In case you need a synopsis, the Wisconsin Republican Party has filed a standard Freedom of Information Act request to obtain e-mails that include any of a set of keywords from Professor Cronon's university e-mail account. They did this after Cronon started blogging and writing op-ed pieces critical of Gov. Scott Walker and Wisconsin Republicans. They did this because they want to know if Cronon, as a sort-of-public employee in his capacity as a professor at a public university that receives 20 percent of its total funding from public sources, might have been in violation of the University IT policy on "commercial, political, and non-university activities," which is as follows:
Persons may not use University IT resources to sell or solicit sales for any goods, services or contributions unless such use conforms to UW-Madison rules and regulations governing the use of University resources. University employees may not use these resources to support the nomination of any person for political office or to influence a vote in any election or referendum. No one may use University IT resources to represent the interests of any non-University group or organization unless authorized by an appropriate University department.
Cronon's supporters claim the FOIA request amounts to a witch-hunt and potentially a violation of academic freedom, while other pundits, mostly conservative, argue correctly that the FOIA request is legally sound.
The FOIA request is legally sound, and academic freedom is a pretty sketchy defense against such a request. For the record, academic freedom would be a relevant defense should the fruits of the FOIA request place Cronon's job in jeopardy on account of his political views. But we're not even there yet, and I doubt we'll get there either.
More importantly, however, this whole affair is not so much about academic freedom or the legality of the FOIA request, but rather the purpose and implications of this request. The government of the state of Wisconsin, which is more or less overrun at this point by the Republican party, has some recourse to oversight in matters of publicly funded institutions; however, it's abundantly clear in this case that Professor Cronon is only being targeted because he has expressed in public, as is his right, some political views that the Republican investigators don't like.
Though they have legal recourse, technically, to request Cronon's e-mails, the Republican investigators in this case aren't actually worried about the possibility that Cronon is somehow operating a vast and secret and well-funded political machine out of his University e-mail account, or that he's in any way abusing his position as a history professor at a public university (civic engagement with contemporary political issues is explicitly part of the job description of a university professor of history). Rather, Republicans are going after Cronon because his personal political views are different than theirs. The Republican investigation of Cronon is an attempt to penalize someone for espousing an opposing ideology, and, accordingly, to make political hay about the fact that Professor Cronon is all at once an academic, a public employee, and a liberal--all things that Wisconsin Republicans can't stand.
What we should take away from this episode is not that there's some erosion of academic freedom going on, or that Cronon is a "tenured radical" for having political views that Republicans wouldn't support, but that American politics has undertaken a considerable shift in the last several years. Though we remain a two-party country, our opposing parties are no longer comprised of what could be called "liberals" and "conservatives," left and right.
What we have now is pluralists and singularists.
Some Americans, pluralists, believe that freedom includes the permission of dissent and the toleration of ideological diversity. For the pluralists, it's not OK to go after someone for espousing views with which you might disagree. For the pluralists, the very core of American history and the American experience is polyvocality, grown out of this mishmash of people from all ends of the world. Pluralists are more likely to find commonalities in what America is than instances of what America is not.
Some Americans, singularists, believe that freedom is the privilege only of a specific group of people--Americans--who think a certain way about what America is and what specifically constitutes American values. Singularists are willing to use financial, legal, and military means to enforce their ideological position on what's best for America and Americans. Singularists are more likely to understand diversity and dissent as instances of anti-Americanism and antagonism than as part and parcel of the American experience.
The Republican attack on Cronon is a singularist attack, waged by people who are, at the very least, uncomfortable with the idea of a professor at a state university publicly owning a political position that is critical of their party in general, and its state leader specifically.
