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The Hypocrisy of the AAUP Listserv

Tomorrow they will be gone!

AAUP

The post below the line was sent to  the AAUP.  MY POST WAS CENSORED. Sighhhhhh …… 

Academics read.

Most citizens associate  academics with free expression, reading and discussing what has been written by colleagues from  a day ago or even a year ago.

Many citizens also worry that speech on campus is censored, not by the right but by the left.   Their  view, wrong as it may be, is especially relevant today in the era of TRUMP and his threats of violence.

The UW is especially affected by this atmosphere because we are facing the possibility of becoming the first major US research university to turn its faculty governance over to the radical pubic union SEIU while the Freedom Foundation, a far right counterpart of the SEIU, has used the Public Records process to get all the relevant emails.

As a UW Prof, I would think the faculty would want us to have our discussions in a  modern way .. something like a forum where well thought out words could be recalled for some time. 

**************CENSORED*************

Sadly, that is not the case for any of the posts on the AAUP listserv .

No matter how well written, today’s posts on this listserv will poof off into the curved space of email depths  .. driven by the blackhole of email search.

For those who do not want their inbox filled up with trivia, listserv emails add to the clutter, rather like the AM/FM/TV waves that obstruct astronomer’s ability to listen for messages from intelligent life outside our little sphere.

In contrast a blog is organized, easily searched … more like a hard disk than a file cabinet with folders full of paper.
For those who do like full inboxes,  most blogs can actually send email notices to those who want the stuff in their inboxes!
Of course, as editor of THE-Ave.US, I have an interest.  But I am not proposing that TA be the UW blog.  We are meant  more  as a virtual pub like the sort of places faculty, students and others gather around real universities .. you know like the fabled Harvard or Berkeley?
 
I believe the UW, or better yet the AAUP or the Senate, should sponsor a blog.  

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Posted 18 Mar 2016 by theaveeditor in Misc., UW

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0 Comments Add Yours ↓

  1. AAUP listserv #
    03.21.2016 07:44
    1

    Your request to the AAUP mailing list

    Posting of your message titled “A Response to Robert Wood’s Post
    About the LIstserv”

    has been rejected by the list moderator. The moderator gave the
    following reason for rejecting your request:

    “Many thanks for submitting your email to AAUP-UW Faculty Issues and
    Concerns mailing list. We have considered your message, but our
    decision is that it would be better placed elsewhere.

    Unfortunately, we now accept only a fraction of the many messages we
    receive each week. We are sorry to be unhelpful on this occasion,
    though we would like you to think of us again in the future.

    Yours sincerely, Abraham Flaxman”

    Any questions or comments should be directed to the list administrator
    at:

    [email protected]