`I'm not the ideal poster boy' (Thomas Klocek-DePaul Univ. free speech update)

Chicago Tribune ^ | December 20, 2005 | Ron Grossman

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

Before he became an unlikely cause celebre, Thomas Klocek was an anonymous foot soldier in the bookish garrison of the ivory tower.

The job title may be "adjunct," but their myriad ranks are a bulwark of higher education. They teach the introductory courses the permanent faculty disdains. That frees tenured professors to do research and work with graduate students. It also helps balance the budget.

Adjuncts are paid by the course, at academia's equivalent of Wal-Mart wages. At DePaul University, where Klocek long taught, he reached a high of $34,000, one year. Other years, his earnings were $16,000. But he accepted his lot. Like other adjuncts, he loved the scholarly life, even if relegated to the fringes. He sensed being not quite fit for the wider world.

"I'm very solid in the 9th and 10th Centuries but a little shaky when it comes to the 21th Century," said Klocek, whose specialty is medieval Slavic linguistics. At 59, he has the build of a snowman. Picture three flesh-and-blood spheres topped off with a scraggly Vandyke beard. His clothing is the stuff kids find in an attic and drape over their rendering of Frosty.

Elizabeth Marc spotted an ethereal quality when she met Klocek, two decades ago.

"He had all these questions about life," said Marc, a pipe-organ tuner who once dated Klocek and who has remained a friend ever since. "I convinced him he was a born academic."

The occasion of Klocek's fall from grace was a student-activity fair, at the beginning of the 2004 fall semester. Among the organizations there was Students for Justice in Palestine, which supports the Arab side in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. Klocek picked up a piece of its literature and was offended.

"I said to them,'Don't you know there's a Christian perspective too?'" Klocek recalled

[Land_of_Lincoln_John]

Hard to believe, but this is the first account from a Chicago daily newspaper about the story of the pro-Israel professor, make that former professor, at Chicago's DePaul University.

[okie01]

The conflict, as described, is pretty much a "he said-she said" situation.

Hardly seems worth firing anybody (even an adjunct)...or dealing with the lawsuit to follow.

Of course, if the sides had been reversed, if Klocek had been arguing for the Palestinians and against a Jew or a Christian, he probably wouldn't have aroused the administration's ire.

On campus, after all, 'Freedom of speech' obtains only to the 'most diverse'...

[Tzimisce]

More acceptance, open mindedness and tolerance at our nation's universities. I'm so happy to be soaked every April 15th when I read stories like this.

[snarks_when_bored]

The complaining students wanted to spread their palestinian hate literature without opposition, Klocek opposed them, they shouted, "We're offended!", DePaul University bowed down to them like an obedient dhimmi, and Klocek is on the street.

Fortunately, Israel won't go quite so gently into the night being prepared for her by the palestinians.

[snarks_when_bored]

And as for this:

"I'm not the ideal poster boy," Klocek said. "But freedom of speech is a cause worth fighting for."

DePaul's president agrees.

"I get accused of being against free speech," Holtschneider said. "But freedom of speech for students requires they have a professor who treats them with respect."

Klocek did nothing to infringe the right of the students to spread their hate, hence he did not infringe their right of free speech. But he is not obliged to treat either the hate or the hate-spreaders with respect. His thumb-under-chin gesture of disdain is a time-honored expressive modality of free speech. That DePaul University's president Holtschneider fails to understand this is disturbing, but not surprising.