Job Discussion Forums

Sheikh N Bake · Joined: 26 Apr 2007 Posts: 1307 Location: Dis ting of ours

Here it comes--some of the western university campus lecturers are bound to get arrested for speaking their minds, government platitudes about "academic freedom" notwithstanding. We predicted this months and months ago. NYU professes to be unfazed but privately I'll bet they're wondering just how much of an NYU experience students will really obtain. Certainly, faculty and students back at the Washington Square home campus are generally against it. One student says "whose idea was it to have a campus with a bunch of liberal students in a control-oriented place like that?" (I'm paraphrasing.)

The Sorbonne lecturer has apparently criticized the financial management of of Dubai Inc.

http://chronicle.com/article/Lecturers-Arrest-in-the/127190/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Cleopatra · Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 1:54 pm Post subject:

I didn't see your post but expressed similar thoughts to yours in the above thread. As another poster said a few days ago, it all goes to show that money can buy you anything - even the brand name of prestigious universities. I doubt the Sorbonne will bite the hand that feeds them. With universities - like museums - in ever more dire straits financially, they'll take the money and run. Ditto the various 'branches' of NYU, the Louvre, the Guggenhim etc etc...

JohnRambo · Joined: 06 Mar 2008 Posts: 183

I can definitely understand this. Westerners take for granted that we have freedom of expression. If I were there, I would be careful talking to local Emiratis about politics or in public unless I know the people well. However, a lecturer at a Western institution where political science courses are taught are going to be asked their opinions about the uprisings. It's only natural. If lecturers cannot speak about such subjects it lessens the credibility of the institutions in the realm of the social sciences. At any rate, sooner or later, the Syrian regime will have to make major reforms. It's less of a concern in the Gulf because people in the UAE who are Emiratis just as the people in Kuwait who are Kuwaitis tend to have much more money than the average Syrian, so they are more likely to be content.