Quick to judge?
Reader comment on item: California [University Press] vs. Academic Freedom

Submitted by Greg Wimpey (United States), Apr 7, 2004 at 00:02

I was struck by some of your quotations from the U of C Press catalog. You complain that "[p]ositive studies, in contrast, celebrate leftist and insurgent institutions." One of the books you cite is Taking Back the Streets. I haven't read this book (and neither have you, I wager), but I did find the U of C catalog online. The catalog entry (http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9207.html) says in part "...this book portrays women and young people from Argentina, Chile, and Spain as emblematic of others around the world in their public appeals for direct democracy. " Reading your article, I was left with the impression that this book was somehow associated with street protests or riots in the United States, not protests against Franco or the Argentinian juntas.

Regardless, you maintain that somehow the U of C press only finds "wisdom in only one part of the political spectrum." Are there conservative authors being turned down? Are there conservative authors in academia going without a place to publish? I don't know, and from your article, I am not enlightened further.

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