SIVACRACY.NET

I get a lot of speaking gigs that more famous, more experienced scholars who work in similar areas turn down. You can probably figure out who they are.

Two things we all have in common: We are all men; We are all American (or we have lived here so long we might as well be American). Sure, we are all good people. We are all good at what we do. But this habit is not ideal. No conversation is driven forward when those who get heard are the same old usual suspects.

Consider the gig I have at Minnesota on Tuesday. A major university is sponsoring a soul-searching discussion of important issues facing its role in the larger world -- yet it only invited American men to speak.

I can't defend the decisions of Minnesota, Cornell, Yale, and other places that have involved me in testosterone-laden conversations in recent weeks. I don't really know what to do about such decisions beyond reminding the organizers that it's important to be more inclusive. Of course, I rarely know who else was invited or who accepted invitations.

But this is a problem and I am part of it. Yale had a wonderful conference on "global flows of information" yet almost every speaker was from North America (excluding Mexico and Central America, of course). There were a handful of Europeans and Israelis. Yet almost every speaker was male. Could we really do justice to the question at hand? Is there not a good chance that we are asking the wrong questions or missing some good data because we all talk to each other way too much in way too small a circle?

A year ago a great journalist did a big piece for a national magazine about the public-interest copyright movement. When he interviewed me I asked him who else he was writing about. He mentioned the same list of speakers who turn down gigs that eventually go to me. Again, all men. Again, you can guess who they are.

I told him about the great work of Rosemarie Coombe, Pam Samuelson, Jessica Litman, Julie Cohen, and of course Ann Bartow. These scholars provide a large portion of my footnotes and thus the ideas I spread. Alas, the article included none of these talented and important scholars.

That's not the whole list of important women working in and around my field(s). Coming up fast: Sonia Katyal, Susan Crawford, Beth Simone Noveck, and Rebecca Tushnet. Among activists, Jenny Toomey, Wendy Selzer, and Carrie McLaren have contributed much. And the list beyond the borders of the United States is long and growing as well.

I not only get much-appreciated attention for these speaking gigs and media appearances. I sell a few books every time I do them. More importantly, my employer looks favorably upon them, increasing my chances for promotion in the future.

This is how academia works. It's all about the cultural capital and social networks of its labor force. Because universities invite men by default to address large crowds on important issues, men get applauded more, promoted more, and paid more. This situation persists despite the fact that the majority of college students are women. And it's such an obvious phenomenon that not-so-bright university presidents occasionally have to jump to ridiculous conclusions to try to explain away the persistence of male domination of the most coveted academic opportunities -- a situation for which they bear direct responsibility.

I am extremely fortunate that I hit a vein of ideas that seems to have achieved a level of public currency. And I like to think I do a pretty good job representing these ideas in various media and formats (including the classroom and the scholarly literature). But I am not the only one who can do this. Myself and the other, more famous dudes who share the circuit with me do not constitute the entire range of interesting ideas and expressions about these issues.

So here is a suggestion for anyone putting together a big symposium on information politics, cultural policy, copyright, or media law for the fall: Dig a bit deeper in the scholarly literature. Judge people by the work they do and the ideas they contribute to the discussion rather than simply the number of Google hits or quotes in The New York Times. Such measures are self-fulfilling and ultimately stagnating. If that means passing me over for someone who is not quite as famous but does better work (and that list is long), go for it. You will not be disappointed.