Still getting up to speed on the campaigns surrounding University of Wisconsin History professor William Cronon, an eloquent scholar of the American West. Many of us had not heard of him until this last week, but a quick look around at his work and reading though his essays and blogs shows that he is both passionate and well-balanced in his politics.
Like many in Wisconsin he opposes the governor's law to prevent public-sector workers from engaging in collective bargaining. But he seems to have broken into his own scandal by publishing a pamphlet on the conservative lobby, American Legislative Exchange Council. He details the organization and conservative aims of this discreetly powerful lobby . In response, the Republican Party in Wisconsin made a Freedom of Information Act request for a search of William Cronon's emails. As a state employee he is prohibited from using his email account for political purposes. Still, the boundaries of what constitutes an illegitimate use of state offices have hardly been defined. The fact that he is an historian by trade and there are going to be tons of emails that discuss politics as part of his teaching and research. From the start, it was clear that this request intended to intimidate and the response has been swift--not to back down. You can read Cronon's substantial blog:
He starts off giving the link to his compelling op-ed piece in the NY Times, and the Times has reciprocated with an article on the campaign to squelch academic dissent.
This is a story to follow, because the point is not just to watch a top-tier academic face off against the local political machine, the point is that any one of us could be pushed around for expressing our political views. With all our integration into the internet, there are a dozen different choke points where regular citizens can be pressured into silence. This campaign against Cronon, to fish around in his email until his political opponents find something "useful" could easily be the test case for us all.
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