Michael Pollan is a professor at UC Berkeley’s Journalism School, in addition to being the author of bestselling books such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma. He understands the importance of academic freedom, and that it doesn’t actually exist when under pressure from corporate donors, the university insists on having someone who disagrees with you share a stage with you while you argue for your ideas. It would be like mandating a creationist co-lecture a course on human evolution, or a racist co-lecture a course on the 20th century Civil Rights Movement.
So Pollan understands the importance of true academic freedom. And he understands the ways in which industrial agriculture tries to undermine it, having experienced a fight at the University of Wisconsin last month where Big Ag tried to pressure the university to cancel Pollan’s talk. UW refused, but did agree to hold a “panel” discussion the day after Pollan’s lecture, where Pollan shared the stage with the Big Ag version of global warming deniers.
The tactic is standard right-wing stuff. They refuse to let the progressive speak directly to an audience; progressives always have to be “balanced” by one or ideally more conservatives and defenders of industry. And they use that opportunity to not attack the intellectual arguments of the progressive, but to decry the “controversial” or “divisive” nature of the progressives’ remarks. Anything to muddy the waters.
This is the script being played out further down the Central Coast in San Luis Obispo, where Cal Poly SLO has caved to Big Ag and refused to let Michael Pollan give a scheduled lecture, instead insisting he be part of a “panel” discussion with a bunch of industry defenders:
Threatening to pull donations from the school, a major California agribusiness has succeeded in turning what was to be a campus lecture by Pollan tomorrow into a panel discussion involving Pollan, a meat-science expert and one of the largest organic growers in the U.S.
“While I understand the need to expose students to alternative views, I find it unacceptable that the university would provide Michael Pollan an unchallenged forum to promote his stand against conventional agricultural practices,” David E. Wood, chairman of the Harris Ranch Beef Co., wrote in a scathing Sept. 23 letter to the Cal Poly president.
Wood has pledged $150,000 toward a new meat processing plant on campus. In his letter, he said Pollan’s scheduled solo appearance had prompted him to “rethink my continued financial support of the university.” He also criticized an animal sciences professor who said that conventional feedlots like the one run by Harris Ranch were not a form of sustainable agriculture.
This is what happens when you systematically undermine and try to privatize higher education. Instead of having a faculty whose dedication is to the free pursuit of intellectual truths, you instead have a bunch of people whose academic freedom is limited to whatever pleases the corporate donors. Free thought and free expression ceases to exist – or becomes subject to the right-wing tactics described above, designed to prevent progressive ideas from getting a fair hearing.
Pollan sees this for exactly what it is:
Pollan, who teaches in the journalism program at UC Berkeley, has encountered resistance to his campus appearances from farm businesses in Washington and Wisconsin. “It’s part of what appears to be a more aggressive industry pushback against critics of industrial agriculture,” he said in an interview.
He said the Harris letter raised troubling questions about academic freedom.
“The issue is about whether the school is really free to explore diverse ideas about farming,” he said. “Is the principle of balance going to apply across the board? The next time Monsanto comes to speak at Cal Poly about why we need [genetically modified organisms] to feed the world, will there be a similar effort? Will I be invited back for that show?”
Cal Poly SLO has shown that in fact, it does not believe in the free exploration of diverse ideas. Instead it believes in whatever its donors want it to believe. The next step here would be for a bunch of creationists to offer a huge check to UC Berkeley only to threaten to withdraw it because of the work of Tim White.
And that kind of outcome is exactly what Arnold Schwarzenegger wants – a state where corporations are free to ruin the food supply, among other things, without fear of some professor being able to help Californians think about whether or not that’s actually a desirable thing.
If you’re familiar with
Summer camp for Republican white kidsCal Poly it shouldn’t surprise you. This is the same school that wouldn’t investigate or punish the kids who hung nooses and racial epithets about a year ago at the “Crop House.” The message was: you can be racist here.The SLO City Council is constantly trying to cope with the fallout from the student body, which is self-selected by acts of the administration like the one in the diary, and the one I just mentioned–and I forgot to add their slap on the wrist attitude towards fraternities that have literally killed their pledges in hazing–to attract a certain kind of very red-statish student.
There is almost no diversity. And by “diversity” I don’t mean there are no black students. I mean there is basically nothing but white kids.
Oh, and the local media acts like the place is friggin’ MIT and Harvard and Oxford combined. Did you know that Cal Poly invented everything known to man?
One of my dreams is that I write a book that is so consequential that big business feel threatened by me whenever I speak. The speaking engagement is (by itself) unimportant. What is important is the increased chance that students will come to realize that what Pallan is talking about is worth delving into. He changed forever how I eat. Read his book.
I was a student at Cal Poly in the late 60s and early 70s. A few of us were on the forefront of the environmental awakening and met with some success working through the school to make local changes.
I do, however, remember when my Geology professor — Dr Ralph Vrana — publicly opposed the building of Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant by PG&G. Ralph was an early discoverer of the Hosgri fault, which virtually ran under the proposed plant, and he was relentless in his opposition to the building of a nuclear power plant in its vicinity.
In his roles as scientist and teacher, he insisted upon seeking the truth and educating his students and the community about the dangers posed by the fault’s seismic activity. His testimony was dismissed and some was not allowed at all, and only after construction of the plant began did the existence of the fault surface “officially.” Extremely expensive reconstruction was required and it was deemed that the original seismic evaluation was inadequate.
Dr Vrana’s students always felt that PG&E had put undo pressure on Cal Poly to silence him. As I recall he was forced into retirement.