Why do liberal professors hate the military?

[Old Eagle]

Think we've strayed from liberal academia. Rec we start a new thread. Check out this topic over in the Dander Room @ Wired.

If I knew how to install a hyperlink, I would probably do it # here.

[Rex Brynen]

I'm not sure (as a liberal acedemic) I see quite the same bias against uniformed folks that others are reporting here. Then again, I'm in Canada, and we don't see many uniformed folks.

However, to recover the thread on a lighter note, a few years ago one of our PhD students--a USAF Captain at the time--applied for university Research Ethics Board clearance of his proposed PhD research. The Board, not surprisingly, asked for clarification of the relationship between his research and his military service, and the nature of his USAF funding, in order to determine the ownership and uses to which the research might be put.

A reassuring letter was requested from the Department of the Air Force, which duly sent this useful gem:

The Area Studies Advanced Program represents an EAF related initiative aimed at developing an expeditionary force capable of supporting a broad range of global military operations, from peacekeeping to major theater war (MTW).

As you might imagine, this kind of language was rather less than reassuring to the members of the Research Ethics Board

(In the end he got the ethics clearance. Interestingly, his first topic was turned down not by the university but by the USAF--they considered it too dangerous to send an officer to the country in question on research, although our other graduate students routinely visit there!)

[marct]

Hi Rex,

(In the end he got the ethics clearance. Interestingly, his first topic was turned down not by the university but by the USAF--they considered it too dangerous to send an officer to the country in question on research, although our other graduate students routinely visit there!)

LOLOL - now, why doesn't that surprise me !!!!

On t'other hand, I've noticed the research boards (and ethics boards) tend to be driven by political and legal considerations much more than by the potential value of the research. I had one of my projects turned down by an ethics board because I wasn't the right gender and then the decision was reversed when I proved that the board members were politically biased.

I also think your comment about being in Canada is spot on. Even in Ottawa, where I teach and we have a fairly high uniform count, we don't see that many on campus. BTW, there is a session at the Canadian Political Science Association annual meeting this year on COIN and ethnography and the military. I'll be quite interested to see if we have many uniformed folks showing up to it.