Academic freedom, an absolute right and not an abstract philosophy, should not subserve economic considerations. Moreover, information technology exists as a right and not a privilege, despite technocratic claims to the contrary.[2] Legislative and judicial decisions have determined the right of individuals to distribute information freely and the Bill of Rights documents the protection individuals may expect from the state. However, constitutional laws do not now provide much protection against denial of academic freedom and due process of law by despotic university officials. These officials constantly frustrate both faculty members and their students by withholding access to information and computer resources because they disagree with the content of messages: a disagreement probably based upon disclosure of their own malfeasance.

University administrators fear dissent. With this fear comes an aversion to controversy and an addiction to political correctness that frequently causes them to invoke censorship of Internet activities. Consequently, they empower technocrats to address email complaints by removing computer access. They use their delegated administrative power to "persuade" the alleged offender (politically incorrect deviant) to cease and desist posting controversial material. When the dissenter claims First Amendment rights, they succumb to the demands of conformity, political correctness, and an Emily Post type of "netiquette." They assume the role of absolute censors. Others, unable to take any personal initiative, shrug their shoulders and pass all requests to equally indecisive policy makers who take the easy way out and either condone or approve censorship. They disengage themselves by insisting that politicians must decide these "political problems." Then their totalitarian masters adopt political silence because otherwise they must defend extrajudicial activity.

Censorship and prior restraint place exclusive conditions on freedom of expression and, consequently, academic freedom. Any type of censorship restricts, to narrowly defined criteria decided by an oligarchy, what people may say. Politically correct ideologies require everyone to learn the same way, to teach the same way, to research the same way, to discourse the same way, and to write the same way. Subsequently, the conformity destroys any vestige of individuality still left in the academe. This exclusivity forces everyone to become a clone of someone else. It enables those in power to deny academic freedom to dissenters. It also allows them to destroy the careers of nonconformists.

Oligarchic clones indulge in similar practices to those that preceded the Holocaust. The perpetrators of those atrocities used the new radio technology of their time to clone a whole nation into acts of psychological and physical atrocity. Similarly, the universities now use cyberspace censorship and prior restraint to perpetrate intellectual atrocities. Instead of the brutalized corpses so vividly reported to viewers on newsreels, they brutalize minds. They use propaganda, censorship, and psychological indoctrination to control and conform.

Despots arbitrarily outlaw any behavior that they, either collectively or individually, find inappropriate. The war cries "inappropriate" and "politically correct" then define synonymously in these totalitarian environments. However, academicians can only blame themselves for their loss of academic freedom and their compliant lifestyle.[3] This lifestyle compares with the apathy and compliance rampant among university apologists in Nazi Germany.

The Modus Vivendi of Academic Apologists, a parody on Martin Niemöller's statement during the Nazi era, applies today.[4]

Officials first deprived undergraduates of their freedom of expression. That did not concern me because I strictly conformed to a politically correct ideology. Then they deprived graduate students. That did not concern me because I held a faculty position. Then they deprived untenured professors. That did not concern me because I held tenure. Then they deprived tenured professors. That did not concern me because I held a department chair.

Then they deprived me and that concerned me. I soon discovered that the politically correct ideology to which I had given my academic life had paid only lip service to the absolutism of academic totalitarianism. I cried out to my colleagues for help but they had all adopted politically silent attitudes. I desperately turned toward my former students but they also remained silent in the way that they had learned from their mentors. They had all lost their freedom of expression and, consequently, could not speak out for me.

The public needs to become aware and to address both the administrative excesses and the double-dipping remuneration of technocrats that exists in both public and private universities.[5] University officials frequently create close financial ties with commercial concerns and now use them to evade their moral, ethical, and legal responsibilities to their constituents. For example, a close examination of payroll records at the University of Washington shows evidence of a quid pro quo. Ronald A. Johnson, Vice Provost for Computing and Communications, an economist turned nerd, now receives one of the highest salaries on the campus.[6] A former university official has described him as "the most evil man I have ever met." Johnson and his Valkyrie, Sandra S. Moy, have used evidence manufactured by former Assistant Attorney General, Carol S. Niccolls (now Executive Assistant to the President), and others, arbitrarily to remove computer access.[7] They also expropriated research and journalistic databases and have not returned them to their rightful owner. This construes as censorship, prior restraint, and theft of intellectual property.

During his term as president, Richard L. McCormick has bloated the salaries of these cohorts. He has authorized grossly inflated salary increases for Niccolls, Johnson, and Moy, despite his prior knowledge that they consistently violate state and federal laws. The violation of laws combined with the exorbitant salary increases brings one to the inevitable conclusion that they have jointly covered up the crimes that they have severally committed. Meanwhile, Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire relies upon willful myopia. She has neglected to mount an investigation on evidence available to her for more than two years and has ignored repeated requests for an independent inquiry. Instead, her own staff attorneys have assisted in the cover-up of crime at the university.

McCormick, blatantly hypocritical, consistently propounds pleas of poverty each time he speaks about faculty salaries. Yet the record shows his unfailing generosity to his political hacks.

University of Washington Appointments	1994/95 Salary ($)	1998/99 Salary ($)	Four-year Increase
Carol S. Niccolls, Executive Assistant Office of the President	43,200.00	120,000.00	177.78%
Ronald A. Johnson, Vice Provost Computing and Communications	125,004.00	231,000.00	84.79%
Sandra S. Moy, Director University Computing Services	103,044.00	154,200.00	49.64%
Full Professor with Tenure (average)	60.156.00	74,187.00	23.32%

1. These statistics do not include consulting fees and other perquisites.
2. Salaries calculated from information published in the University of Washington, Salary Stratification Reports, November 1994 through November 1999.
3. The salary of a full professor increased from $60,156.00 to $74,187.00 (annualized $80,208.00 to $98,916.00), A professor has the additional disadvantage of finding grants or alternative employment during the summer to realize the annualized income.

The American Civil Liberties Union cooperating attorney spent nine months investigating denial of due process of law on this issue of arbitrary removal of computer access also expropriation of both editorial and research databases. Their legal committee made a finding of reasonable and probable cause and appointed an independent attorney to prosecute the case.

Niccolls, then an assistant attorney general, had colluded with Johnson to falsify evidence that supported arbitrarily destruction of email, also publishing and academic databases. After organizing this frame-up, she politically manipulated an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) employee to drop the case then covered up malfeasance by university officials. The sequence included manufacturing false evidence, conflicts of interest as a lawyer, and subsequent cover-up of crimes. However, Gregoire continues her willful blindness. Moreover, the Washington State Bar Association prohibits its members, including the attorney general, from taking part in any one of these practices let alone organizing or neglecting to investigate or prosecute them.

Niccolls behavior over a seven-year period raises questions about her appointment as executive assistant to McCormick. The law precludes attorney general staff from accepting positions that require them to involve themselves in issues that they handled while in the employ of the attorney general. However, both Niccolls and McCormick have ignored that statutory requirement and violated state law often on other issues not mentioned here. They have also restricted access to public records claiming unlawful exemptions to cover up these violations.

Consequently, one may ask whether the extraordinary salary increases bought political silence and immunity from investigation for those involved and other high-ranking university officials: officials who have also received extraordinarily high salary increases during the same period.

For all the hyperbole about freedom of expression that university presidents and their administrators provide, they generally do not contribute to the tenets of true academic freedom. When one examines their overall record, one comprehends the magnitude of their hypocrisy. They concern themselves more with liaison between their institutions, government, and industry than the accumulation of knowledge. They have become institutional pickpockets. If one wishes to expose their corruption, then one quite simply follows the money trail.

Economic considerations do not apply to freedom of expression in cyberspace, consequently, exclusionist actions can only derive from political expediency. Free expression, the traditional lifeblood of universities, has now become an economic and political pawn. Moreover, the time has come for a reversal of policies that allow technocrats to control information flow absolutely. The tail must stop wagging the dog. Oversight and supervision, through traditional, ethical, information science procedures, need to replace the extant communication and propaganda anarchy.

Nmesis.

1. Oscar Wilde. Moderation is a fatal thing. . . . Nothing succeeds like excess. A Woman of No Importance, Act 3.
2. Dennis J. Reynolds, The Bill of Rights and Beyond: Citizen Entitlement and Information Access in an Electronic Age, Citizen Rights and Access to Electronic Information, Chicago, IL: Library and Information Technology Association. 1991.
3. Garth Kidd, Exclusive vs. Inclusive Standards, Internet efa: (3 Aug 94).
4. Martin Niemöller. Dissent and Freedom of Expression.
5. double-dipping. Drawing a high, publicly funded salary from a university that results from holding conflicting academic and administrative positions, then receiving bonuses and salary increases funded by outside organizations in the form of awards, grants, and consulting fees.
6. nerd. Single-minded and possibly accomplished in computer technology but socially inept.
7. Valkyries. In Germanic myth, Odin's warrior maidens presided over battles, chose those who were to die, and bore heroes' souls to Valhalla. Richard Wagner prominently portrayed them in his music drama, Die Walküre.