The Issue Is Accountability

The staff completely misses the point at issue in its editorial. The question here is not one of free speech. For if Mansfield has the freedom to makes the comment he did, then surely Ali has the freedom to ask him to apologize. The staff applies its free speech criterion to Mansfield but not to Ali, and to the minority coalition.

The staff is creating an issue where there really isn't one. No one is threatening Mansfield's freedom of speech. Criticizing his comment does not imply that he didn't have the right to say it.

What is at issue here, however, is the question of academic accountability. It is irresponsible, at best, for Mansfield to make a comment without any empirical proof, based simply on "his own observations and the observations of others." Especially since there has been no movement among the faculty--presumably the "others" in his statement--in support of his argument.

There is further the issue of whether the empirical data that Mansfield requests would be able to prove his claim. Other factors were in play at the time--the general liberalization of attitudes toward grading, the question of grades being inflated to allow students to avoid the draft--so that it may not be possible to empirically prove Mansfield's contention. It surprises me that an academic does not realize that making unprovable statements is sloppy scholarship.

The staff, in concentrating on the question of free speech, side-steps the major issue here, that of accountability. Whatever the merits or demerits of Mansfield's remark, his lack of any substantiation for it is unjustifiable.