Rod Thornton
Encyclopedia
Rod Thornton is an academic at the University of Nottingham
University of Nottingham
The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...

's department of Politics and International Relations. He was suspended in spring 2011 after publishing an article critical of the University of Nottingham's handling of the arrest of one of its students.

Academic career

Rod Thornton is a lecturer at the University of Nottingham's department of Politics and International Relations with research interests in terrorism and counterinsurgency. He was previously a lecturer at the Staff College at Shrivenham
Joint Services Command and Staff College
Joint Services Command and Staff College is a British military academic establishment providing training and education to experienced officers of the Royal Navy, Army, Royal Air Force, Ministry of Defence Civil Service, and serving officers of other states.-History:JSCSC combined the single...

. Thornton is the author of several books on warfare including Asymmetric Warfare: Threat and Response in the 21st Century (Polity Press, 2006) and Dimensions of Counter-Insurgency (Routledge, 2008). His research has appeared in several academic journals including Journal of Strategic Studies
Journal of Strategic Studies
The Journal of Strategic Studies, first published in 1978, is a multi-disciplinary review of forward-looking articles on military and diplomatic strategy . It is published six times per year....

 and International Peacekeeping
International Peacekeeping
International Peacekeeping is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles relating to peacekeeping and peace operations.-Abstracting and indexing:...

. He has given evidence on counter-insurgency to the House of Commons defence committee. Prior to academia, Thornton served in the British Army in Northern Ireland where he was an infantry sergeant, and later more briefly with the British Army in Bosnia in early 1990s where he served as a military interpreter, having been recalled at his own request as a reservist with a knowledge of Serbo-Croat, which he had studied with Russian as part of a BA degree at the University of Nottingham.

Terrorism paper controversy

In 2011 Thornton was the subject of a controversy over academic freedom
Academic freedom
Academic freedom is the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.Academic freedom is a...

 when he was suspended from the University of Nottingham after publishing an article critical of the University of Nottingham's handling of the arrest of one of its students on terrorism charges. (See Nottingham Two
Nottingham Two
The Nottingham Two were a student and a staff member of the University of Nottingham arrested in May 2008 for suspected involvement with Islamic terrorism. University staff had notified the police after finding an English copy of the so-called...

). Thornton's paper titled "Radicalisation at Universities or radicalisation by Universities?: How a student's use of a library book became 'a major Islamist plot'" was submitted for a conference on terrorism held by the British International Studies Association
British International Studies Association
The British International Studies Association is a learned society that promotes the study of international relations and related subjects through teaching, research, and facilitation of contact between scholars. BISA has an international membership where 40 countries are represented. The current...

 at the University of Manchester
University of Manchester
The University of Manchester is a public research university located in Manchester, United Kingdom. It is a "red brick" university and a member of the Russell Group of research-intensive British universities and the N8 Group...

 and dealt with the case of Rizwaan Sabir who was arrested after being found in possession of several academic works available from the University library along with a digital copy of the Al-Qaeda Training Manual
Al Qaeda Handbook
The Al Qaeda Handbook is an extensive manual for how to wage war, allegedly written by Osama bin Laden's extremist group, Al Qaeda.This handbook provides religious justifications and quotations from the Qur'an throughout. It was first seized by British authorities in a raid on an Al Qaeda cell in...

 downloaded onto a University computer from a United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

 web site. Among the assertions made in the paper is the allegation that Sabir was monitored by senior management and his marks lowered so he could not move on to a PhD. Numerous documents suggested a systematic attempt to smear the character of Mr Yezza and Mr Sabir in order to justify the decision to call the police. Pages from the online encyclopedia Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...

 concerning the case were also altered by individuals within the University. The paper was removed from the BISA
British International Studies Association
The British International Studies Association is a learned society that promotes the study of international relations and related subjects through teaching, research, and facilitation of contact between scholars. BISA has an international membership where 40 countries are represented. The current...

 website, despite this the 112-page article is freely available to view online. Later BISA published an open letter expressing “a strong feeling of unease and concern” among members over the question of academic freedom raised by Dr Thornton’s case and called for an independent inquiry into the affair.
In response to the controversy a spokesperson for the University stated that the paper contains "clearly defamatory" material about several members of University staff. Dr. Thornton's paper, however, shows that he was careful to meet the requirements of the Public Interest Disclosures Act which is designed to protect whistle-blowers. Commenting on Dr. Thornton's case Cathy James, chief executive of the pro-whistleblowing charity Public Concern at Work, emphasized: "It's really important that whistleblowers are supported." Despite this senior management at the Nottingham University, maintained the suspension of Dr. Thornton.

On June 15th the pressure group SWAN (Support the Whistleblower at Nottingham) in association with Unileaks published all of the internal and government documents referred in Dr. Thornton's paper. An exclusive was given to the Observer which also revealed that students involved in activites related to the Palestine and the Middle East were being monitored and secretly filmed by the University. Dr. Thronton had claimed in his paper that Middle Eastern themed events and protests had been suffered discriminatory treatment despite their peaceful nature. A video subsequently emerged supporting this claim, soon after another surfaced showing security members destroying a Gaza memorial. Dr. Thornton's paper also claimed the University of being anti-Palestinian citing the attempt by senior management to host the Israeli Ambassador for a 'public' talk without informing the student population. Later a letter signed by 167 staff, students and almuni appeared in the Observer supporting the claims made by Dr. Thornton. They went on to say that "The arrests of two university members, Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir, in 2008 were not isolated incidents but, in our view, indicate an institutional culture of intolerance within university senior management."

Academic support

In May 2011, The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

newspaper published a letter of support signed by 67 academics from around the world, including Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky
Avram Noam Chomsky is an American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and...

. This letter called for Thornton's reinstatement and an independent inquiry into his treatment by Nottingham University.

Selected publications

  • Thornton, Rod. (2007) "Countering Arab insurgencies: the British experience." Contemporary Security Policy, 28(1), 7-27.
  • Thornton, Rod. (2004) "Military Organizations and Change: The Case of the Russian 76th Airborne Division." Journal of Slavic Military Studies
    Journal of Slavic Military Studies
    The Journal of Slavic Military Studies is a quarterly academic journal that publishes articles relating to military affairs of Central and Eastern Europe. It is published by Routledge....

    , 17(3), 449-74.

External links

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