Iowa State University


Inside Iowa State
January 22, 1999

Letter

Free the Inside 8

To the Editor:

At their Dec. 3 meeting, the regents ordered ISU to plan for a permanent major increase in the reviewing of faculty members. Since faculty are already extensively reviewed, these new, so-called "post-tenure" reviews probably won't contribute much to accountability, and that they can seriously damage academic freedom. There is already insufficient academic freedom here.

Consider for example the cosmetic "journalism" of the Inside Iowa State. I do not believe that the eight people listed as its staff are genuinely bad journalists. I think they know that it was poor reporting to omit saying who picked the interim provost and who picked the provost search committee and that their intramural propagandizing is wrong - - the Voice of America was never allowed to broadcast to the U.S. itself.

Apparently they lack the academic freedom to describe ISU as it is. So while I challenge the demanded reviews, I also shout: FREE THE INSIDE IOWA STATE 8!

Bryan Cain
professor of mathematics

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URL: http://www.inside.iastate.edu/1999/0122/letter.html
Revised 1/21/99