Correspondence |
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Dear Editor, Professor Thomas N. Ingersoll of Ohio State University, Lima, accuses David Beito, KC Johnson, and me of publishing "a masterpiece of bad history" (OAH Newsletter, August 2005, 5). If I followed Ingersoll's historical methods, I would simply have said that he thought we had published "a masterpiece." The "masterpiece" at issue is: Beito, Johnson, and Luker, "Consulting All Sides on 'Speech Codes'" (OAH Newsletter, May 2005, 11). Our article appealed to our fellow historians to recognize that there are threats to freedom of speech and inquiry that come from both the right and the left and argued for an alliance across the ideological spectrum against all such threats. It began and concluded with the threat to Ward Churchill's freedom of speech at the According to Ingersoll, "bad history" occurs when the historian challenges threats to conservative speech. Nowhere does Ingersoll challenge Beito, Johnson, and Luker on the facts of the three cases nor does he mention our defense of Ward Churchill's free speech rights. We have published "bad history," says Ingersoll, because we have construed politically correct speech codes as a threat to the free speech rights of conservatives. Speech on campus must be less free than it is "on the street corner," he argues, because offensive speech cannot be tolerated in the academy. That—not our 'bad history'—is the nub of the matter in Ingersoll's letter. Because he leaves out facts inconvenient to his argument by ignoring our defense of Ward Churchill's free speech rights and by failing to dispute our construction of the facts in the other three cases, his own history is "bad." Ingersoll is wrong, not just because his history is blindered by ideology, but because his own sense of free academic speech is impoverished. If we are to be free, we must be prepared to be offended occasionally by other people's speech and we must be prepared to defend their right to express ideas and opinions we do not share. Decent people will not use offensive language and self-respecting people may shun those who use it, but speech on campus should not be any less free than it is elsewhere in the world. I'd defend the right of my critics to speak their minds and my own right to defend myself against the worst of their charges. I'd defend Professor Ingersoll's right to publish accusations that I have published "bad history." As with others of my critics, one reason for defending his speech and publication rights is that he publishes evidence that refutes his own argument. He publishes his own "bad history." —Ralph E. Luker, Editor |
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