Hentoff, Nat

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University of Rhode IslandDigitalCommons@URIIannone, Carol: News Articles (1991) Education: National Endowment for the Arts andHumanities, Subject Files I (1973-1996)1991Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991): NewsArticle 35Nat HentoffFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_36This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Education: National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, Subject Files I(1973-1996) at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991) by an authorized administrator ofDigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@etal.uri.edu.Recommended CitationHentoff, Nat, "Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991): News Article 35" (1991). Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991). Paper 54.http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_36/54NatHentoff Heresy Hunt The character assassination of Carol Iannone. Having learned a iot about politi-callJ oorrect posses during the Mc-. Carthy years, I remain particulaT!y interested in attempts-from the right or the left-to punish heres}' bJ characler assassination. Otie of the most repellent such attacks I've seen tor a long time is beinR directed against Caroi Iannone, who has been nominated for a six-year term on the advisor/ cour1£il for the National F..n-dowment for the Humanities. The Senate Labor anrl Human Resoon:es Committee decides these matters, and the vote, sd1e-dulP.d for Jilly 17, is too dose to call. 5oml" of tllle senators are troubled by the charges again~t hei of raciSlll and anti-feminisin. Among tho8e oppcl!ied to ha" are IRICh gai.ekeept!rs of the new literary orthodoxy in the aca4emy as the eJittUtive C'f!Uncil of the Modern Lan-1111~ Associ;ttioo and the American Coucil of IK.tmed Societies. As if this weren't enough, Garry Wlls, in his syndicated cotumn, ltas caU.ed Iannone "a bigot" oo th~ basis c.f a single article by her. Alsc•, Joel C"'2arroe, presid~nt of the John Si-moa Gugger1heim Memorial Fouc1-dation, sayil 1u tbc: Philadelphia In· q.iiter, that she "muld ~ di:-.c;cri.bed as a racist." (Hf:' <."tees the same one a1tid~). Conarroe later told tne that what he had actually said was: •She has put herst>lf in a (JOSitioo of being called a racist." The first quote was a little lesa slippery. There 1s also the acicusatinn that Carol l.annonr.'s ac..demic: qualmca-tions are much too ~t for so august a coundt. It's as if her three· college degrees-including a PhD in English Literature from the State University at New York in Slany llrook-had come to her from some mail order outfit. Not mentioned by the ()Jlpo8ttion is that at the Gallatin Division of New York University, where she is SWEET LAND OF LIBERTY head of freshman studieE, bnnone teaches nc.n-traditional students: older people going back t<> school after a long time and studl'nts with families v.iao al:iu work while going to college. This drean "<:ooserva-tive" -labeled as sud1 with the same mean spirit. thar b~ral'> u'>td to be labelf,.i fellow traveleis--is a wmking popubst But her qualifications do not really matter to her ~l:US&S. J.aooont ia under siege because her opponents do not like _her \'iews. Her "racist" article, for instance, was •Literature by Quota" in Commentary Cves, Commentary). What she actually wrote was that some of tbe ~k writers who have been winning some of the biggest litetary prizes a1e being honored "fess than (asl a rec-ognition of l!terary achievement tban las) some official act of reparation." T11e formidable black literary and mu!Uc critic. Stanley Crouch, an Ox-ford University Press author, has said much the same tlling. Does that make him a self-hating "Negro"? In the same Conunentary art ide, Ian· none is eve11 less enthusiastic about a novel by Joyce Carnl Oates. Does that make 4nnone anti-while] William Raspberry has made tbe point that when the VtOrd "radst• i.'i used loosely and irresponsibly. it loses its 1noral fore~. Joel Conanoe and Garry Wills, in allacking Ian-none as a "Deist,"' have indeed helped sttil' Lile word of it<;; Vdll!e. As for lann01W being anti·temi-nist, a goorl many feminists agret: wilh her lh-Il 'lwhen feminist .aclaobf-ship is mam1-1otdatcd for political ends, the scholarilljp bcromes cor· rupted. Iannone quotes a 198" rcso-Jut ion pas~d by the Coordinating CommiUee of Women in. the Hi<>tori· ·---------------~---····-· --------cal Profession and lhe Conference Group in Women's History: "We believe as feniintst schol11rs we have a responsibility not to allow our scholarship to be used aga~t the interests of wumen struuling for equity \o our society.• No wander the polilkally correct 1namlarins in lhe academy are work-mg llO hard t-0 discredit this wnman who ducr. not belong to any ot the usual herds of independent minds. 'ftie most sucprisiog member of the uppoeition is the writecs' (itg,!nt· :z;ltion, PEN, which help<' politically incorrect wrjtel"$ in trouble an OW:r the worlct. Now PEN is amoi•F. tbo!'.t: M<NMv,Jlu 8, 1991 A11 8'111Ul.U hunting down Iannone '1eca1r.1e oC her disrespect for orthodoxy. U Caroi laanotie had been a rqular contributor to the Nation or the Vil-lage Voice, with a couple of degrees from an ob5cure and u11distiaguished school, her present critka would Ha..e been siler.t. Bul if the real laooone is seat down because of her \iiews, dns Senate artion will have told other indt-pcftdt-nt professors down the Ii 11e to cHsor themsefYCS helk.-efortb if they aspire to otfacial reoognilioo_ I hope the sawll'>.rS in charg~ of laluto11c·s latf!. pa~ady lt!I! hbec-als amq tht-m. \\ill teoi.d some ol her <eSl'lll.ys before beoo.minfl 1ne· dJ.antca! v;irts of this pos.'le. -··----------·---·-----

Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991): News Article 35

University of Rhode IslandDigitalCommons@URIIannone, Carol: News Articles (1991) Education: National Endowment for the Arts andHumanities, Subject Files I (1973-1996)1991Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991): NewsArticle 50Nat HentoffFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_36This News Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Education: National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, Subject Files I(1973-1996) at DigitalCommons@URI. It has been accepted for inclusion in Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991) by an authorized administrator ofDigitalCommons@URI. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@etal.uri.edu.Recommended CitationHentoff, Nat, "Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991): News Article 50" (1991). Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991). Paper 80.http://digitalcommons.uri.edu/pell_neh_I_36/801:*703 P02 JUL -23-' 91 15: 58 ID: ARL/OMS liJASH DC TEL N0:202-452-7849 Washington Post 7/23/91 Nat Hentoff Senatorial Obsession Carol Iannone went to Washing•~ ton, but, alas, Frank Capra wasn't there. And neither was Jimmy Stew• art. So, Dr. Iannone, the first member of her working.class family to earn a college degree, has gone home, ~~- f preaidential nomination to an ad':ll- "" sory council for the National Endo~ ~ ment for the Humanities rejected by :_; the Senate Committee on Labor and,_~ : Human Resources. · . ~. h ·~·} Despite whatever damage ~ , .... been done to her statua on the 1riiri,. ·:.'. piaying fields of higher education" '. · Iannone did leave town with a cer• '. 1 rain arnounr of comfort, howevor · ~. cold. ,":- ; • Notwithstanding all the alarma: : i; ' sounded by the inimitable Mode~ " -Language Association aQd In the '.' public statements of certain schol- ·· -' ar«nators, her alleged lack of qual-ificationa was not what did ber in. • ~ She knows that because her leading ·· :. opponents on the committee told-~ , her ao lo meetings she had with·.': them before the fateful vote. . . .::.~• For instance, Sen. Ted Kennedy:~: (D.Maas.), chairman o£ the commtt'-.7 ~ tff, told her that her Jack of teou~ .~· .. was of little consequence beca ... ;~ academic politica are "the nas~t·i. kind of politics" and sometimes ha~i-!"; no coMecilon with merit. Why; a friend of his at Harvard with five boob did not get tenure. Ag it happens, Carol Iannone does not have tenure at the Gallatin Divi· aioo at New York University be-cauae "° one there baa tenui:~ That'• the way it'• atructured. · I Iannone'• most prestigious critic;~ among senatorial authorities on the,.,. bumariitiea was Claiborne Pell (n.; • ~ R.1.), a founder oi the endowment~ "Her qualificatiooa," he baa aaid, "'ilo .. indeed fall short of what the NEH·~ enabling legislation expecta of auch :: ~-· ... \''." Yet, in a conversation with Ian~ : none before he voted to defene&- · trate her, Pell told her that maybe,; if she would withdraw her nomlna· . tion and return to these auguat pre--cincts in a year or so-after having .. written fOf Ha middle of the road journalN -she might fmd a more fa· ~ vorable reception. : ln terms ol her "qualifications,": what difference could a year ; make-unless, as Pell more than , implied, her appearance in a "m.iddJe.; of the road" journal would make up. .. for her politically incorrect credits .. in conservative publications? . Iannone's views certainly did.( have a lot to do with the $U8ta.ined campaign againlt her by the guard- ' ians of academic orthodoxy. She had the effrontery to write that certain · black novelists were getting pnzes· more because they were black than because their work was all that re-martcaWe. She also offended certain femmiata by putting a harsh light on the kind of feminist scholarship that is trbnmed for political enda. PiMlly, however, it·waa a differ· ent kind of politics-having little tQ;' do with her views-chat sent he~ 1.:- .~ p&Cl\1111• •• """' It looked for a time as if at l~ : two Democratic senators-~: from Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), wh.o. did vote for her-were going to., .•.·· .,, SWEET LAND: ,: OF LIBERTY .' ;··· support Iannone. One of them said. •1 don't understand it. She's quati·; fied, Why all this NW' .... But the day before the vote oo.· July 17, Kenoedy called I callCU5ofi his party's senators on the commit::., tee. (Sen. Bingaman t.eDa me. M. . didn't know about tbe caucm and ~c;(. wasn't there. In any c:aae. "I was ,fqr _ her," be said. "We bne a prettJ_, broad mainstream kt dlil C'OWlfrY ;· and she'• part of it,, ' : ' .. •:. At the caucus, Kennedy, invoking·· Iris privilege as chairman, aaked for the vott$ of hia fellow Democrats against Iannone. Kennedy told them that this battle had become personal and certain backers of Iannone were after him. He considered bis reputa• tion to be at stake. _ Why, actuaUy, did Kennedy tfe-come so obsessed with thia nomiba• tion? Despite whatever headlines he:: bas made over the years that iire ~ not connected with ms work in t_ho . Senate, Kennedy is valued In Massa· chusetts because he is seen as· a powerful figure in the Senate. But· he is becoming anxious that this power not be seen u vulnerable. ' What would Massachusetts' aar•: donic POiitical writers, for lnatance, have made of his failure to get the support of his own party's aenators; in the matter of Iannone? -Accordingly, John Aloysius Far· : reU of the Boston Globe had the· righr lead on h.is story about the fall of Iannone: "In an eleventh-hour dis· play of political muscle, Sen. Edwiud M. Kennedy yesterday secured just enough Democratic votes to defeat the nomination of a conservative .· $Cbol.ar, Carol Iannone." The vote was 9..S. Only Sen. Bin-', gaman, among the Democrats. de· · clined to sacrifice the conservative · scholar to the chairman's anxieties. 

Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991): News Article 50

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Iannone, Carol: News Articles (1991): News Article 50

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