Judith Butler has submitted a letter to the editor of CHE explaining her "regrets" about the "confidential" Ronell letter. (There is no sense in which a letter being e-mailed to hundreds of academics across North America and Europe soliciting signatures is "confidential": I assume what Butler means is that it was supposed to be shared only among like-minded individuals devoted to Prof. Ronell, not academics with ethical standards.) As a reader points out, here's what would remain of the letter after excising the bits Professor Butler now regrets:
We write as long-term colleagues of Professor Avital Ronell who has been under investigation by the Title IX offices at New York University. Although we have no access to the confidential dossier, we have all worked for many years in close proximity to Professor Ronell. We have all seen her relationship with students. We wish to communicate first in the clearest terms our profound an [sic] enduring admiration for Professor Ronell. We deplore the damage that this legal proceeding causes her, and seek to register in clear terms our objection to any judgment against her. We hold that the allegations against her do not constitute actual evidence.
She deserves a fair hearing, one that expresses respect, dignity, and human solicitude.
Below the fold the original letter, with the bits Professor Butler now "rejects" stricken:
Dear President Hamilton and Provost Fleming,
We write as long-term colleagues of Professor Avital Ronell who has been under investigation by the Title IX offices at New York University. Although we have no access to the
confidential dossier, we have all worked for many years in close proximity to Professor Ronell and accumulated collectively years of experience to support our view of her capacity as teacher and a scholar, but also as someone who has served as Chair of both the Departments of German and Comparative Literature at New York University. We have all seen her relationship with students, and some of us know the individual who has waged this malicious campaign against her. We wish to communicate first in the clearest terms our profound an enduring admiration for Professor Ronell whose mentorship of students has been no less than remarkable over many years. We deplore the damage that this legal proceeding causes her, and seek to register in clear terms our objection to any judgment against her. We hold that the allegations against her do not constitute actual evidence, but rather support the view that malicious intention has animated and sustained this legal nightmare.
As you know, Professor Ronell has changed the course of German Studies, Comparative Literature, and the field of philosophy and literature over the years of her teaching, writing, and service. She is responsible for building the field of literary studies at New York University, but also throughout Europe as a result of her brilliant scholarship and spirit of intellectual generosity. Her students now teach at leading research institutions in the US, France, and Germany, and her intellectual influence is felt throughout the humanities, including media and technology studies, feminist theory, and comparative literary study. There is arguably no more important figure in literary studies at New York University than Avital Ronell whose intellectual power and fierce commitment to students and colleagues has established her as an exemplary intellectual and mentor throughout the academy. As you know, she is the Jacques Derrida Chair of Philosophy at the European Graduate School and she was recently given the award of Chevalier of Arts and Letters by the French government.
We testify to the grace, the keen wit, and the intellectual commitment of Professor Ronell and ask that she be accorded the dignity rightly deserved by someone of her international standing and reputation. If she were to be terminated or relieved of her duties, the injustice would be widely recognized and opposed. The ensuing loss for the humanities, for New York University, and for intellectual life during these times would be no less than enormous and would rightly invite widespread and intense public scrutiny. We ask that you approach this material with a clear understanding of the long history of her thoughtful and successive mentorship, the singular brilliance of this intellectual, the international reputation she has rightly earned as a stellar scholar in her field, her enduring commitments to the university, and the illuminated world she has brought to your campus where colleagues and students thrive in her company and under her guidance. She deserves a fair hearing, one that expresses respect, dignity, and human solicitude in addition to our enduring admiration.
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UPDATE: Dr. Eric Johnson-DeBaufre, the philosophy librarian at Harvard, writes:
First, I want to thank you for decision--made months ago--to publish the letter circulated by Judith Butler et al on behalf of Avital Ronell. Were it not for that decision, I doubt we would be where we are today. And painful as it is, we need to be at this place today because we owe it to those entering the humanities as well as to junior members of the profession in the vulnerable positions of mentorship or in early career to reassure them that their professional organizations will defend them.
And since Butler's recent letter of "apology" has made it an issue, I want also to address the matter of the leaking and publication of the original Ronell support letter. Butler's "apology" twice mentions that this support letter "appeared online without our consent" and was "confidential." The citation of these facts is curious but the implication is clear: Butler views the publication of the support letter as unauthorized and, by implication, as a violation of the draftees' and signatories' right to privacy. It is fair then to wonder what it is precisely that Butler "regrets" (her word): the sentiments expressed in the letter or rather the public airing of those sentiments?
But Butler's "apology" turns truly classical (i.e. into an apologia or defense of self) in the way it treats the substance of that letter. While Butler clearly recognizes the obvious wrongness of "attribut[ing] motives to the complainant" and "impl[ying] that Ronell's status and reputation earn her differential treatment," her apologia repeatedly aims to minimize and downgrade the seriousness of these acts. It does this at the outset by of this section by claiming that "the letter was written in haste," the clear implication being that the objectionable nature of these views is merely the product of carelessness and haste on the part of the writers. It asks us--busy academics all--for a charitable reading of these regrettable sentiments. Haven't we all, it suggests, been guilty of infelicitous expression at one time or another?Moreover, the "apology" aims to minimize our objection to these views by misrepresenting what the letter in fact does. Butler says that she "should not have used language that implied that Ronell's status and reputation earn her differential treatment of any kind." As more than one reader of the Ronell letter has noted, there is nothing implied at all in the letter--Butler and her fellow signatories assert that Ronell is deserving of differential treatment due to her international eminence.
We are left, then, with a curious situation. On the one hand we are reminded that these views--objectionable though they are--were due a measure of privacy that publication denied both them and their authors. And on the other hand, now that they have come into the public eye, we are asked to view them indulgently and charitably as pardonable "mistakes" that arose due to haste and carelessness.
The publication of Butler's "apology" is telling--it appeared as the movement to have her resign or be removed as president-elect of the MLA is gaining steam. It would be unfortunate if Butler's effort were allowed to succeed. While it is commendable that Butler has sought to distance herself from views and actions that the MLA and its members find objectionable, it is not sufficient to repair the damage she has done. For the sake of the organization and as a gesture of good faith towards its vulnerable junior members, Butler ought to put aside desire and ambition and step down.
I'll just add that no one has a reasonable expectation of privacy for a letter that is e-mailed to hundreds of academics across multiple continents: that letter was public, just not as public as it has since become.
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