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Originating in 1968 as the Radical Caucus within the American Philosophical Association (APA), we formed ourselves into the Radical Philosophy Association (RPA) in 1982. While continuing to hold sessions at the APA meetings, we also began to hold occasional weekend conferences of our own as well, including a series of conferences on Class, Race and Gender.
Since 1990, RPA has been the principal organizer of an annual conference in Havana that has helped to try to undermine the U.S. blockade of Cuba by establishing contacts between Cuban and North American philosophers and social scientists. From its beginning, the RPA has published the RPA Newsletter. In 1990, we established a semi-annual Radical Philosophy Review of Books (now called the Radical Philosophy Review) as well. In 1994, the RPA held its first International/National Conference at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, leading to a further expansion of our activities for graduate students and adjuncts. For a more detailed history of the RPA, see A RPA History and RPA History: A Chronology. Archives of the Radical Philosophy Association and the Radical Philosophy Newsletter can be found at NYU's Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. 
RPA Statement on Freedom of Speech and the Right to Protest
The members of the Radical Philosophy Association support the right to free speech and the right to protest, especially on college and university campuses. Our organization was founded in the wake of the various liberation movements of the 1960s,a time now celebrated and valorized in popular cultural and historical memory. The modern university itself was created as a protected space to pursue the truth, no matter how unpopular or dissenting from the status quo. Indeed, dissent is crucial not only to philosophy and higher education but to democracy as well. Recent events in the United States have made it clear that these fundamental freedoms and rights, which are basic to any liberal democracy, have not been upheld. In fact, it is much clearer that these democratic values are under threat by the very institutions charged with teaching them to future generations. Several universities, both public and private, have called local police onto campus to dismantle encampments and interrupt peaceful protests, often using violent means that harm students and faculty indiscriminately. Philosophy faculty have been arrested for appearing at a protest to support their students (Noelle McAfee, Emory University) and barred from teaching for blogging about the Israel-Hamas conflict from a pro-Palestinian perspective (Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges). Presidents of universities who have negotiated in good faith with student protesters have been summarily removed from their offices by their Boards of Trustees. Finally, other university presidents have been called before Congress ostensibly to testify for failing to condemn or take appropriate action against pro-Palestinian student protestors. We affirm that the university should be a space of open inquiry and dialogue and therefore condemn actions taken to stop student protests, silence faculty, and intimidate administrators, including suspending faculty from regular duties, withholding diplomas from graduating students [Chicago, UCLA, Princeton], interfering with student-run scholarly publications [Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews], and permitting faculty to libel and slander students [Berkeley, Columbia]. We condemn the weaponization of safety concerns to stifle debate: on several campuses, disingenuous concerns for the safety of Jewish students and faculty from non-violent protests are coupled with willful ignorance of Palestinian (and other Muslim) students and faculty who have been harassed, threatened, or assaulted (often by pro-Israel counter-protestors). By framing any support of Palestine or any criticism of Israel to be anti-Semitic, universities falsely claim to be upholding the equality of persons that they are actually undermining with their actions. Anti-Semitism has been weaponized to stifle dissent from the default pro-Israel position. This has rendered university campuses much more vulnerable to the Right’s ultimate goal of rooting out diversity and quashing any resistance to their preferred narratives of domination. Many university administrations have abdicated their responsibility to foster open dialogue by siding with the U.S. status quo of unquestioning support for the policies of the Israeli government, even as it commits genocide in Palestine and continues to bomb hospitals, schools, and healthcare facilities while cutting off all avenues for humanitarian aid. This state of affairs has been supported by the U.S. government through both the ongoing reluctance of President Joseph R. Biden to use the full power of his office to demand a ceasefire and Congressional hearings designed to interrogate college presidents for failing to shut down student protests in support of the lives of Palestinians and their right to self-determination. These Congressional hearings have dovetailed with the extreme Right’s continuous attack on diversity in education, both because of their convergence with anti-Semitic evangelical eschatological beliefs and because the support of Palestine has long been viewed as a Left or progressive position in the same spirit as other liberation struggles against racism, sexism, and colonialism. Indeed, it is unsurprising that the university presidents targeted by Congress in these hearings are representatives of historically marginalized groups, such as women and people of color, cynically implying these administrators are unqualified for or undeserving of their roles. As teachers, we fear the effect of this silencing of free speech and the use of police violence on our students. What lessons are they learning about dialogue, dissent, and democracy if the fear of losing donors and investors trumps all other concerns? How can we prepare our students to meet the nuances and complexities of the world if the institutions tasked with doing so refuse? Must free inquiry and open debate be casualties of keeping the university afloat, rejecting the Enlightenment imprimatur of “dare to know” for today’s reality of “how dare you ask”? As faculty, we support the fundamental mission of higher education, which is to maintain and protect a space for open inquiry and disagreement. As scholars, we are committed to learning and discussing, not indoctrination and dogmatism. As radical philosophers, we condemn the ongoing genocide in Palestine by the settler-colonial state of Israel and facilitated by the United States. Hence we condemn in the strongest possible terms any retaliation suffered by students or faculty for their courageous support of Palestinian self-determination and the self-evident rights the United States claims to be at its foundation. We stand with those who have suffered unfair treatment by their institutions, and we call on the administrations of those institutions to provide them with the support necessary to voice their opinions, pursue their research, and express their political beliefs free fromrestrictions and retaliation. Archives of RPA And RPA Newsletter
Materials or inquiries related to the archive can be sent to Peter Meyer Filardo, Tamiment Archivist New York University Elmer Holmes Bobst Library 70 Washington Square South New York, NY 10012-1091 |
