BY OU-AAUP

Two recent incidents put the University of Oklahoma (OU) in the forefront of national and international news. On November 22, ICE detained Vahid Abedini, Professor of Iranian Studies at OU and H-1 B visa holder, as he was boarding his flight from Oklahoma City to attend a conference on Middle Eastern Studies in Washington, DC. Abedini was first lodged in the Logan County Jail and then transferred to an ICE facility before being released after three days.

OU was propelled into the limelight again when it placed Mel Curth, a Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA) in psychology, on “administrative leave” following a student’s grade and religious discrimination complaint. What should have been a standard university-grade dispute soon snowballed into a larger crisis when the student and her supporters made the paper and the instructor’s comments public. Numerous public officials from Oklahoma and elsewhere, including Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and former Oklahoma Superintendent of Education Ryan Walters, got involved in a social media trial. OU released a public statement that focused entirely on protecting the student’s First Amendment rights against alleged violations, while making no defense of the instructor’s academic freedom to teach, grade, and require academic standards. The instructor reportedly received death threats, and the incident was used to amplify a transphobic agenda.

These two incidents, which occurred closely together, have broader implications that reverberate beyond OU. We identify four issues: public media trials that force university administrations to capitulate, academic freedom, transparency and communication, and public safety. While we hold the OU administration to account for its spotty history across all four areas, we also seek to broaden the ambit beyond OU, as these issues are of larger relevance.

The incident with the GTA is not the first one involving leaks on social media. We recall the attack last year on OU’s College of Education by Governor Stitt, following a student’s anonymous complaint about the course material. The College of Education came under intense pressure to change its curricula because it allegedly violated one of Governor Stitt’s prior executive orders. These cases follow a similar modus operandi: a disgruntled student passes the information to the governor’s office and other right-wing institutions and outlets, a public media trial ensues, and the university seems to sacrifice one of the fundamental values that the institution is supposed to protect–academic freedom.

The threat to academic freedom, readily apparent in the GTA incident, is also pertinent in the Abedini abduction case. This is probably the first time an international faculty member with a valid H-1 B visa has been detained at a domestic airport while flying within the country. While the details of Abedini’s abduction remain unclear, the fact that someone who is legally allowed to work in the US can be detained signals a new threat for international faculty and scholars. The message is chilling. Fearful of retaliation with the threat of detention in the backdrop, can international faculty consider teaching topics that are even remotely “controversial”? Will their right of free movement now have to be curtailed?

These threats to academic freedom are exacerbated by the University’s non-communicative stance and top-down managerial approach. We called on the university to release full details about the circumstances surrounding the assignment and grading criteria in the Department of Psychology. The university may not want to be dragged into a “culture war” by defending academic freedom. However, by emphasizing religious freedom and/or discrimination four times in its official statement–an extraordinary one in any case under the circumstances–it seems to have bowed down to external pressure and already chosen a side. The burden of proof seems to be only on the instructor, not on the student who made the complaint. We recently read the disturbing story that faculty members charged with a Title IX complaint will automatically be placed on paid administrative leave. This rule, which even Faculty Senate members were unaware of, was apparently used to suspend Curth. If true, this represents a severe erosion of faculty governance and underscores our view that the lack of transparency and the tight control of information by university administration pose a threat to academic freedom, faculty governance, and public safety.

Likewise, there has been no official communication by OU on the Abedini case. At the very least, an acknowledgement that one of our own was taken, albeit temporarily, and a reassurance that the university has got our back would go a long way toward improving the confidence and morale of all members of the OU community. Instead, we are asked to get on with our lives and work as if nothing happened. We applaud that OU Legal reportedly worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring Abedini back safely, but is OU’s response to such incidents only reactive, rather than being proactive? Does the university have a plan to address such contingencies, or do we have to handle such incidents on a case-by-case basis or mobilize outside the institution to keep ourselves safe?

Our final point is about safety. Both cases seem to align with OU’s historical approach, which prioritizes the university’s interests over its personnel, as we wrote previously in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. In Abedini’s case, a person legally entitled to stay and work in the US was detained. While OU has no control over the actions of government organizations, its “let’s-forget-and-get-on-with-it” attitude does not inspire confidence regarding the safety and well-being of its international community. Mel Curth received death threats and transphobic slurs. A death threat may be an intimidatory tactic, but it shrinks your world and makes you feel isolated. The fact that these death threats are directed at some of the most vulnerable and minoritized members of the university community makes the situation even worse. Does OU have resources and plans in place to safeguard the security of its employees or are we just easy targets for vociferous bullying? OU’s mantra is to “live on,” but for the university to live on, the people who make it function need to live and live well. Our futures depend on these basic foundations for living well: academic freedom, free speech, the pursuit of knowledge, safety, human rights, and trust and belief in mutual coexistence. We must demand and expect better from our universities.

OU-AAUP represents any worker who holds a professional position of teacher, researcher, graduate student, or related professional appointment at the University of Oklahoma and is a national member of the American Association of University Professors.