Grier to Harbaugh: “Please Stop Asking Questions”
Universities are supposed to be proud bastions of inquiry and understanding, but apparently this principle now only applies to those who agree with the University Administration. Economics professor Bill Harbaugh has been asking questions all year long about the Administration’s diversity building efforts, only to have his reasonable, sensible critiques met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. Now, in a letter from UO General Counsel Melinda Grier, the administration has made it abundantly clear that any questioning of the accepted approach to diversity building will be ignored to the extent that the law provides.
This isn’t all that surprising, given the fact that Harbaugh has already had to file ethical complaints against President Frohnmayer in order to get access to (supposedly) public documents on the affirmative action plan, but it’s almost bitterly amusing to see a University attempting to squash discourse and inquiry, the cornerstones of it’s institutional raisons d’etre. The only real reason given for breaking off discoure with Harbaugh is that answering all his questions would “consume a tremendous amount of time,” which is hardly a compelling argument coming from an institution which is heavily invested in long-term research projects such as nanotechnology and sustainability. The real message that the Administration is sending with this letter is that current diversity building efforts can not be improved through discourse and debate, and that trying to improve them is not in the institutional interests of the University of Oregon.
