Ok, I concur with Ellis - thanks for that. I did participate in an annual meeting where a stand was taken - at the Milwaukee Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science (4 S) meeting in 2002. The stand was to support the work of a sociologist who was 'blacklisted' on Lynn Cheney's list of US academics who support terrorism because he dared to offer a guest speaker in one of his seminars that was an academic from country X who had been accused of terrorism (sorry sketchy on the details). The stand was neither for nor against the war in Iraq(although the largest majority at the meeting would have been against) but the right of an academic to offer in his classroom, an invited speaker that he felt would assist students in developing an understanding of an issue of the day. The point is, the vote was held by those present. It was passed into the minutes of the annual meeting. There was a chance to speak for or against the motion. Likewise, the motion was 'confined' to an issue of academic freedom and support this academic while IN his classroom, neither for nor against anything the invited speaker might have SAID or NOT said in that classroom. I did not have any problem voting with the majority (the unanimous) vote as it was held on the day for the motion that went forward. However, I am not able to see that I would vote in this situation. I don't understand the pros & cons, and even if I did, I prefer to vote for issues regarding academic freedom to speak pro & con on a given issue, NOT pro & con any GIVEN issue. I hope this makes sense. I support, and would vote for the rights of academics to speak their minds on given issues of the day. I do not support any given stand to go forward that is a concern outside of the issue of the academic freedom to speak, talk, publish, etc. on given issues as they arise. Ok, I hope I haven't hung myself here but it's my perspective on all this. And in particular, I don't want to be coerced into someone else's battles, although I'm happy to defend their right to fight such battles (verbally) as they see fit . . . . . Cheers, Denise Denise N. Rall, PhD candidate, School of Environ. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & Internet Researcher Room T2.12, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Tuesdays or Mobile 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/index.html