Posted on 03/19/2005 5:43:53 AM PST by JesseHousman
Back in September of last year, Thomas Klocek did what you'd think is perfectly OK for a professor to do — mandatory, even, for one who is intellectually honest and believes it his mission to challenge students to think clearly and know what they are talking about.
It may have wrecked his life, however, when he stopped at a table at a student-activities fair to debate for maybe 20 minutes with students maintaining that Israel was murderous in its treatment of Palestinians.
He argued back. Israel, he said, tries to avoid civilian casualties in warring against terrorists, but Palestinian suicide-bombers don't care who they kill as long as they are killing Jews. He talked about how Christians have been persecuted in that part of the world with hardly a murmur of protest by others. He quoted a prominent Muslim spokesman who had observed that the vast majority of Muslims aren't terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslims.
In the end, he was angry and the students were angry, but angrier still, it seems, was the administration of DePaul University, which suspended Klocek from further fall teaching with pay but without the hearing called for in the rules of how faculty members are supposed to be treated.
The dean of the School of New Learning gave him no chance to face those offering their accusatory version of the exchange, and it has now in effect fired him. Some planned teaching assignments were canceled, and no new ones have been coming his way.
I talked on the phone to Klocek, this recent victim of a politically correct, new McCarthyism that is crushing free speech and stinking up DePaul and a scary number of other American universities. He is a 58-year-old man whose savings are nearing depletion and who is now trying to survive by borrowing money and piecing together jobs providing him maybe 15 percent of what he had been making. Afflicted by a potentially fatal kidney disease, he is also worried about how he is going to find health insurance if DePaul drops him from its insurance program.
On top of that, he agreed in answer to a question, the emotional impact has been huge. Think about it. You are not tenured, which is to say, you are among the least privileged faculty members on campus to begin with. For 14 years you do the tough work, teaching the courses no one else wants to teach and taking on whatever unpleasant duties others are avoiding. You belong, though. You love teaching, writing and critical thinking. And then one day, you're nothing, even though you find out through freedom-of-information laws that student evaluations of your performance over your time at DePaul have been overwhelmingly positive.
To justify its pummeling of him, the administration has said that it's his attitude and threatening behavior toward students that's at issue, but no one says he threatened anyone. Yes, when one student said Israel was to Palestinians what Hitler was to Jews, he walked off, thumbing his chin. Was this obscene? No. I checked around various sources, including a Google search on the Internet, and what it means is you irritate me, I've had enough, I'm through with this.
Polite it definitely was not. But this is a reason to smash his career? Of course not.
You've got to figure that the administration was bothered as much as anything by the content of what he said. The dean herself referred to "erroneous assertions" in a letter to a student newspaper. She referred also to attacks on religion, but there's no evidence Klocek did any such thing, however upset some Muslim students in the crowd around him may have been. The fact is, it's conventional wisdom on many campuses that Israel is a Middle East menace and the Palestinians victims. You're not supposed to question that except perhaps euphemistically. Let's don't offend people through disputation, as if this were a place of education or something.
Let's save Klocek. He has lawyers, and he may win a settlement in court, but he would rather stay out of court. He'd rather get back to doing what he was doing. Maybe if enough people who care about free speech and plain old human decency would write DePaul and otherwise make their concerns known, the university will do what is right.
It's worth trying, and we may deal the new McCarthyism a much-deserved blow along the way.
Jay Ambrose, formerly director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado.
Unfortunately, many university students are incapable of reasoning or engaging in polite discourse.
Leftist bastards get bolder and bolder by the minute...
McCarthyism? I thought that was just allowing people a chance to display their contempt for this country. McCarthy gave communists and those who supported them a chance to take a stand on their beliefs. Of course there were those who were afraid to go public and were upset. I'd like to hear an explanation of "new McCarthyism." Seems to be just a left wing phrase used to cast aspersions on those who disagree with them.
Most of our universities are controled by neoMarxists and they are extending their power to new institutions constantly and entrenching themselves in those institutions where they do have control.
The difference between the treatment of Summers at Harvard and Churchill at Olorado is plainly illustrative of the double standard they use without shame or appology.
To them it is all about power for their side and they couldnt care less who is crushed as they scramble for it.
Our universities need to be winnowed thoroughly of such chaffe.
It's like the media morons' referring to a mass murderer as a "gentelman".
Free Speech , determined by liberal University Adminstrators. Hardly call that " free speech".
How frighteningly Orwellian.
....or referring to terrorist, Godless Killers as "militants."
Leftist vermin destroy societies.
Eat bullets, you rats!!
The fundamental difference between the Churchill case and the others lies in the sympathy of the Establishment which is Big Journalism. Big Journalism is a cabal of financial competitors but ideological soulmates. The individual journalists are all afraid of getting out of step with the herd, deathly afraid of flame wars within the Establishment. Churchill seems to be losing the PR campaign despite the MSM, whereas Summers is in hot water with the MSM as well as academia for excessive truthtelling.
The present case is much more similar to the Summers case because the MSM will not support someone who's in trouble for the sake of the truth.
Bump for Sister who works for DePaul.
It is not a "new McCarthyism", Joseph McCarthy was right about the infestation of Communism (some of it partnered with the Soviets) in our government and industry. Also "McCarthyism" (formerly known as "the Red Scare") predated Joseph McCarthy (witness Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" being written years before McCarthy's moment in the spotlight). Just as the girls in The Crucible played at being witches, so did America's commies.
No, this is the despotism of political correctness. Zogbyism, for lack of a better word. Say what you will about your opponents and use control of institutions and media to squash all dissent from the liberal talking points. Political Correctness at it's worst had people in the 1990s putting a little filter in their heads to "check" what they were going to say so as not to offend liberal sensibilities. Wouldn't want to be condemned as someone who is sexist-racist-homophobic-against-the-environment/animals or a capitalist, or even worse, and outright Republican.
If he had called the 9-11 victims little Eichmans, his job would have been safe with the Powers that be rushing to his defense.
Well said, Weegee!
They are getting more shrill especially since their electile dysfunction in November. They behave like cornered, rabid beasts.
Recently, I read Ann Coulters book, Treason, which discusses this topic at great length. The article's use of the term "McCarthyism" is inappropriate in the worst way. It ignores the fact that Sen. Joe McCarthy made a noble, and largely successful effort to rid the government from subversive communist infiltration of our national defense. This educational institution is not pursuing any noble cause.. it just trying to squelch free debate, because doing so is the only way to hide their secret..
Raymond
"If he had called the 911 victims little Eichmans,his job would have been safe...."He probably would have been granted tenure as well!
Those who do violence to language would also do violence to their fellow man if given the opportunity.
These leftists would do us violence, I fear, if they had the opportunity to do so.
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