Statements by the Organizers of "Intellectuals and the Institution: What's in the Service of the Nation?"

Princeton, February 1st, 2006.

A FEW THOUGHTS FROM THE ORGANIZERS OF THE PUBLIC FORUM

To clarify the concerns and criticisms that motivated us to organize tonight’s event, we offer the campus community some brief statements from its five principal organizers. As you will see, even though we agree that our University’s conduct in relation to the government is scandalous, we disagree on many points. A centralized, monolithic criticism of the University’s role was the last thing we intended to offer. To that end, we are publishing a sample of the diversity of our thoughts on the public forum and the issues we hope it addresses.

The last thing we need is consistent, institutionalized deference to government on the part of intellectuals. I fear this is what we have before us today. A public official comes to speak at Princeton and our university administrators provide nothing but backup and kind words of introduction. This is not about individual political views. I have no reason to believe Dean Slaughter or President Tilghman personally support Secretary Rice’s policies. When they come on stage and make the statements they do, they are not revealing their personal views, but acting on their belief that university administrators should greet public officials with polite bipartisan praise and a big smile. The politeness is fine. But would Slaughter want us to believe that a long “career” or a commitment to “public service” is valuable in itself, without any reference to the projects and accomplishments of that career or the content of that so-called “service?” Service is no value I want to live by unless it is a call for each of us to act out our responsibility to our community. The way the Princeton administration throws around the term, it seems more like a release from responsibility. How can it make sense to talk of a commitment to public service as if it could make up for harmful or destructive policies? Do we hold Rice less responsible for her actions in the Bush administration because she is supposed to be an “honorable” public servant? There is a truly frightening careerism lurking behind this usage of the term. At an institution where far too many students will move uncritically into futures in business or government, it is dangerous for our public administrators to suggest that what really matters is having a long career, with only secondary concern for the public. After all, if this were the case, it could be said of any politician that they are committed to “public service.” Where in this hollow notion of service can we find any room for the idea that s ometimes non-cooperation is the only ethical way to relate to government?

--Tim Hambourger

I do not object to the University’s invitation of figures like Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Michael Chertoff, much less to their speaking at prominent campus events. However, one of the things I do find objectionable – and, in several cases, truly unacceptable – is the insufficiently critical and ultimately subservient manner in which these events were structured. At minimum, I expect my public official to solicit and to be responsive to the concerns of her public. Similarly, I expect my university to organize speaking events with public officials in such a way that free and open exchange can take place. If the organizers of an event can only get an official to visit campus by ensuring that she is not subjected to critical exposure, then they have an obligation, unfortunate as it may be, to cancel that invitation. If they fail to meet that minimal standard, not only will they make it all but impossible for the audience, qua citizens, to hold that public offi cial accountable for her conduct; they will also make it harder for the University to be considered a site of intellectual integrity. I remain disturbed by Dean Slaughter's public statement that Rice's career exemplifies the values of the Woodrow Wilson School—a claim that may reasonably be taken to extend to the University as a whole. When speaking on her own behalf, Dean Slaughter is of course entitled to say what she likes. However, in making those remarks publicly in her official capacity as dean, she appears to be speaking for the School and its politically diverse members, and also to be endorsing the guest’s conduct on their behalf. Thus, I see the forum tonight as an opportunity for members of the university community to dissociate themselves from Dean Slaughter's remarks in public. For if her remarks accurately express what the Woodrow Wilson School and Princeton University stand for, many of us should dissociate ourselves from those institutions.

--Bright Limm

Believe it or not: after all this fuss I have no problem whatsoever with the idea of having war criminals come speak at Princeton. What I take issue with, and will for as long as it lasts, is the arrangement by which nobody will be able to ask Colin Powell about, for example, his opinion on two facts: (1) at the exact time he was here (Feb 2004), the Bush administration was being forced to yield to an independent investigation into the “flawed” WMD reports in Iraq; and (2) he himself seems to have changed his mind sometime between the lead-up to Bush’s first “election” and the present, since at that pre-Bush era he publicly declared he had intelligence that Iraq had developed no WMD at all… Nobody asks this sort of thing. Instead, Colin Powell gets the Crystal Tiger Award. And to make things worse, he gets it on my behalf: I’m supposed to want to give it to him! And when the person who supposedly represents me and my interests and concerns (the representative of th e student body) gives it to him at the podium, people clap! There’s another sense to the word “clap,” one that has to do with chains, to be “clapped in chains.” If he’s going to come here at all, then he should be prepared to be clapped in words. That’s what happens to all intellectuals and academics who give talks at universities. People ask them difficult questions and no-one’s unhappy about it, not even the intellectual or academic who spoke. He or she gives the talk precisely because he or she wants that. If Colin Powell or any other war criminal is going to be deemed “worthy” of giving a talk in a place like this, then he or she is going to have to be happy and willing to be clapped in words.

--Andrea Valenzuela

With this title - "Intellectuals and the Institution: What is in the Service of the Nation?” - we wish to emphasize the many meanings of that which is usually taken for granted. Who or what does one speak of when one invokes "the nation"? What voices are excluded or displaced by the institutions that make up the nation, be they academic, religious, corporate, or governmental? What pressures do these entities exert upon the public voice of intellectuals? Furthermore, we wish to put into question the very terms of the discussion, in order to ask: Can one "serve the nation and all nations" by defending the use of violence in ways that breach international codes of conduct, treaties, laws, and human rights? Can one celebrate an individual's commitment to service even if, from his or her public position, he or she endorses policies that destroy cities, historical and cultural legacies, the environment, and thousands of innocent human lives? Can intellectuals think or rethink fore ign and domestic policy while brushing aside the voices of those whom that policy most affects? Needless to say, our distress does not arise from a specific partisan position; we do not speak as Democrats or as Republicans. Our questions challenge representatives of all political affiliations.

--Fernando Montero

The views expressed above are exclusively the author’s own, and we each take full responsibility for them. These ideas may not reflect those of our panelists, co-sponsors and financial supporters, to whom we are all tremendously grateful. We submit these statements to you not to preach, but to illustrate the spirit of the Public Forum. -- The Organizers