There is opposition to the appointment of Alberto Gonzales as visiting professor (for a salary of $100,000) in the Department of Political Science at Texas Tech University. That opposition is internal as well as external. Texas--and Lubbock--and Texas Tech--are all places of far more diversity than the outside perspective might suggest. But, just as with the Bush Coup 2000, we on the inside need help from those outside: help us shine a light on this and help us prevent this appointment. See below.
Here's a take from inside the belly of the beast. I'm a tenured faculty member in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and one of the early signators of the petition opposing Alberto Gonzales's appointment as "Visiting Professor" in the Department of Political Science.
Texas Tech is a well-regarded (approaching Research 1 status) state-sponsored institution, enrolling about 28,000 students, in Lubbock Texas. Lubbock is, most notoriously, the place about which Bush II said "I want policy papers so simple that even the boys in Lubbock will understand them," but more credibly as one of the real founts of Texas music creativity: Buddy Holly, the Flatlanders, Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Bob Wills, and a host of others either came from the region or spent a lot of time here. Back in the '70s, for example, Stevie Ray Vaughan used to jam with BB King at the original Stubbs barbecue, and Natalie Maines's daddy and uncles still play dance-band gigs around the area. Lubbock has had a long history of very good underground music, mostly in the attempt to cope with a very isolated and rather backward cultural environment.
The O Brother line "Well, isn't this place a geographical oddity? Two weeks from everywhere!" really holds for Lubbock: we're distant not only geographically but also cognitively from anywhere else. The population is mostly Anglo, but the moderate-sized Hispanic and relatively small African-American and Native American communities do not tend to have much social intercourse with one another.
Lubbock's major industries are ranching, cotton & soybeans, and light tech. However, the city's cultural backwardness is mitigated by the presence of three major medical centers, a teaching hospital, and dozens of clinics. For many folks in West Texas and eastern New Mexico, Lubbock is "the big city".
Texas Tech was originally an agriculture school, founded in the '20s, to educate the offspring of ranchers and farmers, and it's only in about the last 25 years that it's become a major intellectual center. The law school, engineering & architecture programs, and School of Music (where I work) are all very highly ranked and, compared to UT-Austin or U North Texas (Dallas), far more affordable and with far better student-teacher contact hours. It, and the teaching hospital, are the major places for cross-community and cross-ethnicity interaction.
However, the population, both of the city and the campus, is skewed toward people who know comparatively little about the outside world. Most of the students come from either (a) small towns in OK and TX, or from the major metropolitan areas of Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. In the former case, these are kids who have maybe never met someone who was either a self-professed leftist, or non-Protestant or Catholic. In the latter, they tend to come from enclaves of conservative upper-class white privilege.
The result is that the students, as is often the case, are more conservative than their teachers, and that their experience is narrow and unformed. It means that opportunistic, unilateral, or cynical choices by upper administration often receive support from students who know no better. Our current chancellor is a former oil & gas lobbyist, appointed by Governor Rick Perry, and is a notoriously impolitic, conservative, opportunistic, and corrupt man. We have a relatively weak and indecisive Board of Regents, also appointed by the Governor, who are very reluctant to oppose the Chancellor.
But this is not a monochromatically conservative, ignorant, or intolerant place. It is a place in which almost every cultural or political initiative requires massive outreach and education. For example: given the musics I play, virtually every gig I do requires me to educate the audience about what they're hearing. Virtually every political initiative--up to and including the appointment of Gonzales--requires massive education to explain to community members, students, and faculty colleagues why Gonzales should not receive this appointment. In the courses I teach, I even have to be careful and articulate in introducing to students why the Bible is not necessarily to be treated as a definitive and comprehensively factual source. To their credit, when I do make this explanation, the students are typically neither offended nor condemnatory: rather, they are taken aback, and perhaps a bit disoriented, which I infer to result from their never having heard any adult authority figure express such opinions. They're not intolerant kids--they're ignorant kids. As a teacher, I choose to feel a clear obligation not to condemn but rather to educate.
There is a strong opposition here to the Gonzales appointment and to the Chancellor's numerous and analogous prior decisions. There is in fact a risk involved in protesting: the Chancellor has previously fired or hounded-out numerous parties who have opposed him, or who have simply declined to "get on board" with sufficiently slavish fervor.
Hence: signing the petition takes guts. Persons opposing the appointment need support and even, dare I say it, commendation. In the current (crappy) academic job market, risking your gig for an appointment outside your own department is a rather courageous thing to do. The Chancellor, whose nominal role is "from the curb out" and who has no formal role in any curricular or faculty issues, has already expressed that he isn't interested in and does not care about opposition.
The petition opposing the Gonzales appointment has now gone viral, covered extensively by local, regional, and national news outlets. CREDO has generated an initiative (see below) and the national media are beginning to address the story.
Action items:
- contact Governor Perry's office to let him know you oppose the appointment of Alberto Gonzales:
* Citizen's Opinion Hotline [for Texas callers]: (800) 252-9600
* Information and Referral and Opinion Hotline [for Austin, Texas and out-of-state callers]: (512) 463-1782
- If you are a Texas resident or a TTU alumnus, contact the local newspaper, the Avalanche-Journal, with a letter opposing the appointment of Alberto Gonzales:
* phone: (806) 762-8844; fax: (806) 744-9603
* to submit a letter to the Editor:
http://www.lubbockonline.com/...
- Sign CREDO's action initiative opposing the appointment of Alberto Gonzales: http://act.credoaction.com/...
- The Board of Regents need to know your opposition to the appointment of Alberto Gonzales. They are meeting NEXT WEEKEND (August 6-7) so this is a hugely crucial moment. If any of the Members live in your community, please contact them, mention their upcoming meeting, describe the other actions you have taken (1-3 above, for example) to oppose Gonzales, and reiterate your opposition. Board of Regents list here: http://www.texastech.edu/.... I would suggest that you pay particular attentio to the members of the Academic, Clinical, and Student Affairs Committee: Mark Griffin (chair), Nancy Neal, Daniel "Dan" T. Serna, Kyle Miller (student regent). Mr Griffin is based in Lubbock.
This is a "tipping point" moment in the Gonzales appointment by Chancellor Kent Hance. Polite but adamant opposition, in the widest possible forums, shining a light on Chancellor Hance's inappropriate and unilateral decision-making, is very important. Most important of all is that the outside world know that, just as there were those who opposed the Bush II coup in 2000, there are those who oppose the Gonzales appointment in 2009.
Help us, friends, here in the Belly of the Beast. Please spread the word.