Another win for a blacklisted professor

Music historian Timothy Jackson
Fight! Fight! Fight! After the public University of North Texas (UNT) blacklisted and dismissed professor Timothy Jackson in 2020 from his job as editor of the music history journal he founded for daring to express some academic conclusions the faculty and students didn’t like, he sued.
After a five year battle, Jackson and the university have now settled out of court, with the terms of the settlement [pdf] largely a big win for Jackson.
First the background: In 2019 woke music theorist Philip Ewell of Hunter College in New York gave a presentation to the Society of Music Theory where he claimed 19th century music theorist Heinrich Schenker was a “virulent racist” whose “racist views infected his music theoretical arguments.”
Jackson, who had devoted his career studying Schenker and had co-founded at the university the Journal of Schenkerian Studies focused expressly on Schenker’s works, knew this was patently untrue. For example, Schenker was also a Jew who was a victim of German anti-Semitism and lost many relatives in the Holocaust, facts that Ewell somehow did not think important to mention. To counter Ewell’s historical slanders, Jackson decided to dedicate the next issue of the journal to this issue, presenting essays from both sides. He even asked Ewell to write an essay.
Ewell did not respond. In Jackson’s own essay he outlined in detail the historical facts — as he knew them as an expert on this subject — that put the lie to Ewell’s claims. As Jackson noted, “Ewell peddled a ‘conspiracy theory’ that is ‘part and parcel of the much broader current of Black anti-semitism.'”
Instead of celebrating this perfect example of free speech, the university immediately moved to punish Jackson.
» Read more
Music historian Timothy Jackson
Fight! Fight! Fight! After the public University of North Texas (UNT) blacklisted and dismissed professor Timothy Jackson in 2020 from his job as editor of the music history journal he founded for daring to express some academic conclusions the faculty and students didn’t like, he sued.
After a five year battle, Jackson and the university have now settled out of court, with the terms of the settlement [pdf] largely a big win for Jackson.
First the background: In 2019 woke music theorist Philip Ewell of Hunter College in New York gave a presentation to the Society of Music Theory where he claimed 19th century music theorist Heinrich Schenker was a “virulent racist” whose “racist views infected his music theoretical arguments.”
Jackson, who had devoted his career studying Schenker and had co-founded at the university the Journal of Schenkerian Studies focused expressly on Schenker’s works, knew this was patently untrue. For example, Schenker was also a Jew who was a victim of German anti-Semitism and lost many relatives in the Holocaust, facts that Ewell somehow did not think important to mention. To counter Ewell’s historical slanders, Jackson decided to dedicate the next issue of the journal to this issue, presenting essays from both sides. He even asked Ewell to write an essay.
Ewell did not respond. In Jackson’s own essay he outlined in detail the historical facts — as he knew them as an expert on this subject — that put the lie to Ewell’s claims. As Jackson noted, “Ewell peddled a ‘conspiracy theory’ that is ‘part and parcel of the much broader current of Black anti-semitism.'”
Instead of celebrating this perfect example of free speech, the university immediately moved to punish Jackson.
» Read more