Tuesday, July 15, 2008

UM Press caves to criticism

U-M shelves connection to publisher

When the controversy flared last summer, the executive board of the U-M Press defended its relationship with Pluto, saying reservations about the content of a single book shouldn't interfere with an existing business relationship, and that stopping the book's distribution would be a blow to academic freedom and free speech.
Yep.
Peggy McCracken, an associate dean at Michigan who is chair of the executive board of the press, said that politics wasn’t the issue. She said that because Pluto doesn’t have peer review on the Michigan model, it would be inappropriate to keep the ties. “The issue is review procedures,” she said.
... yeah.

More at Michigan Severs Ties to Controversial Publisher

1 comment:

James Hanley said...

Obviously these "appropriate procedures" weren't in place before. So UM Press should either step up and say, "We weren't a very professional organiztion before," or they should step up and say, "We caved to political pressure." But of course, in the grand tradition of being terrified of ever admitting error, they're trying to have it both ways.