The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library knows a thing or two about the controversy surrounding censorship. Vonnegut has found his novels on the banned books list repeatedly and, last year, writer Corey Michael Dalton spent Banned Books Week imprisoned within a jail cell made out of banned books at the Library. The Library was also proud to have author Howard Zinn, an American academic historian, author, playwright, and social activist who died in 2010, serve as honorary member of their board of directors. It was this relationship that was very much heartfelt when Zinn posthumously found himself at the center of a fanatical political agenda by former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who was entrusted to promote academic freedom when he became president of Purdue University last January. Instead, he has used his connections to crush his political opponents with an iron fist in his quest to control thought by hijacking the educational system in Indiana.
The efforts he took to silence voices he disagreed with while governor have raised new questions about Daniels’ intentions as president of a leading research university. Critics have questioned his lack of academic credentials upon his hiring by a board of trustees he himself appointed while governor.
Several emails obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act show that Daniels took deliberate measures during his term as governor to eliminate what he considered ‘liberal breeding grounds’ such as Indiana’s public universities. He requested that all of historian Howard Zinn’s books be banned from classrooms and orchestrated a “cleanup” of courses he called “propaganda.”
During one email exchange with supporters, Daniels discussed cutting public funds to a program for no other reason than that it was run by one of his toughest criticizers, Charles Little, executive director of the Indiana Urban Schools Association and an Indiana professor.
The devious, dark room tactics by Daniels to limit knowledge and the creation of independent thought are disgusting and a serious overreach of the public trust.
A People’s History of the United States is a 1980 non-fiction book by American historian and political scientist Howard Zinn. In the book, Zinn presents American history through the eyes of the common people rather than by glamorizing and extoling the lives of political and economic elites. The text has been assigned as reading in many high schools and colleges across the United States, resulting in a change in the focus of historical work, which now includes stories and historical figures previously ignored. The book was a runner-up in 1980 for the National Book Award.
Granted, “A People’s History” did tell a controversial view of history, to say the least. Zinn charged Christopher Columbus and other explorers with genocide, picked apart presidents from Andrew Jackson to Franklin D. Roosevelt, and celebrated workers and advocates of social change.
In a 1998 interview with The Associated Press, Zinn acknowledged he was not writing an objective or a complete history. He said his book was a response to traditional works, a style that is now referred to in publishing as narrative non-fiction.
“There’s no such thing as a whole story; every story is incomplete,” Zinn said. “My idea was the orthodox viewpoint has already been done a thousand times.”
However, Daniels sees all of Zinn’s works in a different light so he is using his political connections to make sure no one in the state of Indiana reads them- not just because they are liberal, but because he disagrees with them on a personal level and seeks to deprive the citizens of Indiana the right to decide for themselves.
In an email sent to top state education officials, including then-Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Bennett, he stated:
“This terrible anti-American academic has finally passed away,” Daniels said, as a callously insensitive reference to Zinn’s death in 2010.
While the passing of such an accomplished figure saddened much of the academic world, Daniels had this to say, “The obits and commentaries mentioned his book ‘A People’s History of the United States‘ is the ‘textbook of choice in high schools and colleges around the country.’ It is a truly execrable, anti-factual piece of disinformation that misstates American history on every page. Can someone assure me that is not in use anywhere in Indiana? If it is, how do we get rid of it before more young people are force-fed a totally false version of our history?”
Scott Jenkins, Daniels’ education adviser, was the first to respond to the governor’s inquisition, noting that Zinn’s book was being used at Indiana University courses when discussing civil rights, feminism, and labor movements.
“This crap should not be accepted for any credit by the state. No student will be better taught because someone sat through this session. Which board has jurisdiction over what counts and what doesn’t?” Daniels retorted, in an email dated three minutes later.
“Sounds like we need a cleanup of what is credit-worthy in ‘professional development’ and what is not. Who will take charge,” Daniels asked after one of his top fundraisers- and a state school board member- suggested that Bennett and Indiana Commissioner for Higher Education, Teresa Lubbers, review courses in universities across the state in order to “force to daylight a lot of excrement.”
Just seven minutes later, Daniels signed off on the plan.
“Go for it,” he said. “Disqualify propaganda and highlight (if there is any) the more useful offerings. Don’t the ed schools have at least some substantive PD [professional development] courseware to upgrade knowledge of math, science, etc?” [sic]
Daniels stood by his demand that Zinn be excluded from Indiana classrooms in a statement last week.
“We must not falsely teach American history in our schools,” he told The Associated Press in an email.
“We have a law requiring state textbook oversight to guard against frauds like Zinn, and it was encouraging to find that no Hoosier school district had inflicted his book on its students.”
However, the Association of American Universities, which represents Purdue and other top research universities, defines academic freedom as “the freedom of university faculty to produce and disseminate knowledge through research, teaching, and service, without undue constraint.”
“This story has had some legs to it,” said Robert Dion, chair of the political science department at the University of Evansville, “and I think it gets to a sense of unease in the academic world about the intrusion of outside forces, whether they are corporate forces or partisan forces.
“And in the case of Mitch Daniels, he embodies both of them- a business-minded conservative Republican stepping into the world of academe, where he is viewed with suspicion.”
Oh, that board of trustees that Daniels handpicked and appointed approved a $58,149 bonus to reward him for his first 6 months on the job, but the students of Purdue University have seen their tuition rates rise an average of 6% annually over the last 10 years.
Daniels fears any idea that doesn’t fit within his narrow and jaded world view, so he’ll join up with Texas, Arizona, and Tennessee in a style of education in which a head-in-the-sand view of history is written not by respectable leaders, but by overzealous idiots pushing their own personal agenda at the expense of free choice and thought.
The only “true” history there is to people like Daniels is one which is rose-colored, cookie cutter, and which paints the American past as nothing less than a work by Norman Rockwell. Reality, unfortunately, is not so simple and pure.
For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/
Sources: Indy Star, Associated Press, Huffington Post, George Mason University History News Network, Citizen Times, Boston Globe obituary
© 2013 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions
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