Student had right to criticize school, staff

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There is no question Christopher Brown severely disrespects UC
Santa Barbara’s administration and bureaucracy in a
questionably relevant “disacknowledgments” section
preluding his master’s thesis paper on abalone shells. In the
section usually allocated for thanks and praises, Brown instead
writes that the staff of the graduate division is “the
largest argument against higher education there has ever
been,” and that he would rather “take a hot stick in
the eye than deal with (the staff’s) bureaucratic
nonsense.”

But when UCSB officials declined to include his work in the
university library ““ even though the thesis can be made
available for a fee upon special request ““ they incorrectly
linked approval of his scientific work to approval of his personal
acknowledgments. And even worse, they stifled Brown’s speech
““ something every member of the academic community should
fear and resist.

Even though the library has the right to determine which works
it includes in its archives, in the interest of fairness and free
speech, it must include Brown’s paper among the stacks.
Because the university has already awarded Brown his degree, they
have endorsed the credibility of his scientific work ““ and
like the work of all other masters students it should be available
at the library. Although Brown’s comments might not be
constructive or mature, the UCSB library is a public institution
that has an obligation to treat all scientifically valid theses
equally, regardless of who the authors choose to acknowledge, or
“disacknowledge” in a tangential section of their work.
Since there is no dispute on the thesis’ actual merit, the
library would be exerting censorship ““ not selectivity
““ in deciding not to include Brown’s thesis.

The problem with the university’s case against Brown is
that all acknowledgement sections are equally valid because they
belong to the author. The section is by nature a place to call out
the various people who affected their work. Certainly a publisher
would be within its rights if it required the acknowledgments
section to fall under a specified length. But short of libel, due
to the personal nature of an acknowledgements section, it should be
left to the author’s discretion. Just as a newspaper does not
endorse all the opinions it prints, a publisher does not endorse
the author’s thanks ““ or lack thereof ““ to any
particular person or entity. It merely provides a forum for the
author to directly address readers. The same applies to UCSB: if
Brown had chosen to thank his mother, the university committee
would not be endorsing that opinion. It would simply be allowing
him an outlet in which to express his thoughts on the writing
process, a subjective privilege that is universally granted in
book-writing.

To avoid problems like this in the future, public universities
should adopt a formal rule separating the scientific content of
theses ““ and all papers ““ from personal comments that
the author clearly marks as a separate section. Rules could easily
be devised limiting the length of such sections to prevent long
essays on irrelevant topics. This would also enable professors who
are wary of endorsing questionable asides to distance themselves
from such tasteless things as Brown’s
“disacknowledgments” ““ especially since
supporting them undoubtedly puts their jobs in jeopardy. In these
ways, designating the acknowledgements section as a separate entity
from the actual research would protect both the university’s
credibility, and the author’s right to speech.

But if the library’s censorship of Brown’s work is
allowed to stand, the university will have a precedent of rejecting
the publication of a scientific thesis on non-scientific grounds.
This kind of action only endangers free speech and limits academia
to what the powers that be think is “appropriate.”
Students and professors should never have to censor their thoughts
just to get published. Being the educated, forward-thinking body
the university is, it must recognize that and put Brown’s
thesis in print. If they must continue his spirit of pettiness,
they can shelve it in the basement.