Dear Prof. Edelman and Federgruen,

I am probably one of the very few of the 55,000 members of SPME who has read most of Tony Kushner’s plays, essays and statements, who has seen most of his plays in performance, and who has taught regularly these materials in university classes. With that in mind, I am writing to SPME’s Board of Directors to express in the strongest terms my rejection of its letter posted on the organization’s website on May 15, 2011 concerning awarding Kushner an honorary degree. I am astonished that the Board believes that making this award to one of the most acclaimed, taught, and produced playwrights in the United States can be criticized for its “politicization of the university.”

You are incorrect to say that CUNY’s Board of Trustees selected Kushner for an honorary degree. His name was chosen first by students and faculty of a constituent department and advanced through the various stages of approval until it landed on the BoT’s agenda. Concerning the SPME Board’s claims, there is no evidence that the CUNY Board’s acknowledgment that a grave error in judgment was made has “suppressed debate.” There is no evidence that Kushner’s remarks “feed the fires of antisemitism”etc. There is no evidence that the Board and CUNY is “susceptible to public intimidation.” There is no evidence that the Board’s “making considered judgments” has been “undermined.” These SPME claims are political fantasy.

There IS evidence that Kushner’s importance and excellence has already been acknowledged by honorary degrees from more than a score of higher educational institutions. And there is evidence that SPME’s Board has done exactly what it accuses CUNY’s Board of doing: politicizing a decision it doesn’t like by impugning the moral intelligence of people it disagrees with in language that is both condescending and, I believe, dishonest in its motives.

The center of this dispute is Kushner whose writings are acknowledged world-wide as articulating the need for deeply humane and profoundly caring responses for those who have less power and health and fewer resources or possibilities. His concerns, in their abiding focus on social justice, are deeply and consciously Jewish. His Jewish understanding and activity would seem to be not the type that SPME’s Board believes can exist without condemnation.

There is, I feel, something of the bully about the sending of this letter, full as it is of ignorance, dogmatism and bogus authority (all those 55,000 people who are so versed in things Kushner). Today’s news is that Tony Kushner will accept his well-deserved CUNY honorary degree. He has earned it. His detractors missed an important opportunity to stretch their ethical imaginations by mistaking his opinions, his popularity and his significance. And, I believe, they have illuminated their own sorry narrow-mindedness in a public expression of astonishingly poor judgment and self-righteousness.

Robert Skloot,
Professor Emeritus of Theatre and Jewish Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison.