Posted on 11/21/2005 6:15:48 AM PST by aculeus
An e-mail sent to a student by an adjunct instructor at Warren County Community College has infuriated the student, conservative groups, and leaders of the college, where the board has scheduled an emergency meeting to discuss the matter on Tuesday.
The e-mail was sent to Rebecca Beach, a freshman at the New Jersey college, who had sent an e-mail announcement to faculty members about a lecture she organized Thursday featuring a veteran of the war in Iraq talking (favorably) about the U.S. role there. John Daly, an adjunct instructor in English, sent an e-mail reply in which he said that he would ask students to boycott the lecture, and that “real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors and fight for just causes and for people’s needs.”
Daly also criticized Beach’s leadership of a campus chapter of Young Americans for Freedom, saying: “I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like yours won’t dare show their face on a college campus.”
Beach turned the e-mail over to the national office of Young Americans for Freedom, which published it on its Web site, and conservative commentators have since been demanding that Daly be fired. In an interview last night, Daly said that he was worried he would be fired Tuesday night and that he has already been told not to show up for the three classes he is scheduled to teach on Tuesday, the next day he would normally be on campus.
Daly said he stood by the e-mail message, but that it was being taken out of context. He said that the comment about soldiers turning their guns on their superiors was meant “in the most metaphoric sense.” Also, he said that because Beach was never one of his students and had sent the e-mail message from her personal e-mail account, he thought she was a Young Americans for Freedom organizer, and replied with that in mind. Daly said that if he had known he was writing to a freshman, he would not have changed the political ideas of his note, but would have used a different tone.
The college has issued three statements since the controversy broke — with support for Daly’s right to have sent the e-mail seeming to decline with each successive one. On Thursday, the statement pledged that the incident would be investigated as a personnel matter. But the statement noted that the e-mail had been sent from Daly’s personal account, had been sent to only one student, and that the statement did not reflect the views of the college as a whole.
Thursday’s statement also specifically noted Constitutional protections on controversial statements, quoting William Austin, Warren’s president, as saying: “I firmly believe every employee and student has First Amendment rights, no matter how repugnant I personally find Mr. Daly’s statements.”
On Thursday night, Austin went to the lecture Beach organized and personally welcomed her, the speaker — Lieut. Col. Scott Rutter — and audience members. In Friday’s statement, the college noted that the speech went off without any problems and added additional criticism of Daly, quoting Austin as saying that Daly’s e-mail was “disgraceful and offensive.”
In Saturday’s statement, the college announced that its board had scheduled an emergency meeting for Tuesday — noting that Tuesday was the first day such a meeting could legally be held. “The Board of Trustees intends to consider the welfare and rights of its students, the college community, and the public in lieu [sic] of recent events. The board will also consider personnel issues,” the statement said.
In the interview last night, Daly said it was entirely appropriate for him to criticize “a pro-war rally” and said more people should be outraged that military recruiters are able to attract the college’s students to enlist because they can’t afford to pay their college bills and can’t find good jobs when they graduate. “The YAF is trying to turn back affirmative action and to promote the war, and I have a right to speak out,” Daly said.
Daly said that he has been teaching at Warren County Community College for about a year and that he also teaches at another college, which he declined to name, given the current uproar.
The possibility that he might be fired, Daly said, reflects the lack of job security facing the increasing number of professors who work off the tenure track. “As more and more professors are teaching part time, this is a direct attack on our academic freedom,” he said.
Tell us about your hypocrisy Professor. I bet your politics includes making sure people do not even get out of the womb.
Daly said that if he had known he was writing to a freshman, he would not have changed the political ideas of his note, but would have used a different tone.
You are a lover of lies, Professor.
John Daly should stick to golfing and drinking.
Heil Hillary. Warm up the ovens. Time to go round up those pesky Evangelicals.
This guy is toast. The president of the university may support him, but from what I've read, the board is p.o.ed and then some.
Many adjuct faculty at community colleges are well-educated individuals who currently have or who have retired from private sector jobs and just like to teach. They can bring more real-world experience to the classroom than their full-time, tenured counterparts.
The issue shouldn't be whether it was his own PC, or his right to speak. It should be what he's saying. He basically states plainly that he wants to silence all such speach on campus.
Doesn't that (or shouldn't it) breach his duty as a professor?
I don't have any, but I saw her on Hannity and she's pretty and bright and about as far from a fascist as Jenna Bush is. She's photogenic, and, like I said--would be a great poster child to battle Brutish Leftwing University Oppressors...
There won't be academic freedom until there are professors who reflect BOTH political opinions and the students are free to choose the professor they want to learn from.
My email to Dr. Austin.
Dear Dr. Austin,
If Mr. Daly had made inflammatory comments advocating the murder of homosexuals or other people groups favored by the Leftist cognoscenti, there would be no quibbling over his rights to free speech. He would be summarily dismissed in disgrace, and rightfully so.
Solicitation to murder is NOT a protected right!
Those who advocate the murder of people whose opinions differ from theirs are, by definition, terrorists. This man is a terrorist and has no place on a campus poisoning the minds of impressionable young people with his venomous worldview.
Those who advocate the murder of officers of our armed forces engaged in combat with an enemy whose three main objectives are to convert, enslave, or kill us, are not only terrorists, but traitors.
This unhappy specimen, John Daly, is both a terrorist and a traitor.
I never cease to be amazed at the audacious intolerance exhibited by those who clamor the loudest for tolerance. It is apparent that the tolerance they seek is only for their own worldview, while seeking to crush any expression of thought antithetical to their own.
Please demonstrate for us and the rest of the world that there still exists a modicum of sensibility and backbone in American Academia and fire this disgraceful wretch.
Most respectfully,
Outrages liks this are a predictable result of government funding. Such funding removes accountability to the purpose of such institutions..education worth paying for. Remove government funding and such employees will have to take other jobs for which they are qualified..such as 'you want fries with that?'.
"Many adjuct faculty at community colleges are well-educated individuals who currently have or who have retired from private sector jobs and just like to teach. They can bring more real-world experience to the classroom than their full-time, tenured counterparts."
Where are you an Adjunct?
I'm coming to believe more in tenure. Remember, it protects conservatives too. Without tenure, the few conservative professors there are would have a harder time keeping their jobs. But I do think it should be easier getting rid of tenured staff for cause.
I agree with you. I've had some excellent adjunct professors. Not all, but then not all tenured professors are good either.
"...he (Daly) would ask students to boycott the lecture... saying: “I will continue to expose your right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like yours won’t dare show their face on a college campus".”
Despite the fact that the email was from a personal account, and sent to a personal account, the threat of this person using his position to bring pressure on a freshman with a First Amendment Right is inexcusable. For this alone, I would dismiss and censure.
Sauce for the goose...
For an English "professor", he sure tries to duck responsibility, shift blame, cry persecution. However, as an English professor, he should be fired if for no other reason than the glaring non-sequitor posted above.
Daly will be teaching freshmen students based on his schedule. That is not good for the students because he will be feeding them the information a.n.s.w.e.r. has sent out to him. Freshmen students should never be exposed to someone of his radical position until they have learned to be objective, discover college professors are not on intellectual thrones and matured a bit.
Ouch! I'd love to hear him answer that!
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