Etzioni, A. (2017). Academic Activism: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished. Solutions 8(1): 82-84. https://thesolutionsjournal.com/article/academic-activism-no-good-deed-unpunished/
Reviews Book Review
Academic Activism: No Good Deed Goes Unpunished by Amitai Etzioni REVIEWING The Public Professor by M.V. Lee Badgett, NYU Press, 2016
T
he United States has allowed very few Syrian refugees to enter the country. The Republicans argue that they all pose a security risk; and, the Democrats respond that several screening procedures—employed by the FBI, CIA, the State Department, and immigration authorities—are more than sufficient to allow a large number of Syrian refugees to be allowed into the US. As so often happens in the US these days, no compromise could be found, and the US gates remain largely shut to Syrians. I suggested that the US allow 25,000 children, younger than ten, to be hosted by American families until the end of the civil war. In this way, the US could make a humanitarian contribution without any security risk. I called a reporter to check whether she could help air this idea in order to call attention to it by public leaders and my fellow citizens. When one of my colleagues heard about this, he was quite troubled. “You called a reporter? Not she, you?” Professors, he felt, should do their research and publish it in academic journals, and not formulate policy ideas about matters they have not studied, and surely not promote anything anywhere. Professor M.V. Lee Badgett strongly believes otherwise. She published a delightful, highly useful guidebook for activist professors: The Public Professor. I write “delightful” because the book is full of very telling and evocative anecdotes that illustrate the point she
is making—a text that no academic journal would dream of publishing. Professor Badgett has the credentials to write such a book, being an activist professor herself. She has written for publications such as The New York Times and The Boston Globe, and has appeared on NPR and CNN. She dedicates the book to “the activists, organizers,
tremendous knowledge and insight, but who do not know how to connect to policy debates. She offers several suggestions, ranging from teaming up with community organizations, to designing a research project, to writing a letter to heads of agencies to show how one’s recent research might be of interest to their work.
Public debates often revolve around what should be done, only a short step from academic debates about why things are the way they are. lawyers, politicians, protestors, funders, teachers, staffers, writers, and voters working to change the world, and the scholars working alongside them.” These professors, and those who seek to understand the ways they work, would greatly benefit from this thin volume. Each chapter covers one major part of what it takes to be an active scholar, as well as a table (or two) of specific tips. Professor Badgett begins in Chapter 1 with a call to academics to reach beyond their normal circles and to engage in public debates. She recognizes that this is a challenge for professors throughout their career cycle: recent PhDs who are eager to change the world, but who are facing the pressure to publish or perish; and, senior colleagues who have
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In Chapter 2, Badgett encourages scholars to understand the terms of the public debate, noting that questions about which the public is concerned will be framed very differently from scholarly debates. Actually, though, public debates often revolve around what should be done, only a short step from academic debates about why things are the way they are. Having understood the public debates, scholars next need to learn the “rules of the game,” which Badgett takes up in Chapter 3. Identifying the important decision makers is paramount, and Badgett encourages scholars to consider not just policy makers and legislative chambers, but also the courts, private sector foundations, and social movements, among others.