Professor is punished for criticising composition prize
NewsProfessor Krzysztof Wolek of the University of Louisville has been issued a formal warning after writing an emmail to a colleague criticising the judging of the Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition, a once-prestigious event that is hosted by the University.
Earlier this year, UofL School of Music Dean Teresa Reed sent an email to faculty requesting that they ‘kindly refrain’ from discussing the structure, rules, and procedures of the Competition.
Professor Wolek (pictured), originally from Katowice in Poland, has now been investigated by the university for ‘unprofessional, disrespectful, hostile, harassing, intimidating, or discriminating conduct’ and issued a formal warning which could affect the course of his career.
This is what passes for academic freedom of speech in the US in 2023.
I think it is Louisville, not Louisiana.
Either way it is very disturbing, but to this American, not shocking.
He should go back to Europe as fast as he can.
Yes, Europe. That Bulwark of free expression.
A bit of context would be useful, Norman – why did he criticise the Prize?
True, but one of the important academic freedoms enjoyed by university professors is unfettered free speech protected by their institution.
But more info would be helpful to form a clear picture.
Not quite unfettered. There are constraints imposed both from outwith the institution (legislation – e.g. in the UK equality legislation); and usually from within the institution too (policies on bullying and harassment, for example). We’re still grappling with Mill’s minimal limit on the freedom of the individual: that which is necessary to prevent harm being done to others. The question is always ‘what’s harm?’
Unless his criticisms were libellous or disclosed confidential information, it is difficult to see what context would justify the apparent censorship being manifested by an academic institution.
Whatever the case, this punitive action would be more appropriate to the Third Reich or Russia rather than the Land of the Free.
Before judging this I’d like to know what the email said.
Little by little, in the USA, the time-honored traditions of “academic freedom” and the “1st Amendment” have been gradually eroded by an ultra-conservative takeover characterized by controlled rights-repression and in Wolek’s case, the threat of reprisals in the form of contrived negative performance evaluations with devastating career-related consequences. Actually, this prevalent ultra-right-wing attitude is posing a challenge to democracy world-wide!
Nonsense. It is the leftists who control the academia and who have installed speech codes. You know that, everyone knows it.
But you are right that this is indeed a threat to democracy.
You are mistaken, in academics it is the far-left that is eroding civil liberties. Don’t let facts get in the way of ideological perspectives.
“The far-left is eroding civil liberties”??? What planet do you live on? Who in every state is trying to eliminate the “right to vote” and gerrymandering election districts? Who is trying to bar duly-elected d.a.’s and judges from doing their jobs? Who tried to overturn the 2020 Presidential Election? Who is responsible for the illegal and destructive attack on the US Capitol? The far-left??? Wake up!!! Or safer yet…go back to sleep!!!
Sorry, but it’s clearly the LEFT that controls speech these days. Are you totally ignorant of WOKE?
The challenge to academic freedom is usually found in the “liberal” arts, a non sequitur. University life in the 1960s was idealistic {civil rights, Vietnam) where open debate was welcome.Today faculties share one mindset and students must conform or be cancelled.
I’m a university professor. I haven’t seen a “right-winger” on my campus since 1992. All of these cases involve left-wingers, on both sides.
It is getting difficult to distinguish the extreme left from the extreme right, so I understand how you’ve come to conflate aspects of the two.
Kyle, a good rule of thumb: find out who occupies 92 per cent of tenured positions in academia. Hot tip: it is not right-wingers.
My comment in no way suggested that I believe otherwise.
Hot tip: read.
Not exactly the kind of comment that will endear you to the wacko majority who comments on this site. Good for you!
I think it’s not a false equivalency to say that adherents of both political extremes act to restrict discourse and behavior of which they disapprove.
Right-wing? You are oblivious to the nearly total control of American academia by left-wing extremist passing for good-doers.
Kindly explain why this is ‘right wing’. it’s clearly coming from the Far Left.
I highly doubt this issue has anything to do with partisan politics, especially as the Grawemeyer award as far as I know has been mostly apolitical in terms of how it evaluates candidates. Also, if it were to be somewhat partisan, wouldn’t it more likely be censorship coming from the left in this case? The UofL might be in a Right-Wing state, but to my knowledge, it (like most US universities) is overall very left-wing politically so it wouldn’t make sense for this to be a product of right-wing censorship.
About 8 per cent of Ivy League professors vote Rebublican. Colleges everywhere are secular-left. You almost can’t find right -wing commentators on X or anywhere else now. But yes, it’s all the fault of an ‘ultra-conservative’ takeover. Really, what planet do you live on?
This is a good illustration of how an academic administrator can sell out her own self-integrity for the sake of defending an institution that does not, on the face of it, appear to reflect the administrator’s putative ethical principles. There is good reason to criticize the Grawemeyer award, supposedly for compositional “excellence and originality,” insofar as it has never been awarded to a Black musician. Dean Reed, a scholar of Black music, should be first in line to publicly criticize the way this award is administered. Instead, she remains silent and seeks to constrain others’ freedom to do so.
https://louisville.edu/music/faculty-staff/bio/teresa-reed
I would never tolerate or condone discrimination of any kind but unless you have specific proof that this is a racist school or the judges are racist, then the fact that no Black person has not yet won doesn’t prove anything by itself.
It might also be true that no Republican has ever won, no green-eyed person, no Orthodox Jew, no vegetarian, etc. etc.
I say again that I am not condoning racism.
The University of Louisville’s “request” that faculty refrain from discussing the music award was not a mere suggestion — as evidenced by Wolek’s punishment — but a prior restraint on faculty expression. Prior restraints prohibit speech before it can occur. Due to their speech-chilling nature, the Supreme Court has stated they are “the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights, and come with a “heavy presumption” against constitutional validity.
A simple Google search reveals nothing apart from this article. This is a fabricated story at best, with a TON of factual gaps, which jumps to a conclusion which lines up with Norman’s political beliefs.
The source of this undocumented and still unexplained assertion is a group calling itself FIRE that
“has received major funding from groups which primarily support conservative and libertarian causes, including the Bradley Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation, and the Charles Koch Institute”
which groups are themselves personally owned pet projects of unaccountable billionaires
Bored Muso, There is at least one other discussion of this hardly fabricated affair on the internet, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression [FIRE] ‘s account of their attempt to communicate with the university about the wrongness of the attempt at prior restraint of discussion of the music prize, and of the punishment of Professor Wolek (with, as yet, no response to FIRE’s communications). The Foundation says Wolek’s email was civil in its criticism of the judging of the contest, and its concern that the university was resorting to the “politics of divide and conquer” (apparently a direct quote from Wolek.)
I just happened through a search to stumble on the material from FIRE, but I am once again proud to be a card-carrying member of this organization (once known as the “Foundation for Individual Rights in Education”–but they have widened their scope beyond education and changed their name.)
I found an article — link here
https://www.thefire.org/news/kentucky-professor-reprimanded-criticizing-universitys-handling-music-award
I don’t know if this institution is credible or not, but it seems to corroborate this article. There’s rarely any significant press coverage for cases like this, so it’s unsurprising that there isn’t much. I highly doubt that the email will ever be made public, so I don’t think those factual gaps can be filled in unless for some reason this goes to court.
He obviously KNOWS something that the dean doesn’t want generally made public about the judging, which seems rather odd, since the Grawemeyer has been around for decades. Hmmm, wondering if the committee is being pushed to do a blatant Kendrick Lamar Pulitzer Prize move in the name of “diversity.” The next winner should be extremely telling in re: Reed’s desired omerta.
I’d be curious to read the email.
Maybe it was libelous or intentionally provocative or obviously untrue in a manner that was beyond normal academic discussion. Maybe there was alcohol involved.
I’d be curious to read the email.
When will this sort of lunacy stop?The Pied Piper Big Brother is constantly watching and judging and bringing the rats to chew any semblance of opinion out of anyone who dares speak his/her/their mind!!
American academia is a joke… everyone is just waiting to find something to be offended by.
Are you for real Zarathusa?
All the speech suppression in academia these days us coming from the woke left.
Check out Ron DeSantis’s NEW COLLEGE OF FLORIDA! Since the ultra-right takeover of this school, faculty and students have been leaving in droves! “Academic Freedom” and “1st Amendment Rights” have gone down the toilet there!
The purpose of the tenure system is not to protect academic freedom, but to insure conformity to the status quo.
Can we be sure that the email and his behavior as a professor aren’t separate issues?
There’s no story here. What did he say that was so outrageous?