Methinks 1940 academic freedom and tenure statement is the culprit. The legally unenforceable concepts of academic freedom and tenure are self-serving criteria drawn up by scholars in the academia to protect their pecuniary interests with little regard to adherence to ethical standards serving their institution or the community which supports the institution. The legal tenability of the 1940 statement should be tested; Capitol Hill should intervene in the larger interests of safeguarding civil rights of the Hindu community in USA and to ensure that academics, in the course of their free inquiries, do not violate reasonable standards of Public Order and Public Decency. A good test for such standars is Chapter 43 of US Penal Code which defines harmful material which may arouse prurient interests of minors.
Kalyanaraman
Academic Integrity: It's What's Missing at the AAR
Comment
Vishal Agarwal (Vishal_Agarwal)
The article hits the nail on the head. Doniger's "The Hindus" has literally hundreds of instances where she has invented passages that do not exist in the original, has cherry picked verses out of their context, has given wrong translations, has quoted non existent references to secondary works in addition to the factual errors rampant. It is not just a question of the right to interpret, but of the scholar's academic honesty and moral integrity. And it is not just the Hindus, but other scholars too who have criticized her work. Hans Bakker has called her books "fast food" that 'sell and attract a lot of publicity but lack scholarship.' Rahul Peter Das has written that any insights that she gains from the Hindu texts are 'accidental' and that she really does not understand them. D N Jha (Marxist historian) writes that her works are naïve from a historian's perspective. Nicholas Kazanas writes that she is obsessed with 'defloration, seduction, sex' and the like. Even Witzel, who is often regarded as a Hindu hater, terms her translations as grossly wrong. Doniger has been made aware of the criticisms of her book even 4 years ago, but she never responds to them and choses to term them as Hindu Nationalists. The judge in India hearing the case between Penguin and Shiksha Bachao Andolan said that the book is 'vulgar.' Penguin, with deep pockets, thought it would lose because her book was indefensible. No wonder it settled out of court.
15 MAR 9:34 AMhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/suhag-a-shukla-esq/academic-integrity-its-wh_b_4961453.html