Nottingham University: Debating academic freedom

I welcome the fact that a couple of my colleagues have put forward their views in regard to the situation vis-à-vis the monitoring of module reading lists in Nottingham University’s School of Politics. I feel I should be allowed some sort of reply. I am, after all, at the centre of this whole situation in that I feel that I cannot allow my own reading lists concerned with Terrorism modules to be monitored in the fashion suggested.

Just about everything the two writers say needs to be put into context. First of all, the point is never made as to why this module review process – where academics check other academics’ reading lists without student input – is actually necessary specifically in the School of Politics. Why does it need to be introduced in the School of Politics and not across the whole of Nottingham University? I would say that there is no rationale. Of course, the assumption has been made that the School of Politics was involved in some way in the arrests that we had in May 2008 on campus – when two people were detained on terrorism charges. In fact, the School was in no way involved.

The writers also do not apply the context of the fact that, prior to the entire School being subject to the module review process, it was at one time just my own reading lists that were subject to review. Then the review was to be by the School’s Ethics Committee – a committee charged with examining research and not teaching. In October last year my Head of School came to see me to tell me this. I asked why? After all, neither I nor my courses had anything to do with the student who had been arrested. Moreover, the student did not have access to any reading lists of mine. So why was my reading list suddenly subject to review? I received no answer to this. Other lecturers who taught terrorism in the School (including the two writers of the above article) did not have to send their modules to the Ethics Committee for checking. I thought the process unfair and an example of victimisation and refused to accept the process. If I did it would amount, in my eyes, to an admission of some sort of guilt. However, despite my protestations, my lists alone were still sent to the Ethics Committee. The members of this committee did not, in fact, carry out their allotted task.

There is much use of the word ‘collective’ by the two writers. There was nothing ‘collective’ about the original decision to subject just my reading lists to review.

A few weeks later the goalposts were moved and the module review process came to take in all of the School’s reading lists. This was when it was proposed at a School Committee meeting. I still took it to be, though, a process to check just my own modules.

Indeed, the writers need some correction on this point. They say that ‘the process by which module review came to be implemented is important’. They ask: ‘Was this policy imposed by some faceless bureaucratic management?’ ‘No’, they reply: ‘This was proposed by our Director of Teaching at School Committee’. Well, I beg to differ. It was, in fact, ‘proposed’ by our Head of School weeks earlier when he came to see me and when he told me it was purely his decision. It stretches credulity somewhat if we are to believe that the Director of Teaching independently then came up with the same idea that the Head of School had originally applied to me. And how does the School’s independence of action in this regard fit in with the writers’ talk of the institution’s obligations according to the law? Are we to assume from what they say that this process came in originally without institutional authorisation and was merely the idea of the Director of Teaching? If so, why make the argument that the university had to introduce this process in order to conform to the law? Either it’s a process to ‘provide feedback’ (as the writers aver) invented by the Director of Teaching or it’s a process to conform to the law introduced by the university? Which is it?

And why do the writers constantly allude to terrorism in their piece? Terrorism seems to be the issue at hand here so why are all the School’s lecturers (c.35) having their modules checked? What ‘feedback’ goes to those teaching Quantitative Methods, etc, if terrorism is the concern? Again, either the process is to provide feedback ‘to staff on a range of issues related to their modules taught in the school’, or it is to deal with the terrorism courses per se? Which is it?

The writers also allude to the fact that a vote was taken in Committee. I feel it only fair to point out that the count of this vote was subject to contestation (there were more votes than people in the room) and requests were made for a further vote under a secret ballot. This was to clear up the count and also so that those who voted, including admin staff, and those PhD students and teaching fellows who wanted future employment in the School, could vote without fear of offending senior members of the School. This new vote has not come to pass.

Where the quotation is taken from the Higher Education Act 2004 this, again, needs to be put into context. It is said that the ‘Director of the Office for Fair Access’ has ‘a duty to protect academic freedom including, in particular, the freedom of institutions – to determine the content of particular courses and the manner in which they are taught, supervised or assessed’. But the point here is that the Director of Fair Access has the responsibility to protect the academic freedom of the institutions themselves, from outside pressures. The Director of Fair Access is not responsible for the academic freedom of individual lecturers. That is the responsibility of the institutions. It is incumbent on the institutions to then protect the academic freedom of their lecturers. This is the bit the two writers miss out and which, perforce, undermines their argument. The writers selectively quote the UNESCO guidelines on the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel 1997. They miss out the part where it says that, ‘Higher education institutions, individually or collectively, should design and implement appropriate systems of accountability, including quality assurance mechanisms…without harming institutional autonomy or academic freedom’ (UNESCO, Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel 1997, B. ‘Institutional Accountability’, para. 24). It is the institutions that become ultimately responsible for the academic freedom of those lecturers they employ. They are also responsible for ‘ensuing that higher education personnel are not impeded in their work n the classroom…by harassment’ (Ibid., para. 22.(h)). Moreover, ‘Higher education teaching personnel are entitled to the maintaining of academic freedom, that is to say, the right, without constriction by prescribed doctrine, to freedom of teaching [and] freedom from institutional censorship’ (Ibid., para. 27). What is this module review process (over and above any normal review process) if it is not ‘institutional censorship’?

Indeed, the UNESCO guidelines go on: ‘higher education teaching personnel have the right to teach without any interference subject to accepted professional standards incurring professional responsibility and intellectual rigour with regards to standards and methods of teaching’ (Ibid., para. 28). There has at no time in the past been any doubting of my ‘professional responsibility’ in terms of teaching terrorism. There has never been anything of controversy on any of my reading lists and, again, I did not teach any of those arrested and neither of them had any access to my reading lists. I am the most experienced person in the School in terms of both dealing with terrorists for real (in the Army) and in terms of teaching the subject. I have, moreover, just been voted best undergraduate and best postgraduate lecturer in Nottingham’s School of Politics. So why now do my modules need ‘reviewing’ by other lecturers in my School who I do not believe are competent to do so? Why should my ‘professional responsibility… intellectual rigour… and standards of teaching’ be brought into question? I have a right to dignity at work. The process of module reviews clearly represents ‘interference’ in something that was not broken. Why does it need fixing?

The two writers refer to the ‘citing of an internal document’ as if it was some sort of crime to do so. Keeping such module review documents ‘internal’ runs counter, again, to UNESCO guidelines: ‘Systems of institutional accountability should be based on scientific methodology [where] both the methodology and results should be open’. The way in which academics in Nottingham’s School of Politics check other academics modules cannot really be described as ‘scientific’ and nor can it be described as ‘open’. Why is it a secret? The two writers do not say why the process was supposed to remain a secret. Is such an act not an imposition of ‘censorship’ itself?

The next point refers to the lack of student input into this review process. This process has been set up to monitor and review a lecturer’s modules. But, curiously, this monitoring and review process runs counter to all of the university’s documents covering the management of academic standards. All of these cite ‘student input’ as being a necessary part of any monitoring or review process. The latest to do so is Nottingham University’s draft Briefing Paper prepared for the QAA Institutional Audit. This states that, ‘Student feedback is considered as a matter of course in monitoring and review’. Why then does Nottingham’s School of Politics ignore this stipulation? Will this exception be pointed out to the QAA auditors?

The writers make reference to UK law: ‘For a UK Higher Education Institution such as Nottingham University UK law is clearly important’. And they are right to say that UK law ‘provides the institutional context in which the School has to operate’ and that ‘academic staff have the freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom’. Exactly. But who is making the law here? One of the problems we have at Nottingham is that it is the university itself – and not ‘the UK’ – that is making the law. The university has declared the document that led to the arrests on campus to be ‘illegal’; a document, again, that is freely available and often used by students. Nobody else has said this document is illegal; certainly not the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. If such declarations are made by universities then how are the lecturers who work for such universities and who are checking other academics’ work supposed to operate? Do they work ‘within the law’ of the land or the law as dictated by their university? I myself prefer to operate according to the law of the land. This for me is a very important point and one that is simply ignored within the School and by the two writers.

The aim of the process is said by the writers to be merely the benign one of providing ‘feedback’ (‘advice’ is another word used) to staff. But ‘feedback’ is supposed to come from the students. What sort of system is it that provides ‘feedback’ from colleagues who have not attended the lecturer’s classes and who are not experts in the field? Again, not very ‘scientific’. As in this case, and I reiterate, if a lecturer has spent much of his adult life – both professional and academic – dealing with terrorists and teaching terrorism then, I am sorry, it is no surprise if that lecturer does not take kindly to ‘feedback’ from lecturers who have not spent much of their own lives dealing with such issues.

In our School the process is said to be one whereby the Director of Teaching will not have the power to remove any item from a lecturer’s reading list, only to ‘draw the item to their attention’. But if this happens, and when ‘feedback’ and ‘advice’ are offered from more senior colleagues, can it all really be ignored by junior colleagues? That would be difficult. So when does ‘feedback’ become a form of intimidation or even bullying? I did ask if I could opt out of this whole benign ‘feedback’ process. This was rejected. The fact that it was rejected gives the lie, I believe, to the supposition that this process is a benign one. And how do words such as ‘feedback’ and ‘advice’ square with the writers’ earlier point that academic freedom ‘does not imply that individual University lecturers are free to teach what ever they want, however they want to’. Either this is the ‘feedback’ process the writers claim in one part of their article, or it is the less than benign ‘policing’ process they claim in another part of the article. Which is it?

The whole process is also impractical. How can any committee say they have ‘checked’ a lecturer’s reading list? Have they read everything on it and gone into every website link? Of course they haven’t. Again, it is not ‘scientific’. So just what is the point of the process? A much more sensible option, and one which I have offered as a compromise, is that of allowing a disclaimer to be placed on the front of reading lists saying that the university takes no responsibility for any material accessed for non-academic purposes. This actually provides better legal cover than saying that a reading list has been ‘checked’. Once it has been checked the university must take legal responsibility for what is in it. My offer, however, was rejected.

There is also some mixing up of issues apparent here. The writers refer on their first page to the issue of academic freedom and how this relates to ‘academic staff’. This goes back to the original protests on Nottingham’s campus after the student and administrator were arrested and it is an issue that comes out of a deal of confusion that was apparent at the time. Much of this confusion stemmed from statements made by the previous vice-chancellor regarding the issue of academic freedom. The protests were about what he said. But the issue with the two who were arrested was not really about academic freedom; it was about freedom per se. Both had a right to be in possession of the document the student had taken from a US Department of Justice website. Anyone in this country can also go down to their local library and order the full version of both books that this edited-down document was taken from. Both books and the document are not restricted in any way. The idea put forward by the two writers that ‘academic staff’ could look at these books/document while ordinary members of the public could not is simply a false dichotomy and I do not know why the writers are talking about it. As was made clear last year, there was nothing ‘illegitimate’ about the document that led to the arrests.

The final point here is the precedent this whole process sets. If a university can start to lay down its own laws and to say, despite contrary evidence, that it does not trust its lecturers to construct their own reading lists then where does this stop? What is next and who is next?
____________
Dr Rod Thornton
School of Politics and International Relations
University of Nottingham

The Times Higher reports on vetting at Nottingham

In the 25 June 2009 edition of the Times Higher Education an article appeared credited to Melanie Newman entitled ‘Reading lists inspected for capacity to incite violence’. The article referred to the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham.  The article claimed that the institution had set up a module review committee to advise on academic teaching materials. The article cites an internal document which states that the review is to ‘provide feedback to staff on a range of issues’, including the topics covered, the assessment methods used and “whether any material on reading lists could be illegal or might be deemed to incite people to use violence”’. The convenor of the on-line ‘Teaching about Terrorism’ group, Prof. David Miller of Strathclyde University, is cited as saying that Nottingham’s review policy ‘represented a fundamental attack on academic freedom’ The module review committee is a censorship committee: it can’t operate as anything else [...] The University is acting as the police one step removed”

Being at another University, Prof. Miller understandably played no part in the discussion of, formulation of, nor implementation of module review at Nottingham. From where he gets the confidence to pronounce on the process with such certainty is something of a mystery. We assume he is not speaking in an academic capacity, as that may involve certain responsibilities to go with that much-cherished freedom, such as getting basic factual claims correct. The article nonetheless touches on a vitally important topic, and the University of Nottingham, and its staff in the School of Politics and International Relations, would not, we are sure, want to be responsible for curtailing academic freedom in their own institution.

‘Academic freedom’ can be a difficult concept to pin down; it is clearly related to freedom of speech, but is inevitably narrower, denoting rights and responsibilities for a specific group of people. For a UK Higher Education Institution such as Nottingham University UK law is clearly important in this regard. Under the Education Reform Act of 1988 ‘academic staff have the freedom within the law to question and test received wisdom, and to put forward new ideas and controversial or unpopular opinion, without putting themselves in jeopardy of losing their jobs or privileges they may have at their institution’.  The crucial words here are academic staff.  In other words academic freedom only applies to staff, not students, and academics, not administrators (a point apparently lost on those protesting the arrests on Nottingham University campus last summer as an attack on ‘academic freedom’ – given that they involved a student and an administrator. For a detailed account of that story see http://www.academicfreedom.co.uk).

With regard to teaching, particularly relevant in the case of module review, section 32(2) of the Higher Education Act 2004, places upon the Director of the Office for Fair Access ‘a duty to protect academic freedom including, in particular, the freedom of institutions – to determine the content of particular courses and the manner in which they are taught, supervised, or assessed.’  Note that this particular freedom falls to institutions, not individuals, so it implies that Nottingham University should be free to teach what and as it sees fit, free from interference by government or other outside bodies. It does not imply that individual University lecturers are free to teach whatever they want, however they want to.

Another aspect of academic freedom that is frequently cited is the capacity of the academic community to be self-governing. This is clearly linked to the institutional freedom noted above, on this view academic freedom is protected if it is academics who determine the policies relating to research and teaching of their home institution. This is the model of collegial governance. As UNESCO recommend, ‘the proper enjoyment of academic freedom…requires the autonomy of institutions of higher education. Autonomy is that degree of self-governance necessary for effective decision making…Higher education teaching personnel should have the right and opportunity…to take part in the governing bodies and…they should also have the right to elect a majority of representatives to academic bodies within the higher education institution’

We have then, an account of academic freedom with three dimensions, the right of academic staff to question and test received wisdom without fearing for their jobs, the right of Higher Education Institutions to determine the content, mode of delivery, and assessment of their curriculum, and the right of academic teaching staff to have a decisive say in how their institution is run. Whilst any account of academic freedom will be contestable, this one is not manifestly absurd and has the advantage of being conformant with UK law, which provides the institutional context in which the School has to operate. Given this account of academic freedom, how does module review at Nottingham look in relation to it? As noted at the outset of this article, module review aims to ‘provide feedback’ to staff (and that is all) on a range of issues related to the modules that they teach, such as the range of topics covered, links with other modules taught in the school and, (by now infamously and initially at the request of a colleague who had been critical of the original module review proposal), ‘whether any material on reading lists could be illegal or might be deemed to incite people to use violence’.

Such a review process clearly has no impact on our first dimension of academic freedom, the ability of academic staff to question and test received wisdom, without fear of retribution. It has nothing at all to say about what academics question or accept, and it says nothing about the contributions that academic staff make to discussions of any subject at all. With respect to the second and third elements, the process by which module review came to be implemented is important. Was this policy imposed by some faceless bureaucratic management? No. This was proposed by our Director of Teaching (i.e. an academic colleague) at School Committee, which is the governing body of the School and which is composed of all academic staff, two School managers, and student reps, and upon which academic staff form a large majority (satisfying our third element of academic freedom within the School). The policy was remitted twice for further consultation by the Director of Teaching with interested members of staff, and it was then voted upon at a third meeting, and the policy was carried by a clear majority. No breach of academic freedom there, then, and one might have hoped (in vain, it seems) that those who were defeated in a democratic decision taken with their colleagues (after extensive discussion) would accept that they had lost the argument on this occasion, even as they seek to change their colleagues’ minds.

What, one might ask, of the freedom of individual academics to teach what they see fit to teach, and to set as reading whatsoever they like? Some accounts of academic freedom appear consistent with such a right, although they do not necessarily imply it – ‘freedom of teaching, ‘freedom in the classroom’, or, in the UCU statement on academic freedom “freedom in teaching and discussion”. All of these statements are vague, and do little to specify what ‘freedom in teaching’ might actually mean for a university employee. Like most academic departments, the School of Politics and International Relations has a curriculum to service, which implies that a degree of co-ordination of the teaching effort is necessary. Staff have to be assigned to collectively taught modules, and modules that recruit very small numbers of students may not be viable. We have arranged teaching collectively in this way for years with no-one raising the cry of academic freedom. As noted under the Model Statute of the Education Reform Act of 1988 ‘academic freedom may mean rights, but it also means obligations, and it is not a licence simply to resist any aspects of working in an Higher Education Institution (HEI) which the individual academic may find irritating’.

Even if, however, we take the view that academic freedom entails that staff should be free to populate their reading list with whatever they wish, module review does nothing to challenge this ‘right’. Heads of Teaching Groups, who are of course academic colleagues (and not necessarily professorial colleagues), will give ‘feedback’ on the content of reading lists. This feedback has no statutory status at all, and staff are free to ignore it should they wish to. It is merely collegial advice. Experience has now shown the forms this advice can take, such as: “we think it might be a good idea if you indicated more clearly to students which texts you think are essential reading on this module.” Shocking stuff. Teaching groups now also have rather useful overviews of the topics covered within their teaching areas, along with the variety of forms of delivery and assessment on offer. This allows us an additional opportunity to spot gaps in coverage and to consider whether we ‘stretch’ students sufficiently with a variety of forms of assessment.

The School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham fully supports academic freedom, and also seeks, insofar as it can, to protect its staff and students in the face of the anti-terror legislation passed by the UK government. Both of the authors of this piece have experience of researching and teaching terrorism, so-called ‘eco-terrorism’ on the one hand and the social construction of terrorism and terrorism in South-East Asia on the other. The School runs popular Masters-level programmes on International Security and Terrorism, along with a range of modules on terrorism and terrorism-related topics. Research and teaching on security and terror is for us a serious business. Module review provides a means by which we take collective responsibility for what we teach, and by which we offer an implicit assurance that the material provided on our reading lists, whatever it may be, is for the purposes of study and research. If this demonstrates anything it is that we treat our responsibilities to staff and students with the gravity they deserve. We can only wish that the standard of reporting in the Times Higher Education was as responsible. As it is, Nottingham’s ‘censorship’ is now being flagged up on web sites such as ‘Scholars at Risk’ alongside cases in places such as Iraq and Iran. It is also rather ironic that the Times Higher saw fit to remove all comments posted to the Nottingham ‘censorship’ article. Citing a breach of privacy in one comment they removed the entire string of comments, the vast majority of which were critical of the article. Now that is censorship.

Dr. Pauline Eadie is a University Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, she is also Co-Director of the Institute of Asia Pacific Studies.

Dr. Mathew Humphrey is a Reader in Political Philosophy in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham, he is also Deputy Head of School.

The Teaching About Terrorism Group held a very positive two day seminar in London in early June. A range of issues were discussed including

• discussions with the UCU about how to defend members who were attacked in the press as had happened to members of the group at Aberystwyth who had been targeted by Melanie Phillips, in allegations rejected by the University.
• Discussion about the Nottingham case and its implications for academic freedom.
• discussion about the wide variety of experiences that members had in teaching and research terrorism.
• The implications of government guidance on good campus relations for teaching about terrorism.

The group to take forward a number of initiatives including policy guidance and research activities, some of which relate to the grant we have been given by C-SAP to survey terrorism teaching and experience.

The group agreed that student experiences relating to the teaching of terrorism would be an invaluable element of our work. and that we would make contact with a number of groups which might have experiences or information to share and to report back on this.

Policy outputs of relevance include the Department for Innovation Universities and Schools document (Promoting good campus relations, fostering shared values and preventing violent extremism in Universities and Higher Education Colleges, ) The group discussed ways of feeding the views of the teaching community on such documents back to policy makers. We noted that the UCU has a rep for Academic Freedom and it was suggested that this and other similar fora would be useful points for consultation.

The meeting tapped into a wide range of academic experiennces of good and not so good practice in handling some of the issues in teaching terrorism. It was felt that the richness of the experience at the meeting was likely to be replicated in the filed and the group resolved to call for the submission of experiences from academics across the UK about the challenges and opportunities of teaching about terrorism.

The group also discussed the issue of gathering data on how terrorism is taught and noted the interesting project launched by the American Political Science Association which provides some comparative data on how terrorism is taught in the US.

The meeting agreed it was important to capture the views and experience of University management on this issue.  Since the events at Nottingham, anecdotal evidence suggests a variety of responses by the Universities.  The research will seek out examples of good and bad practice in order to provide guidance where possible.

Lastly the group agreed to undertake a number of dissemination activities including setting up a page on the C-SAP website, the creation of a blog and a number of events jointly organisated with disciplinary and subject networks including a joint conference (with BISA and CSTPV) at Bradford University (17/18 October) and a panel at C-SAP 2009 Conference, (25-27 November).

—–Original Message—–
From: David Miller [mailto:davidmiller@strath.ac.uk]
Sent: 03 July 2009 15:13
To: THS Letters
Subject: for publication

The Times Higher Education should be congratulated for covering the establishment of a vetting committee at Nottingham University.  Use of the word ‘censorship’ is entirely justified, contrary to the spin emanating from supporters of management at Nottingham.

Censors never like their activities honestly described.  When introducing the 1988 Irish Broadcasting Ban, then Home Secretary Douglas Hurd argued ‘this is not not censorship’.  In 2009 the euphemism for vetting is ‘module review’.  In reality, every university keeps its modules under review.  But, it seems, Nottingham is alone in vetting reading lists for items that might ‘encourage’ terrorism.

This is spun as protecting academics and students from arrest and a defence of academic freedom.  It is just the opposite. The creation of an Orwellian sounding ‘module review’ committee infringes the most basic principle of academic freedom: autonomy over the content of lectures and reading lists.

The attacks on the THE and its journalist Melanie Newman for covering the story at all betrays the same contempt for press freedom as the defenders of vetting exhibit for academic freedom.  Please continue to report the truth about these issues without fear or favour.

Yours,
David Miller
Professor of Sociology
University of Strathclyde

The Times Higher reports on vetting at Nottingham

This was the headline of a piece in the Times Higher Education on 25 June, which sparked some controversy.  The story is online on the THE site, but the significant number of comments posted in response are now no longer online. There seems to be a variety of reasons for this, but we can note in particular that many of the comments were strongly critical of the report and in particular of the journalist who wrote it. The comments were removed on the 29/30 June.  At lunch time on the 30th Sean Matthews from Nottingham University emailed the deleted comments to me as convenor of the Teaching About Terrorism email list stating that the debate ‘is too important to suppress’. He went on to suggest that the comments be posted on the web ‘in order that the materials may continue to
be in the public domain’.

Since this group is interested in the practice of teaching about terrorism and in issues that may impinge on that there seems to be a good rationale for making the comments available for the record.  As can be seen below many of the comments emanate from supporters of management at Nottingham and there is a fair amount of invective aimed at the journalist who wrote the piece.  Indeed the thread below does not include a comment by Sean matthews colleague Macdonald Daly which the THE editors removed on the grounds that ‘our policy does rule out abusive comments or personalised attacks on individuals.’  It should be noted, that Macdonald Daly then specifically denied the implied charge:

The editor’s comment above makes it sound as if I was censored because I abused or made a personal attack on Ms Newman. I did neither. I did make an evaluation of her journalism over the last year and found it wanting in professionalism, honesty and trustworthiness. This was neither an attack, nor was it personal: it was a critical evaluation of her writing and the means whereby she frames and procures stories.

Matthews and Daly certainly seem to have written in response to Melanie Newman’s stories before (for example in comments on this story: Melanie Newman ‘Nottingham scholar held for 6 days under anti-terror law‘, Times Higher Education, 29 May 2008) and would no doubt deny that their efforts are directed at attempting to bully reporters and censor coverage of what happened at Nottingham.  Certainly the question of what constitutes censorship (The creation of the vetting committee; or The Times Higher Education removing the comments from its website; or the attempts from Nottingham to manage coverage of their response to the events of last year) is disputed.

The comments are reproduced below for the record.  It is obviously the case that there are conflicting views here of what is happening at Nottingham, but is is equally clear that not all versions of the story below can be reconciled.  There certainly needs to be some attempt to disentangle the various counts, which this group might help to do.

Readers’ comments

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 25 June, 2009
Ms Newman is to be congratulated for drawing attention to the new
processes for reviewing reading lists in the School of Politics at the
University of Nottingham. As a result of last year’s events, it is clear
the School of Politics is working hard to ensure proper procedures are
in place to protect the study of difficult and dangerous materials, and
to ensure that academics and students have proper, protected access to
them. It is unfortunate, though not unsurprising, that Ms Newman tries
to insinuate that this process is an attack on academic freedom. The
article leads off with the institution’s ‘denial’ that this is
‘censorship’, rather than praising the institution (which is to say
colleagues in the School of Politics) for doing everything it can to
*prevent* censorship or external interference. Seeing his words in this
context must also leave Professor Miller feeling sheepish: after all,
students have no academic freedom under the law anyway, and this process
seems calculated to make sure that their access to problematic data is
carefully moderated and protected (providing a defence in law against
the draconian Terror Acts). Last year’s miserable events and the
‘outrage’ they generated are dutifully mentioned – but Ms Newman makes
no acknowledgement of the truth that is now widely acknowledged:
academic freedom was never in question in the case of the Nottingham Two
- as serious scrutiny of the facts of the case demonstrates. So Two
Cheers for the THE and Ms Newman: scooped the story (their ’source’ must
be very pleased at the splash), just rather missed the point.

Dr. Pauline Eadie 25 June, 2009
I work in the School of Politics and International Relations at the
University of Nottingham. Amongst other subjects I teach terrorism and
security studies. I have been party to the module review process.
Therefore, unlike David Miller or Alia Brahimi, I feel I am qualified to
speak. For an unbiased account of the Nottingham arrests please see the
publication at www.academicfreedom.co.uk. How can there be censorship
when nothing has been censored? As an academic these characters should
know that no one cares for opinions or anecdotes, especially biased
ill-infomed ones, only proof. Where is this proof of censorship? Is
anyone banned from looking at specific material? No. Was this process
democratically agreed by all members of the School? Yes. Can students
and staff be assured that we are working in their best interests?
Absolutely. Can Nottingham staff, students and parents of students,
current and potential be confident that we are working to maintain a
free, fair and safe environment to work and study in? Most certainly.
Ms. Newman, if you consider yourself to be an investigative journalist,
then you might want to consider checking your facts.

Steven Fielding 26 June, 2009
I notice in the print version of the THES containing this story the
contents page states ‘Uproar as Nottingham police reading lists’. Where
is this ‘uproar’ and why use the verb ‘police’? The whole story is in
fact framed in a way associated with the tabloid press – I might have
hoped that THES journalists would have had more respect for their
readers, especially as (on the basis of the experts from Oxford and
Strathclyde) most will not have full possession of the facts. Academic
freedom is a very serious matter and should not be devalued in such a
way. So, reader: beware. And by the way, along with ‘denying’ that the
Politics module reviews are a threat to academic freedom I also here
‘deny’ that I am a wife beater, a paedophile and a fan of the work of Mr
Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Former Student 26 June, 2009
I have just graduated from the School of Politics and IR at the
University of Nottingham and I’m very glad to have left. Instead of
apologising for the arrest of one of its own students (an arrest I, and
everyone I know personally, sees as patently racist) the school has gone
on the offensive and is now blaming its own staff for this absurd,
paranoid witchunt. They’re acting as if the arrest of Rizwaan and Hich
was actually down to the nature of the document they had (a rambling
bore probably written by the CIA, attributed to ‘Al-Qaeda’) rather than
due to the incompetence of the management. The irony is that this silly
‘review’ board will push out the good researchers even if it is, as
Matthews et al. above suggest, toothless — why would you go to
Nottingham, where your work will be ‘reviewed’, when you can go to a
superior department and aovid such reviews altogether? Those pushing the
reviews seem to barely realise that they are destroying their own
department. Personally, I was considering staying on for a Masters in my
second year — but now I wouldn’t even think twice. I’m only going back
for graduation.

Steven Fielding 26 June, 2009
‘Former Student’ might like to know that Rizwaan is now enrolled on a
PhD in the School of Politics and IR and benefits from a fee waiver
which is funded by the School.

Sabine Carey 26 June, 2009
I am working at School of Politics and International Relations at the
University of Nottingham. As someone who was actually involved in the
module review, I do not recognise the process that took place with the
one that seems to be described in the article and by some of the
comments. First, this review process did not inspect reading lists ‘for
capacity to incite violence’, which the title of this article wrongly
claims. Second, it did not in any way review the work of our colleagues,
as ‘Former Student’ wrongly claims. What it did do, however, was to
provide us with a clearer picture and overview of what we teach
collectively so that we can offer our students an interesting, coherent
and intellectually challenging education.

Katherine Almassy 26 June, 2009
I guess this is a question that academics at Nottingham may be able to
answer. How much did this module review actually have to do with
‘illegal material’ or incitation to violence? The article reports that
‘Professor Miller said he was not aware of any other university that was
reviewing reading lists’ – I can actually think of a few, which
regularly review their reading lists for reasons that have nothing to do
with terrorism (but rather with paedagogy and/or library collections).
It may not make the headline of THES, but it does happen.

Alan Aardvark 26 June, 2009
I am amazed to discover that ‘former student’ thinks that an academic
department can arrest anyone! I’d always assumed that was done by the
police… Mind you, wouldn’t it be great it we could? ‘Failed to submit
your seminar paper? You’re nicked sunshine. Five years in the slammer’.
From the comments posted by Nottingham staff, this just sounds like one
of those THE bits of sensationalism that undermine the paper’s
reputation.

Steven Fielding 26 June, 2009
A comment by Macdonald Daly criticising Melanie Newman has been deleted:
could someone at the THES please tell us why?

Editor’s comment
Whilst Times Higher Education is very open to readers’ reactions and
criticisms, our policy does rule out abusive comments or personalised
attacks on individuals.

Pauline Eadie 26 June, 2009
In answer to Katherine’s query. You are absolutely correct other
universities do review reading lists and we are required to at
Nottingham. We felt that as the School has grown considerably in recent
years it would do us no harm to review reading lists, not least because
it helps us build an overview of what we actually do collectively as a
School. For instance repitition can identified and avoided and links
between modules can be noted. The illegal material etc. was really an
insignificant part of that process. The key point is that no material
was censored or removed from any reading list. Steve Fielding is
correct. If the University of Nottingham is racist and operates
draconian standards of censorship why did Rizwaan Sabir choose to
continue his studies with us? We actually ask students in their review
feedback on modules to say if they think that the lecturer treats them
with respect. I would like to think that my colleagues always do
regardless of race, gender, disability, religious belief etc. The
‘former student’ seems to have a very poor grasp of both the Nottingham
arrests and the review protest. However if he has been fed a version of
events similar to the article published here then that is hardly
surprising.

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 26 June, 2009
I’m pleased to hear that the THE has a policy for the moderation of
these comment strings following its articles. It gives one confidence to
know that standards are being maintained. One looks forward, therefore,
to a similarly firm editorial hand being exercised in the direction of
some of the journalists/reporters, too. Professor Fielding has, I think,
caught the tone of exasperation perfectly: inviting interviewees to deny
non-stories in order to justify retailing them is a poor substitute for
seeking out real stories, and I’m afraid a review of Ms Newman’s output
over the past year does reveal a marked tendency to this tactic. Her
reporting, which seems to follow a consistent set of prejudices or
strongly-held beliefs (perhaps even an ideology), has resulted in
tendentious reporting which has been hurtful to individuals (as Mac Daly
and I know to our cost), as well as to groups and collectives. I’m sure
it’s not personal on Ms Newman’s part, nor would she recognize her
behaviour as abusive, but I suspect (indeed I know) those who have had
the misfortune to be the object of her actions might feel differently.

Macdonald Daly 26 June, 2009
The editor’s comment above makes it sound as if I was censored because I
abused or made a personal attack on Ms Newman. I did neither. I did make
an evaluation of her journalism over the last year and found it wanting
in professionalism, honesty and trustworthiness. This was neither an
attack, nor was it personal: it was a critical evaluation of her writing
and the means whereby she frames and procures stories.

Mark Curry 26 June, 2009
I know that we are rapidly approaching the silly season – but this is no
reason to fill the THE with guff. This article is shoddy and lazy
journalism. I hope academics from Nottingham get a full right of reply
in the next issue and the Editor of THE is forced to issue an apology.

Richard Armstrong 28 June, 2009
While “no material was censored or removed from any reading list”
Pauline admits that the review did take into account – in her own words
- illegal material. Admittedly, it was “an insignificant part of that
process” but it is worrying that any university would think of reviewing
their reading lists for anything other than academic reasons.
Contextually, if the same logic were applied to humanities for example,
I would not have been able to study most of the texts in my American
Fiction unit this year. There is the castration and murder of a black
man in William Faulkner’s Light in August, and anti-Semitism in Ernest
Hemingway’s Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises. Racial issues arise in numerous
other titles: Quicksand & Passing; Invisible Man and The Heart is a
Lonely Hunter. As well as Nazism in Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High
Castle. I cannot even begin to imagine how history would be taught if
reading lists were moderated. Logically, you are advocating particular
realities, or inversely, subverting those which are problematic at the
moment, which is hard to justify at the best of times. But surely that
is how we arrived at this situation in the first place? British
involvement in Palestine after world war one, and the break-down of
colonialism in Africa are major causes of contemporary world issues, but
because these topics are so unpopular in education you have entire
generations of young-adults questioning why their armed forces
intervenes in Afghanistan and Iraq, or perhaps more pertinently – why
there is such hostility towards the UK from the Middle-East.

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 28 June, 2009
To repeat: the potential illegality of materials on reading lists
relates, in this case, to the Terror Acts of 2000 and 2007. Posession
and distribution by ANYONE of ANY material which might incite or support
terrorism is covered by these Acts. A defence in law relates to the
purpose or intention relating to that possession: this School is
properly assessing whether there are such materials on the reading lists
IN ORDER that they might be able to present a defence, NOT in order to
remove them. So – again – the School of Politics is to be congratulated
for recognizing that there are potentially problematic materials on some
modules, and thus preparing the defence in law. Other institutions ought
to be following suit. Is this really so difficult to grasp? The laws,
yes, are draconian – and we might readily challenge and question them -
but they do not infringe academic freedom: nor does this module review.
Academics, who are free within the law to research AND teach what they
like, have only to demonstrate that the materials they wish to use are
not being distributed with the intention of inciting or planning
terrorist acts. So Richard Armstrong need not worry – he can teach all
of those texts he mentions, and young adults can continue to question
their armed forces’ interventions (they tend to do little else, in fact,
without let or hindrance). The moderation of a reading list does not
mean the censorship of a reading list. The naive short-circuit which
Richard Armstrong’s thinking demonstrates is by far the more worrying
concern: there is a ready orthodoxy, to which he evidently subscribes,
which presumes a malign and oppressive regime in British universities,
and that HE is the tool of the dark forces of a malevolent State. Such
presumption, and the reflex of hysteria it generates (I cant teach
Faulkner!), is a far greater danger to our intellectual culture – and
our cultures of dissent – than any module review might ever be.

Phil Edwards 28 June, 2009
Under the Terrorism Act 2006, there is no such thing as an “illegal
document”. The Act does define certain documents as “terrorist
documents”, and creates an offence of distributing a terrorist document
- or holding such a document with intent to distribute – *if* the person
distributing it either intends to assist or encourage the commission of
acts of terrorism, or is reckless about this possibility. The offence
has two elements – the ‘terrorist document’ itself and the intention or
recklessness. The definition of “terrorist document” in the Act is
broad, and sits on top of an extremely broad definition of terrorism in
the 2000 Terrorism Act; the only way to be confident that there were no
“terrorist documents” on a reading list would be to have a list
consisting entirely of government publications. (There is no such thing
in the law as an “illegal document”, or a document which it is always
illegal to possess, or a document which it is always illegal to
recommend to students.) On the other hand, the intention and/or
recklessness test is easy to meet – as far as I can see, a university
would simply need to add a disclaimer to any potentially dangerous
reading list, saying that all the material contained in it was
recommended solely for the purpose of academic study. Nottingham have
gone for the wrong target, and set a very bad precedent for other
departments studying terrorism.

Richard Armstrong 28 June, 2009
Sean, I concede there was a level of ambiguity in my original comment
but I do not think you should be so quick to judge. I am a student not a
lecturer. My ‘reflexive hysteria’ centres on the problematic nature of
defining what constitutes “material which might incite or support
terrorism”. All material has the potential to incite or support unlawful
activity in the right context. This is why I highlighted the problematic
nature of applying these sorts of laws in humanities. But to blame the
material for causing the behaviour is “naive short-circuit” thinking,
and a consequence of knee-jerk politics. Your logic is inverted. Why
should lecturers be actively defending their course material? I thought
it was innocent until proven guilty? It should be the police not you who
should have to prove the link between your teaching and the incitement
and support of terrorism.

Richard Armstrong 28 June, 2009
Phil Edwards, perhaps, articulates my point of view better than I do
myself!

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 28 June, 2009
I’m grateful to Phil Edwards for his further specification of the law in
these matters. I suspect we are all agreed that these laws are
profoundly disturbing. I part company with Phil Edwards only because of
the unusual circumstances at Nottingham, and I think they set a very
positive precedent (in fact, what they are doing is, in effect, flagging
up such items with a disclaimer – but they are also making sure that
colleagues and students are aware of what might constitute a problematic
document – something which was, unfortunately, clearly not the case last
year). The case last year revealed that students *are* potentially at
risk if they are in possession of ‘terrorist documents’ and there is no
ready defence in law in place. They also run the risk of placing their
non-student friends in trouble (the tragedy of our local case). For this
reason, I reiterate that I think a review of one’s reading lists to
assess whether there are documents which might be, in this case
‘terrorist documents’ (in my own case, it is more likely to be
pornography, but that’s another story), and therefore might be subject
to the 2000/7 Acts, seems prudent – and, as a colleague remarked to me,
might allow one to respond reassuringly to a prospective student’s fears
of being arrested for studying on modules in the School of Politics. I’m
sorry if I upset Richard Armstrong – the laws *are* a problem, but I
still see the action of this School, in this institution, as providing
an excellent example. As I have argued elsewhere, these *are* bad laws,
and they do precisely make the awful assumptions about innocence -
permitting pre-emptive action on the part of the authorities – which
RIchard Armstrong fears. My point remains that these modules reviews
would seem to do everything possible to pre-empt challenges or problems.
In my own case, I would no more put child pornography on my modules
concerned with censorship – or even download for research – without
consultation with the University’s Research Ethics Committee and
carefully ensuring that there is a defence in law. Richard – we cant NOT
apply these laws in the humanities, but we can appeal to a defence the
law provides in its important articulation of academic freedom.

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 28 June, 2009
I didnt conclude my analogy about child pornography – I would no more
put that material on my reading list without consultation, etc., than I
would – to echo Professor Fielding – beat my wife or listen to the music
of Mr Andrew Lloyd Weber.

Macdonald Daly 28 June, 2009
The moral of this story is, if Melanie Newman calls you up and asks you
to deny something (no matter how little need you have to deny it because
it isn’t happening), don’t be surprised if she writes a story about the
uproar surrounding your denial of something you never even contemplated
doing. Of course, the only uproar is the one it is her intention to
cause by printing a story about your unnecessary denial. In this case,
the uproar is the disagreement in this thread – although my general
reading of it is that most contributors have seen right through Ms
Newman’s tactic.

Phil Edwards 29 June, 2009
Pauline Eadie: “The key point is that no material was censored or
removed from any reading list.” Sean Matthews: “this School is properly
assessing whether there are such materials on the reading lists IN ORDER
that they might be able to present a defence, NOT in order to remove
them” Could somebody clarify this important point? Was it ever envisaged
that “terrorist documents” might be removed from a reading list as a
result of the review? If not, why not save the trouble of having the
review and simply introduce a standard disclaimer?

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 29 June, 2009
Pauline Eadie provided the response to Phil Edwards’s question in her
earlier posting – the identification of potentially problematic material
in reading lists is only one aspect of the purpose of the review, which
was part of a wider process of teaching review. I quote below from an
excerpt from the document itself, which was posted to the JISC
discussion list on Teaching Terrorism a month ago. Knowing the format
issues of the THE threads I apologise in advance for any difficulties in
reading it. For those of you interested in following the discussion of
the document, including Melanie Newman’s email correspondence with David
Miller of Nuffield College, and his attempts to stimulate ‘responses’ to
‘Nottingham’ see (again with apologies for the formating)
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0906&L=TEACHING-ABOUT-
TERRORISM&T=0&F=&S=&P=11994 What is the purpose of a Module Review? The
aim of a review would be to provide feedback to staff on a range of

issues pertaining to their modules including:

* The range of topics covered by the module

* The assessment methods and whether they are appropriate for the learning outcomes

* Electronic resources available on the module

* Potential links with other modules in the School and contribution to the overall curriculum

* Whether any material on reading lists could be illegal or might be deemed to incite people to use
violence

How would it be carried out? In the first year of introducing
the system, there would be a review of all modules. This would be
undertaken by the Heads of each Teaching Group with additional help from
some members of staff. In subsequent years, the exercise would be
carried out by the Heads of Teaching Groups. A module would be reviewed
every three years on a rolling basis, unless it was a new module. The
exercise would be conducted after the end of exams and before U/G
results are released. Those responsible for the task of module reviews
would feedback their comments and suggestions to module convenors.

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 29 June, 2009
Terrifying stuff, isnt it! Thank heavens the THE exposed this awful
process of censorship and oppression before it went too far.

Macdonald Daly 29 June, 2009
Phil Edwards seems to misunderstand what is happening here, and his
proposal (a “standard disclaimer”) looks to me like the merest fig leaf
designed to protect the institution but not its students. The point is
not superficially to protect the institution but make students aware of
the law and previous interpretations of it (however much he dislikes
them) so that they don’t end up getting arrested. A useful point to make
is that none of this would have prevented what happened last year
because Rizwaan Sabir (the student) transferred a document to a
non-student for no good reason, and it was the presence of that document
on the latter’s computer that led to the arrest of both. Therefore
students also need guidance about what it is appropriate to do with
certain documents (i.e. not transfer them) – a “standard disclaimer” on
a reading list is not enough.

Pauline Eadie 29 June, 2009
I think you are merely trying to split hairs to be awkward here. Also
the review was no trouble. Those doing it commented that it was
interesting to see what other colleagues were teaching. I am starting to
feel like I am repeating myself here. This eroneous article stated that
we were censoring reading lists. Numerous academics from Nottingham,
privy to this process has stated that we are not. I guess censosrhip was
a story a lack of it is a non-story. So unless Ms. Newman had spun the
tale as she wanted it there would have been nothing to write. I can see
the title now ‘University of Nottingham staff think their modules are
jolly interesting and they are not censored’.

Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham 29 June, 2009
I’d like to correct my earlier posting: I must deny what it was David
Miller of Nuffield College to whom Ms Newman wrote about this story. I
am sorry to David Miller of Nuffield College for any criticism, real or
implied, that this mistake may have generated. If the moderator would
care to remove that association, I would be most grateful.

Maria Ryan 29 June, 2009
It’s amazing to me that Sean Matthews–an expert in D H
Lawrence–considers himself qualified to comment (and even write a short
book) on the research methods of scholars in Politics and IR, a field in
which he is not expert and has never undertaken any scholarly research.
I happen to differ from him in my views over this case but that’s not
really the issue here. (And before you ask–my research is on
contemporary US foreign policy). The main point is that we have a
non-expert in the field pontificating over research in an area where he
himself has no direct experience. Other who have commented here do have
expertise in this area and I respect their views as well informed,
although I might disagree with them. Steven Fielding: you imply that
Rizwaan’s fee-waiver has something to do with his mistaken arrest. This
is not the case. The decision had nothing to do with the registry or the
VC. He simply applied for a fee-waiver in the Politics School. He didn’t
get it at first and was put on a waiting list. In the end he was given
the award as the favoured studetn dropped out.

Maria Ryan 29 June, 2009
You might also like to consider that his arrest now means that he is
questioned under the Prevention of Terrorism Act evey time leaves the
country. His name will always appear on the list of people who have been
arrested under that act even though all charges against him were
dropped. He will never be able to visit the US for business or pleasure
as he would not be granted entry. So the consequences of his wrongful
arrest have not gone away; they may well be with him for the rest of his
life even though he is entirely innocent.

Macdonald Daly 29 June, 2009
As Sean Matthews’ co-author of the pamphlet Maria Ryan refers to, I must
set the record straight: it is about academic freedom; it is not about
Politics and International Relations and no one who reads it could
possibly think that it is. Academic freedom is not a topic on which any
single discipline has a monopoly, but it is a topic in which every
academic has an interest. Clearly there are a number of people in
Nottingham (and further afield) who are mistaken about what academic
freedom is and to whom it applies. If Maria Ryan thinks Rizwaan Sabir
had academic freedom and that that freedom was breached she is simply
wrong. Students do not have academic freedom, which is a legal
protection which extends only to academic staff. (That’s a fact, not an
opinion.) The scholarship of our publication is there for people to
judge on its own merits. Rizwaan Sabir is technically irrelevant to
current events, but presumably Maria Ryan would agree that we don’t want
anyone else being arrested because they do what he did. As such
prevention is what the School of Politics is trying to achieve, I am
surprised that she seems not to be with her colleagues from that School
in their attempts. Her statement that Sabir’s arrest was wrongful is
simply without foundation. An arrest is not wrongful because it does not
lead to a charge. It is wrongful only if carried out in breach of the
law (i.e. the laws governing arrest). Sabir was quite legally arrested
and quite legally released – as we say in our short book. Lastly, I am
quite simply stunned that Maria Ryan thinks that the confidential
processes whereby a student gains finance from her School should be made
a matter of public record. That strikes me as an invasion of Mr Sabir’s
privacy. I refer her top her own contractual clauses on confidentiality
and the relevant University policies.

Pauline Eadie 29 June, 2009
Sean Matthew’s book is on the Nottingham arrests and academic freedom at
the University of Nottingham. As he was in the department where the
arrests took place and was consulted by many interested parties given
his position with the UCU I really don’t see where you get the idea from
that he does not know what he is talking about. In fact random talking
heads drummed up by Ms. Newman to counter ‘irate’ (I quote) of
Nottingham can hardy claim to be experts in the issue. Here we are again
defending something that needs no defence. Try reading the book. Steve
Fielding did not imply anything – you chose to read it that way. Just
the same that review does not equate to censorship.

Macdonald Daly 29 June, 2009
I had assumed that Maria Ryan was a member of the School of Politics at
Nottingham (so knowledgeable does she seem of its financial workings and
decisions) but I should point that she is in fact in the School of
American and Canadian Studies at Nottingham. Obviously someone in
Politics has seen fit to tell her how Mr Sabir got his fee waiver. I am
not sure why someone would wish to breach mr Sabir’s confidentiality
like that, nor why she would wish to repeat the breach, but there it is,
she has done so.

Steven Fielding 29 June, 2009
In response to Maria Ryan’s point, above: I was replying to ‘Former
Student’ who made allegations about ‘racism’ and also claimed that (if
indeed they were a former student – they chose to be anonymous) they
would not be studying for an MA in the School of Politics because of the
arrests in 2008. Moreover, to address her own point: as the person
responsible for operating the School’s fee waiver scheme last year I
know the mechanism through which Rizwaan gained his PhD fee waiver. The
arrests are anyway an entirely different point to the one raised in the
article, although the THES tried to link them in the print edition by
having a picture of Rizwaan heading it. I was hardly a supporter of how
the police conducted themselves after the arrests were made and I think
the University might also usefully revisit some things said and done
during what was a unique and unpleasant experience for all concerned. I
also do not support each and every aspect of the relevant legislation.
This is not, then, a black and white matter; there are many threads and
grey areas; although the story is part of an attempt to present it in
the crudest of simplistic terms. As Orwell said of some socialists in
the 1930s, more than a few of those who claim to be defending academic
freedom are in danger of alienating the very people with whom they
should be building bridges.

Phil Edwards 29 June, 2009
Macdonald Daly: “Phil Edwards seems to misunderstand what is happening
here, and his proposal (a “standard disclaimer”) looks to me like the
merest fig leaf designed to protect the institution but not its
students.” <br>I repeat: there is no offence of possessing a ‘terrorist
document’. The offence introduced by the Terrorism Act 2006 is of
distributing such a document with intent to assist or encourage
terrorist acts, or with recklessness as to such a result. <br> The onus
is on universities to demonstrate that they’re not being reckless as to
the results of their distribution of certain texts. Obviously this
disclaimer could be extended to include a warning to students against
committing their own reckless distribution of “terrorist documents”. But
there is no way I can see of addressing the other half of the offence,
by removing anything that could be classed as a ‘terrorist document’
from a reading list for teaching on terrorism.

Phil Edwards 29 June, 2009
Sorry about the “<br>”s. Is there *any* way of putting a line break into
these comments?

'Al Qaeda Training Manual' available on Amazon

A Nottingham postgraduate student and an administrator were arrested in May 2008 and held for six days by counter-terrorism police after a document known as the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ was found on the administrator’s computer. The student had sent him the document some months previously as he wanted his advice on whether or not it was a good source to use in his MA dissertation – which was on Al Qaeda. The student, before his arrest, did ask a lecturer at the university if it would be alright for him to use as a source. This lecturer, after checking the document out, agreed.

What exactly is the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’? It is a handwritten document (originally in Arabic) that was found in Manchester in 2000 by the police and translated by them into English. Its real title is ‘Declaration of Jihad against the Country’s Tyrants’ (or sometimes ‘Military Studies in the Jihad against the Tyrants’) and appears to have originated in Egypt in the early 1990s. It was designed to be used by Islamists opposing the Egyptian government in particular and secular Arab regimes more generally in the 1980s/1990s. The words ‘Al Qaeda’ actually do not appear in it once. It was only given the title ‘The Al Qaeda Training Manual’ by the US Department of Justice (US DoJ) which was using this document (having obtained it from the British police) as evidence in the trial in New York of the East African embassy bombers in 2000. The name was changed presumably in an attempt to ‘sex up’/‘spin’ the document to make it sound more ‘incriminating’ to a jury.

It reads very much like any Western military manual. As ‘The Smoking Gun’ website puts it, ‘Several commentators have observed that this manual appears to be a compilation of material drawn from various military, intelligence and law enforcement manuals for internal security, guerrilla and covert operations’. It has also been linked to the ‘Torture Manuals’ produced by the US Army School of the Americas in the period 1987-91 (see ‘US Army and CIA interrogation manuals’ on Wikipedia).

Having been used in the above trial the document had, under US freedom of information laws, to be made public. Hence it is now on 6,000 websites (apparently) and a Google search for ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ provides 958,000 hits. It is on the websites of any number of respected US organizations: RAND; US Air War College; Pentagon library; Federation of American Scientists; Columbia University library, etc. Thus all any student has to do, if they did want to access this document that the Nottingham student downloaded, is to go along to any university library and just download it from an affiliated site – such as Columbia. It has also come out as two books: The Al Qaeda Training Manual (2006) published by Pavilion Press (available from the likes of Cornell University library), and as Jerrold (or Jerry) Post’s (ed), Military Studies in the Jihad against the Tyrants/The Al Qaeda Training Manual (2004) published by Frank Cass (now Routledge). A hard copy of Post’s work is also available from the US Counterproliferation Center in Alabama (hereinafter ‘US Air Force version’). This latter variant can be ordered on interlibrary loan. The ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ also forms part of another book, Ben Venzke’s, The Al Qaeda Documents, Volume I. (2002).
The US DoJ variant is, in fact, an edited version and has some chapters removed. Of the two books, the Pavilion Press variant has some chapters removed but less than the US DoJ one, and the book edited by Jerry Post has all the chapters present with just a few lines removed about how to make poisons. It is ironic that the fullest version is the one that is freely available from interlibrary loan!

The ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ is common currency. It is not some secret tome lurking deep within Jihadist websites. It is cited in many basic textbooks on terrorism. It is considered to be a seminal text in the study of Al Qaeda’s tactical approaches: Rohan Gunaratna makes great use of it in Inside Al Qaeda (2003); a visit to Wikipedia’s ‘Islamic Terrorism’ provides a link, and the About.com website for ‘Al Qaeda’ lists the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ as being one of only three ‘in depth’ sources to access related to Al Qaeda. Indeed, one of the most popular and basic textbooks in both the US and the UK, Gus Martin’s Understanding Terrorism (Sage, latest edition 2009), has a 3-page section devoted to the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’. Here it actually gives the US DoJ website address to access as a primary source (pp.367-9). Undergraduate students are actually encouraged to access this document! At least one postgraduate student, indeed, wrote her whole master’s thesis on the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ (Melanie Kreckovsky, ‘Training for Terror: A Case Study of Al Qaeda’, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, 2002 http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA401637).

Some observers think it is a good source. It has been described as ‘the sole piece of reference material available to the general public regarding the inner workings of Al Qaeda’. This source goes on to say that the knowledge in it is useful to any person anxious to fight terrorism: it ‘educates the average citizen about the tactics and organizational structure of the terrorist organization for the express purpose of empowering that citizen to take the necessary steps to expose potential terrorists, and bring that suspect and the suspicious activity to the awareness of the proper law enforcement agencies’. Likewise, a reviewer on Amazon (a US Marine) calls it ‘an excellent opportunity to see some of the ways that Al Qaeda and other terrorists think and operate…this is a must read for all military, police, security and any citizen concerned about terrorism and its aims’. An academic at the US Marine Corps University, Norman Cigar, sees it as a ‘valuable document’ (Norman Cigar, Al-Qaida’s Doctrine for Insurgency, 2009, p.5). Paul Bremer, in his preface to the US Air Force version, talks of the work providing a ‘revealing…view of the “mind” of Al Qaeda and its leadership’ (Jerrold Post (ed), Military Studies in the Jihad Against the Tyrants (Maxwell AFB, Ala: USAF Counterproliferation Center, 2004).

Others see little of use in the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’. One observer noted that it is ‘the sort of thing anyone with any common sense could figure out. Nothing at all was mind blowing or informative’. Another said ‘I’ve read just about every credible book on Al Qaeda and I honestly have to say this book’s not worth the money I paid for it. The information it contains can be found on the internet. An excellent alternative is Ben Venzke and Aimee Ibrahim’s The Al Qaeda Threat: An Analytical Guide to Al Qaeda’s Targets and Tactics.

Academics teaching terrorism would probably not recommend any of their students to look at this particular document. It is strange that an ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ does not mention Al Qaeda once and it is very dated and of little relevance in the contemporary age. The stated target set in the manual also gives away its origins. This is patently a document written in Egypt (probably from someone in the Muslim Brotherhood) and is designed to push readers towards taking action against murtid (or apostates) – Muslims who have renounced Islam – in Arab countries (‘US Air Force Version’, p.14 and p.16). Specific targets were those leaders in Arab countries who had adopted socialism and communism in the 1970s and 1980s; including Assad (the elder), Sadat, Hosni Mubarak and Ghadaffi (ibid, p.18). As the manual puts it, ‘the main mission for which the Military Organization is responsible is: the overthrow of the godless regimes and their replacement with an Islamic regime’ (ibid, p.23). There are no references to the killing of Jews or Christians and there is no mention of the US. Indeed, the passages quoted from the Koran, which originally included references to Jews and Christians, have had such references removed. Jews and Christians in this ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ are not targets.

Moreover, when a terrorist ‘manual’ talks of using revolvers, invisible inks and ciphers in letters – while never once mentioning computers, the web or email – then the information within it needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. For instance, under the title, ‘Communications Means’, some of the ‘means’ to be used along with the telephone, messengers and letters are ‘some modern devices, such as facsimile and wireless communication’ (ibid, p.39)! Mobile phones are not mentioned.
The last date referred to in the document is in 1987. But there is some talk of how readers should try and get into Afghanistan through Pakistan. Whether this section was added later is not clear (there are various different handwriting styles in the document). Also, this section could refer to Afghanistan under the Soviets or during the period of the Taliban when Al Qaeda training camps had been set up there. It does not, of course, refer to the current post-Taliban Afghanistan since the document was discovered back in 2000.

The ‘bomb’ section does not tell readers how to make bombs, merely how to plant them and how to ‘light a fuse’. This section is all very ‘innocent’. The section on interrogation is designed to relate what a member of the ‘organization’ might face when captured by the authorities; it is not about members of the organization interrogating other people (although reverse-engineering is, of course, possible).
Interestingly, Post, as the editor making comments in the ‘US Air Force version’, is twisting information in the document to fit a certain point of view. He notes, in the interrogation section, that the writer of the manual refers to ‘the personal experiences that Al Qaeda personnel and their wives, mothers and sisters have undergone’ during interrogations by the Egyptian authorities (ibid, p.166). Yet none of the ‘experiences’ are actually of Al Qaeda members; rather they are of Egyptian members of the Muslim Brotherhood! Post, a US government employee, seems to be taking the wording of the manual and trying to make it fit a preconceived notion – that this is, actually, written by ‘Al Qaeda’.

The ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ falls into the category of interesting but not particularly useful. As the Director of the Royal United Services Institute, Michael Clarke, puts it, ‘I have not seen any Al Qaeda manuals that look like genuine terrorist training’ (Uzi Mahnaimi, ‘Finger points to British intelligence as al-Qaeda websites are wiped out’, Times Online ). A much ‘better’ (or should it be ‘more dangerous’?) book is Norman Cigar’s (ed), Al Qaida’s doctrine for insurgency: a practical course for guerrilla warfare (Potomac Press/Brasseys 2009). It is a translation of the manual of the Al Qaeda cell in North Africa. This is much more ‘useful’ to terrorists than is the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’. It is far more up-to-date; is far more detailed, and is actually written by someone in Al Qaeda. While, for instance, the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ has only one page devoted to how to block a car in assassination attempts, the Al Qaida’s doctrine for insurgency has a whole 7-page chapter on this subject! Ironically, though, not only does the translation of this manual emerge from one of the most prestigious presses in the US, but it also has a foreword by Julian Lewis MP, a UK shadow defence minister!

Incidentally, the UK police did ask the US DoJ to remove the document from its website in 2005. It refused, saying that ‘the public has a need for more information about how terrorists operate, so as to be able to protect themselves better’.

And, as a final postscript, the ‘Al Qaeda Training Manual’ is certainly nowhere near as ‘dangerous’ as any of the dozens of ‘manuals’ one could download from US Militia websites.

This project aims to research the extent and nature of teaching about terrorism in UK Universities in Sociology, Politics and Criminology.   This is important because of the renewed interest in teaching and researching terrorism that has hugely expanded post 11 September 2001.  It is also because the teaching of terrorism has become a topic of some controversy as a result of government, media and law enforcement interest, with considerable resulting uncertainty about what constitutes appropriate and legal content for teaching and learning.

The project aims to
•    Survey the extent and nature of teaching about terrorism across the UK HE sector in three related disciplines.
•    Analyse patterns of provision and best practice markers.
•    Examine selected cases of challenges in teaching about terrorism.
•    Examine selected cases of ‘best practice’ in teaching about terrorism.
•    Construct a guide to the range of terrorism studies in the UK.
•    Provide guidance to the HE community on how to handle challenges and promote best practice.

The project aims to significantly benefit social science learning and teaching in that it will catalogue challenges to effective teaching, tease out and clarify the ethical issues involved and identify best practice.  This will help to work towards real change in the teaching of terrorism.

The project is scheduled to run for a year from August 2009.

The group was established in 2008 and held its first meeting at Strathclyde University in September of that year. The group focuses on pedagogical issues faced by academics engaged in the delivery of courses on ‘terrorism’, political violence and associated subjects. The group offers a forum for discussion of these contested issues and encourages a wide participation from academics and teachers in this area.

In recent months the question of the relationship between teaching or research materials and the commission of ‘terrorist’ acts has become an important public issue. The arrest of Nottingham University postgraduate student Rizwaan Sabir and a Nottingham administrator Hicham Yezza in relation to the downloading of an ‘Al Qaeda’ manual for Sabir’s dissertation research has highlighted the emerging and ongoing difficulties of teaching about ‘terrorism’ and political violence in the current climate.

The aim of this initiative is to explore how the issues associated with teaching about ‘terrorism’ have been handled and will provide guidance on ethical issues and best practice. Issues to be addressed include:

• Ethical issues in teaching about political violence
• Modes of delivery: what is best practice?
• Handling sensitive subjects
• External monitoring and guidance on teaching contents and reading lists
• Legal and other concerns about teaching political violence
• The role of universities in monitoring students
• The impact of law enforcement agencies on teaching activities
• Advising government and other policy bodies
• Issues of academic freedom

The group includes academics from across the UK at more than 30 institutions of higher education. The working group is being convened by David Miller of Strathclyde University (davidmiller@strath.ac.uk).

We welcome additional members to join the group. To find out more please get in touch.

The blog will be used to post resources on teaching about ‘terrorism’ and associated subjects as well as other relevant information about issues and challenges faced in teaching about terrorism by academics all over the world, though the group itself is largely based in the UK.

Links

• The Teaching About Terrorism e-list: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/TEACHING-ABOUT-TERRORISM.html

• The Teaching About Terrorism page on the C-SAP website: http://www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/about_us/sigs/teaching_terrorism.htm