that, as I also demonstrate, the media knew better).

Anybody who reads the above article can confirm what I showed, and I have it in writing from Paul that, in his view, the documentation in this piece is impeccable. He is so confident about this that he asked me once to forward him the link so that he could impress someone interested in the Asch Center with this work, because he thought this person would like this in particular (I have the email I sent Paul about this). I also have it in writing from Paul that he agrees the topic of the media misrepresentation of Milosevic’s words is perfectly germane to the subject of my class. His exact words: “I agree that bringing some of your Yugoslavia stuff into your biocultural course is relevant to the subject of the course” (consult the emails appended at the end). The reason is simple: my class treats in depth the topic of why certain beliefs spread and others don’t, and hence an excellent case to consider is when everybody believes a falsehood. Since I have studied this example thoroughly, and since an educator will naturally make use of examples he understands well, I have used it.

If by Paul’s own admission the example is impeccably documented and germane, and if it occupies only one half of one lecture of my course, what then is the objection to including this material in my class? Am I to understand that the University of Pennsylvania does not allow its professors to talk about Yugoslavia in their courses? But in just five minutes of looking online, I was able to find five Penn professors who talk about Yugoslavia in their courses. I list them in the footnote.[3]

There are certainly reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions on my speech, and I do not challenge these. For example, I may neither criticize nor defend US policy at 4 am with a bullhorn under the dormitory windows. But aside from these reasonable restrictions, the university is required by law to exercise no viewpoint discrimination, and to ensure that its procedures and policies concerning the speech of its professors are rigorous with respect to content neutrality. Since the University of Pennsylvania has no objection to its professors bringing up the subject of Yugoslavia when the material presented agrees with US official claims, as other professors are doing, then to prevent me from doing the same merely because I have documented contradictions to those official claims is to exercise viewpoint discrimination and to lapse in the enforcement of content neutrality.

I must point out that I did not share any ‘political belief’ of mine with my students in my lecture on Milosevic. What I did was share with them documentation that Paul Rozin has agreed in writing is impeccable and germane to my class, in the context of puzzling over why everybody believes a particular falsehood, which helps us address the larger issues in the course having to do with why and how certain ideas spread better than others. I fail to see how any of this is ‘politics.’ But since Paul incongruously insists to me that this amounts to “mixing your politics and your teaching,” I am left with only one hypothesis for why he demands that I not present this material in class. This hypothesis says that Paul Rozin finds contradicting the US government -- even when by his own written admission the data is good and relevant -- somehow politically objectionable. And since he tells me that by doing this I am “treading very dangerous ground,” he sounds like, well, like a cop. In other words, this too sounds like a threat.

The hypothesis that Paul Rozin is opposed to anything associated with Emperor’s Clothes because the work contradicts the official line of the US government, is again one that I reluctantly back into. As you will see below, this hypothesis admits of tests, and the rest of Paul’s email provides data that are dramatically consistent with it.

The most obvious alternative hypothesis is that Paul’s concern is what he says it is: that he believes political views should not be expressed in the classroom. What is puzzling from the point of view of this alternative hypothesis is that Paul did not make an issue of the lectures where I do share my political and moral views with my students. For example, I have a lecture where I address the debate concerning Western feminist opposition to female circumcision in Africa (which opponents of the practice label ‘female genital mutilation’). This is to give my students an example of how mutual perceptions between cultures are affected by local moral and aesthetic commitments, especially when those commitments are acquired during childhood. This is germane to the course because I am supposed to be teaching cultural psychology, which deals extensively with moral ideas and their effects, and in fact the assigned reading on this topic is by Richard Shweder, one of the leading lights in that field and the man who coined the label ‘cultural psychology.’ I also have a lecture on IQ testing cross-culturally; one on the question of race; another on ethnic perceptions; etc. In all of these I share with my students what my own political and moral views are. Not because I see my class as an exercise in political indoctrination, but because I consider that I have not merely a right, but an obligation to tell my students what my own values and biases are, so that they may weigh my presentation of controversial material and reach their own conclusions about the fairness or unfairness of this presentation. It is a simple issue of full disclosure (i.e. the very opposite of propaganda), and I am very careful to tell my students that they are not required or expected to agree with my moral and political views. In fact, I sent an email to my students on this point some time ago, right after my lecture on female circumcision, so that this was perfectly clear to them (you are welcome to look at it, should you deem it appropriate). To close this point, if Paul really had an objection to the raising of political issues in class, he could have chosen one of the lectures where in fact I did just that. What he did instead is choose the one lecture that has any connection to my work for Emperor’s Clothes, a lecture in which I do not in fact share my political or moral views, but do present documentation contradicting official claims by the US government. This test thus supports the hypothesis that what Paul really wants is for me to desist from journalistic activities which expose the US government’s scandals, and which I publish on Emperor’s Clothes.

Should this point require clarification, I emphasize that I don’t believe there is anything wrong with sharing my political views with my students -- on the contrary. And the American Association of University Professors agrees. In its handbook on Academic Freedom and Tenure, it states (p.35-36):

“The teacher is entitled to freedom in the classroom in discussing his subject, but he should not introduce into his teaching controversial matter which has no relation to his subject [my italics].”[4]

“Some courses of study require consideration of matter on which the teacher is not in all respects expert; thus the teacher of English composition or literature may have to deal with writings about race relations, sexual mores, or social philosophy. A teacher handling mixed responsibilities of this type ordinarily indicates the limits of his expert judgment, and should not be subject to particular scrutiny because he may deal with controversial issues [my italics].”

Clearly the AAUP considers controversial topics to be objectionable only if they are not germane, and advises full disclosure from professors on the limits of their expertise. If students -- in order to put a professor’s presentation in context and judge its fairness -- are entitled to know the degree of authority with which he speaks about a controversial topic, then surely the same logic recommends that the professor also explain his political and moral views. Such full disclosure with controversial issues in class is what responsible and non-patronizing educators give their students. It is important because in social science it is simply impossible not to raise political questions. A professor of public policy, or education, for example, must address political issues in almost every single lecture. In the case of psychology, one simply cannot address the literature on prejudice and stereotyping without veering at least occasionally into the relevant political debates. I have seen my colleague John Sabini teach this topic, and political and moral considerations (including his own personal views) were certainly not absent, and, as in my case, the matter was obviously one of simple disclosure, rather than preaching.

Paul Rozin takes a different view. In his email, by way of exemplifying the behavior that he finds appropriate, he says, “I am opposed to Bush, capital punishment, and many other things, but I do not bring this up in class.” I think Paul does a disservice to his students if the topics he discusses in class are in any way relevant to these particular beliefs, and it prevents students from putting his presentation in the proper perspective. One could therefore say that Paul really does inappropriately mix his teaching and his politics, because one’s politics will necessarily color one’s in-class presentation of controversial topics, and so keeping one’s views secret may give students the impression that they are expected to agree with a particular slant as a condition for doing well in the course (which is why I take pains to make clear to my students that this is not the case for them). In any case, keeping one’s relevant moral and political convictions to oneself in the context of a controversial class discussion does not appear in any way consonant with what the AAUP in fact recommends.

Paul’s email further alleges that two students who spoke to him expressed what Paul attempts to frame as discomfort stemming from my presentation in the Milosevic lecture. He writes:

This deserves a couple of comments. The first is that alleged hearsay concerning complaints against one of my lectures is entirely irrelevant. There are recognized channels for making complaints. The first and most obvious one is to write directly to me. This did not happen. The second obvious channel would be to write a criticism in the student evaluations. Not one student complained about my lecture on Milosevic. Another channel would be to speak to my chairman. But that has not happened either. Since no complaints about this lecture have emerged through the customary and recognized channels, there is nothing to talk about.

Moreover, there is simply no reason for any students to seek out Paul in order to complain about my course. Students are not aware that Paul is my mentor, and the proper channels for submitting complaints are the ones listed above. For these reasons, it follows that if any students indeed expressed anything to Paul about my lecture on Milosevic, this must be because Paul himself went out of his way to request such reactions. Why did he do this? It does not look good -- it has the ring of McCarthyism. Moreover, it appears that he asked them specifically about my Milosevic lecture. This again supports my hypothesis that what Paul objects to is material connected to my investigative journalism for Emperor’s Clothes, which work documents many important official US government claims to be false.

In any case, it is impossible to know that Paul, when he went looking for comments, did not lead the witness. But should Paul’s allegation be accepted at face value, then so should my reply. More than one student came up to me informally to tell me how great they thought my lecture on Milosevic was. (Not surprisingly, students seem to think that their university professors should strive to tell them the truth, not simply repeat to them what they’ve already heard on CNN.) One of my students (one of the top performers in my class) went out of his way to tell me that this had been by far the best lecture in the entire course, because it had brought all of the material covered in the semester together in a very meaningful way. He suggested that instead of doing it at the end, I could use this material in the beginning, posing it as a puzzle, and promising to my students that what they would learn in the course would help them understand it. I followed this recommendation in the present semester, and the students were literally on the edge of their seats, thoroughly enjoying themselves. I witnessed no discomfort whatever.

If Paul’s word and mine cancel each other out, then we are just left with the fact of no documentary evidence that anybody was at all inconvenienced by my lecture on Milosevic’s speech. However, we do have documentary evidence that this lecture was especially liked. In my current midterm evaluations, which I have shared with you so that my reappointment committee may take a look at them, there were only three lectures that students singled out for special praise. One was my lecture on FMG (‘female genital mutilation’), the other was my lecture on ‘race,’ and the third was my lecture on Milosevic’s speech. Since these are all controversial issues, this suggests that my students find me especially responsible and enlightening when it comes to delicate topics, and that this then leads them to have a special affection for these discussions. Here are the comments:

It is also worth mentioning that in these midterm evaluations, my grades have gone dramatically up. This is as a result of various changes I have made to improve the course. But the most salient and important change is the introductory lecture, which now features the Milosevic material prominently. This is therefore documentary evidence again supporting the thesis that my students like the Milosevic lecture in particular.

In closing, I turn once again to the AAUP’s handbook on Academic Freedom and Tenure, which stipulates (p.39):

The Constitution of my country, the United States of America, protects its citizens from discrimination in the workplace. This includes harassment at the hands of their employers because they have the ‘wrong’ sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, etc., and certainly because they have the ‘wrong’ political beliefs. John Sabini’s expression of his political beliefs when teaching controversial topics such as prejudice and stereotyping is certainly protected so long as the criterion of relevance to the course is satisfied. The fact that he had no trepidation sharing his political views communicates to me that the department does not make an issue of this with John Sabini. This is in harmony with the University of Pennsylvania Faculty Handbook, which in turn is in harmony with the US Constitution. I expect the standard to be fair and general, and not one that makes an exception for me or anybody else.

Because Paul is my official mentor, takes a leading role in the reappointment process, and is charged with coaching me through it, his behavior -- which in his own words stems from his objection to the fact that I express what he considers to be my political views in class -- is easily interpreted as illegal discrimination against me based on what my employer takes to be my political beliefs. Moreover, I have documentary evidence for every issue raised in this letter, which makes this matter quite actionable. However, the person with ultimate responsibility for setting standards and overseeing the ethical and legal integrity of the reappointment process is my chairman. Everything I know about my chairman leads me to believe that he does not agree with the kind of pressure that Paul has been subjecting me to -- on the contrary, considering the meeting we had and the agreement we reached. Our agreement stipulated that the department would honor University of Pennsylvania explicit policy, and the US Constitution, and protect me from precisely the sort of activities that Paul is engaging in. For this reason, in the hope that this can all be redressed quickly, and from now on with special vigilance to the protection of my rights, I bring this matter to your attention. I think the next step should be for the two of us to have a meeting where we discuss a solution that will be satisfactory to me. I am confident that an in-house solution is possible, and would much prefer it.

It is probably best if this letter can be kept confidential until you and I meet and discuss this, and I recommend it. I do not recommend sharing this letter with anybody before you and I have had a chance to speak. However, I doubt that we can find a solution that satisfies me that does not at the very least include sharing this letter, in full, with the various members of my reappointment committee, and with Paul. Please understand that any resulting embarrassment for Paul is something that affects me on a personal level, and distresses me greatly. Hence I would like to limit this embarrassment to the extent possible, so long as this accrues no injury to the protection of my career.

For reasons of having to document that this letter reached you (which I am sure you understand), I will be sending it to you not only in paper form but also as an email.

The email from Paul Rozin that forms the centerpiece of the above letter, which ends by stating that "you should resign your academic position, and move on to journalism":
http://www.hirhome.com/rozin2.htm

[1] II. FACULTY POLICIES AND PROCEDURES; II.A. Academic Freedom and Responsibility
http://www.upenn.edu/assoc-provost/handbook/ii_a.html

[2] “The University imposes no limitation on the freedom of the faculty in the choice of fields of inquiry or upon the media of public dissemination of the results obtained....

... the University recognizes its responsibility to the faculty to maintain a research environment in which unrestricted scholarship and freedom of inquiry may continue to thrive.

... The University recognizes that its faculty consists of self-motivated scholars and scientists; their participation in scholarly or scientific controversies does not involve the University beyond its general support. Such support is predicated on the University's confidence that its essential functions are best accomplished by freely permitting capable scholars to follow the search for truth wherever it may lead.”

Source: III. POLICIES AND PROCEDURES CONCERNING FACULTY RESEARCH
http://www.upenn.edu/assoc-provost/handbook/iii_a.html

[3] 1) Maurits van der Veen, Visiting Professor, Department of Political Science. He asks his students “What do the conflicts in the 'periphery' (Morocco, Bosnia) tell us about the nature of great power alliances?”
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~maurits/A12-Discussion.html

2) David L. Rousseau, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science. He asks his students: “Were the military interventions in Kosovo and Iraq successes? The purpose of this course is to provide you with the tools necessary to answer these”
http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/polisci/psci150/

3) Michael Lipson, Visiting Assistant Professor, Political Science. http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~mlipson/peacelinks.html#FYU http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~mlipson/398.html http://www.ssc.upenn.edu/polisci/courses/syllabi/Spring01/ps398-301s01.pdf http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~mlipson/3163final.html

4) Harry Reicher, Adjunct Professor of Law, Law School http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/holocaust/holocaust.htm#Yugo http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/holocaust/holocaust.htm

5) Al Filreis, Kelly Professor of English (whose website includes a mountain of “politics”
http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/balkans-atrocities.html http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/serb-trials.html

[4] Joughin, L. (1967). Academic freedom and tenure: A handbook of the American Association of University Professors. Madison, Milwaukee, and London: The University of Wisconsin Press.