I'm definitely not happy with these folks leaving the SSC, but from the wording of the letter, it seems like it was far more about nasty personnel politics and power grabbiness among the majority of board members. Why turn it into a "red purge" accusation?
Nathan
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 9:24 AM Subject: [lbo-talk] SSC news
[Dunno how much interest in this, but it sounds, among other things, like DSA types purging a Red. More to follow...]
May 23. 2004
To: The Socialist Scholars Conference community.
From: Stanley Aronowitz, Nancy Holmstrom, Manning Marable, Leith Mullings, Frances Fox Piven, Julia Wrigley.
At its meeting on the evening of May 19th, the Board of the Socialist Scholars Conference voted by 8 to 7 to terminate the services of our staff director, Eric Canepa. This move has been afoot for some months, and we have tried hard to avert it. Now that this decision has been made, we feel morally obligated to resign from the Board. We note that the people leaving include a majority of the women and people of color who have joined the Board.
It is with great regret that we, as members of the Steering Committee and Board of Directors, have come to this decision. We are not leaving because of the decision regarding Eric, although we opposed his firing and we greatly value his contributions to the conference. Rather, we are leaving because we feel that the campaign to accomplish this was riddled with behavior we regard as politically unethical, including grossly inaccurate charges that were repeated even in the face of evidence of their inaccuracy, tirades that were abusive to the point of derangement, and the recurrent implication that those of us who objected to these procedures, being newcomers, were not the "real" board. While these disagreements may not be political in the large sense of having to do with big issues that arise in the world outside of the SSC, they are disagreements about politics -- about the ethics of how people should work together politically. We feel the process has not conformed even minimally to the ethical requirements of honesty and mutual respect that make democratic exchange possible. Indeed, we have sadly come to the conclusion that while we were invited to join the board in the name of a more inclusive conference, some of the initial organizers do not in fact want to share their control of the conference.
We feel that now, more than ever, we need a democratic and inclusive Socialist Scholars Conference. It is our hope that the Board of Directors will eventually evolve to represent the full political, gender and racial diversity of all currents of the U.S. left.
If you have any questions or comments, they can be directed to:
<mailto:ResignedSSCdirectors at socialistscholars.org>ResignedSSCdirectors at soci alistscholars.org
or
Resigned SSC Directors 217 East 86 Street #143 New York, NY 10028 ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk