Noblegate (fwd)]

Dear colleagues,
    I encourage you to sign on. Best, Jason

Jason W. Moore
Sociology, Johns Hopkins
(After June 10) Geography, UC Berkeley

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PLEASE FORWARD!

The immensely influential historian of the social relations of technology,
David Noble has come under attack. Best known for his
ground-breaking "America by Design" and "Froces of Production", Noble is
also respected as an activist and significant "public intellectual".  Bob
McChesney sent me the below message. I ask that you sign on to the letter
prepared by he and Ed Herman, and send it back to him a rwmcches@uiuc.edu
-AR

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 03 May 2001 21:04:08 -0500
From: Bob McChesney <rwmcches@uiuc.edu>
To: Allen Ruff <ruff@danenet.wicip.org>
Subject: Noblegate

Allen,

Please read this and then email this to every any U.S. professor you know
who might be interested in academic freedom issues. We are trying to keep
David Noble from losing his job for political reasons, much due to his work
as a labor activist. This is an important fight and if we get enough names,
we can maybe even win it.

Thanks.

Bob


Dear Colleague:

      You may have heard that David Noble was selected to  occupy a Chair in
the Humanities at Simon Fraser University in Canada, but was then denied
this appointment by adminsitrative fiat. As the decisions in this case
have not yet been finalized, we have prepared a letter of protest from U.S.
academics to be sent to a Simon Fraser officer having a role in this
decision process. To assist you in understanding the issues involved we
have attached a letter of protest sent by concerned academics at the
University of Western Ontario, along with a backgrounder prepared by David
Noble.

     We want you to join us and sign on to this protest letter. If you are
agreeable, please send your assent, along with your position and
university, to Bob McChesney at his e-mail address: rwmcches@uiuc.edu.
Please respond by Monday, May 7 at the very latest so we can send this
letter off on Tuesday, May 8.

     Thank you very much.

Edward S. Herman
Robert W. McChesney


Here is the letter:

     As U.S. academics, we write to protest Simon Fraser University's
cancellation of Dr. David Noble's appointment to the J.S. Woodsworth
Chair in the Humanities and to express our support for Dr. Noble as a
scholar and democratic activist.

      As we understand it, the Woodsworth Chair is named for a
distinguished Canadian labor activist and is being underwritten by
trade unions and progressive individuals. Dr. Noble would appear to
be an almost perfect choice for such an appointment. He has combined
eminent scholarship relevant to labor issues and, more broadly,
social sciences and the humanities, with a political activism that
represents genuine democracy and is in the spirit of J. S. Woodworth
and the Chair sponsors.

     Dr. Noble's qualifications as a scholar are beyond question. He ranks
in the global first tier of historians of technology; those of us who
work in this field honor him as a groundbreaking scholar whose
reputation spans nearly a quarter-century. There are no grounds,
intellectual or scholarly, by which he fails to qualify for the
Woodsworth Chair.

     We strongly urge you to recognize the suitability of Dr. Noble for
the J.S. Woodsworth Chair, as well as the damage to the university's
reputation that would follow from his rejection. The long-term
interests of Simon Fraser University will not be served by allowing
this selection to be blocked by political and interest group
opposition.

     To us, this seems to be a case where nothing less than academic
freedom at Simon Fraser University hangs in the balance. We urge you
to do the right thing and make certain that Dr. Noble is appointed to
the Woodsworth Chair that he deserves.





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NOBLE, david1.24066DEFANGED-doc

Robert W. McChesney

Institute of Communications Research

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

www.robertmcchesney.com

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