Free Republic

CHICAGO, May 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – DePaul University in Chicago, one of the largest and most important Catholic universities in the US is hosting the second “Out There” conference on homosexuality and Catholic education. The conference, whose full title is the Conference of Scholars and Student Affairs Personnel Involved in “LGBTQ” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer) issues on Catholic Campuses, is being organized through the DePaul Women’s and Gender Studies department. It is scheduled for October 19-20, 2007 and is calling for submissions for papers and workshops. The first Out There conference was held at Jesuit-run Santa Clara...

Sheik Jamal Said stood before the packed mosque and worked the crowd like an auctioneer. Speaking Arabic, the prayer leader asked for a donation of $10,000. No one responded. He asked for $5,000, and three men raised their hands. < SNIP> The recipient of the worshipers' generosity was Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist accused by the U.S. government of aiding terrorists. And the prayer leader's passionate appeal is a reflection of the ascendancy of Muslim hard-liners at the mosque, one of the most outspoken and embattled in the U.S. The mosque did not become this way without a struggle. Relying...

How low will the forces of political correctness stoop? Well, all the way down to the basement of Chicago's Adler Planetarium, that's for certain. I took Litte Marathon Pundit there Tuesday afternoon. She's on spring break from school this week, and her third grade class is spending a lot of time discussing astronomy. The planetarium underwent a major expansion in the 1990s, I hadn't been there since the project was completed. My daughter liked our day-trip a lot, and that was enough for me. Almost. My probing eye picked up some frightening political-correctness in the astrolobe section of the planetarium....

WEB SITES LINK CATHOLIC COLLEGES TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD, ABORTION-RIGHTS GROUPS MANASSAS, VA (March 16, 2006) - Despite the Catholic Church's clear opposition to abortion, contraception and premarital sexual activity, a Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) review of Catholic college and university Web sites has revealed links and referrals to abortion clinics including Planned Parenthood-the largest abortion provider in the United States-and abortion-rights and pro-contraception groups.   CNS is a national organization to renew and strengthen the Catholic identity of Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S. Founded in 1993, CNS has more than 18,000 members.   Whether it's internship and job...

DePaul Offers Minor in Homosexual StudiesBeginning this semester, DePaul University is offering a new minor, officially called “The LGBTQ [Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer] Studies Program at DePaul.” The program includes courses in English literature, comparative literature, American Studies, psychology and women and gender studies. Offerings vary from “Queer Studies” to the history of sexuality from the Puritans to the Victorian Era. It has not been indicated that all courses and materials will be entirely consistent with Catholic teaching. To protest: Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M., President, 55 E. Jackson Blvd., 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60604; (312) 362-8890; dholtsch@depaul.edu  CNS Urges...

A student group that protested a campus appearance by University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill has become DePaul University’s latest victim of censorship. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) intervened after the university banned its College Republicans from posting flyers protesting Churchill’s visit and actually changed its own rules to prevent the organization from attending a workshop that he would be leading. "Just as DePaul was free to invite Ward Churchill to speak, so should its students be free to object to that invitation,” said FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg Lukianoff. "DePaul’s president boasts of...

CHICAGO, December 21, 2005—A student group that protested a campus appearance by University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill has become DePaul University’s latest victim of censorship. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) intervened after the university banned its College Republicans from posting flyers protesting Churchill’s visit and actually changed its own rules to prevent the organization from attending a workshop that he would be leading. “Just as DePaul was free to invite Ward Churchill to speak, so should its students be free to object to that invitation,” said FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg Lukianoff. “DePaul’s...

First, a flashback to Tuesday's Chicago Tribune article about Thomas Klocek's free speech struggle at DePaul University, as the Chicago college's president, Father Dennis Holtschneider, speaks out about free speech: "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." Well, the free speech problems at DePaul go beyond its reprehensible conduct in the Klocek affair. FIRE, by the way, is short for Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. From the organization's mission statement: The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual...

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...

Heroic Todd Beamer was not in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. But he led the famous "Let's Roll" charge into the cockpit of Flight 93, which crashed that same day in Pennsylvania after being hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists. He was a DePaul grad, earning his MBA from the Chicago school in 1993. So, does October 20 and 21 DePaul speaker Ward Churchill think Todd was a "Little Eichmann?"

As regular visitors to this blog know, renowned aca-demon Ward Churchill will be returning to his native Illinois and speak at Chicago's DePaul University on October 20 and 21. (The second event, I believe, is not open to the public.) Information, courtesy of the DePaul University Division of Student Affairs' Cultural Center, is available here on their web site. Here is the "Psycho" Ward stuff: October 20, 2005 Lecture: Ward Churchill -Open to DePaul Community 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Student Center 314-A) October 21, 2005 Multicultural Human Rights Education Workshop (2:00 p.m. 4:30 p.m., Student Center 314-B) -Ward Churchill–...

DePaul University, currently being sued by a professor terminated for a spirited discussion with Muslim students about Middle East politics, has invited Ward Churchill to lecture next month. Churchill is the University of Colorado professor who attracted national attention for his essay characterizing Sept. 11 victims as "little Eichmanns," for explaining that al-Qaida had a legitimate beef with the U.S. and for questions raised about his own background and resume. But Chicago's DePaul as a venue is of particular note given its treatment of professor Thomas Klocek, currently suing the university for defamation over his suspension for behavior in a...

One year ago today, DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek had a discussion with some Muslim students... ....and was suspended because his ideas didn't match the PC groupthink found on almost all college campuses today. On September 15, 2004, Klocek, an adjunct professor at Chicago's DePaul University for 14 years, was walking through a campus cafeteria where a student activities fair was taking place. He noticed a couple of display tables staffed by United Muslims Moving Ahead (UMMA) and the DePaul Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) More on Students for Justice in Palestine here, courtesy of Frontpage Magazine's Discover...

In the latest chapter of a fierce academic feud, Alan M. Dershowitz, the celebrity Harvard Law School professor, tried to pressure the University of California Press not to publish a book critical of Israel that also attacked his scholarship. The press is publishing the book despite Dershowitz's efforts, but with significant changes. The book will no longer include author Norman G. Finkelstein's claim that Dershowitz did not write, ''The Case for Israel," nor will it use the word ''plagiarize" in its argument that the Harvard law professor inappropriately borrowed from another work, according to the director of the press. An...

Why would the University of California Press (UCP) be publishing a sequel to a book that several distinguished historians have compared to the notorious czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? It is by an author whose previous works were eliminated from the curriculum by the Toronto School Board because they were “anti-Semitic.” This author has also been characterized as a “writer celebrated by neo-Nazi groups for his Holocaust revisionism…,” and as a purveyor of “crackpot ideas, some of them mirrored almost verbatim in the propaganda put out by neo-Nazis….” Imagine if a university press were publishing an...

Thomas Klocek, the DePaul professor who lost his job without due process after arguing with several students about the Middle East at a student activities fair, has now sued DePaul. Much of the suit focuses on claims that DePaul defamed Klocek, in part by providing the public with false and misleading information about his health. Klocek also claims breach of contract. In this case, DePaul has shamefully taken a single encounter where the facts are in dispute (the students and professor present radically different versions of the event), and has transformed it into a veritable festival of repression. First, DePaul...

A DePaul professor who was suspended after having a spirited discussion about the Middle East with Muslim students sued the university and two of its officials for defamation yesterday. Professor Thomas Klocek alleges the administrators wrongly characterized his arguments as racist and bigoted. He seeks damages against the school for maligning his "integrity and professional competence." Last September, Klocek attended a Student Activities Fair on the Chicago campus and happened to visit the table of the Students for Justice in Palestine, a statement announcing the lawsuit stated. After the professor took a handout that showed an Israeli bulldozer destroying a...

CHICAGO (AP) A former DePaul University instructor filed a defamation lawsuit Tuesday against the school, claiming officials maligned him publicly after he got in a heated argument with pro-Palestinian students at a campus activities fair. Thomas Klocek, a 14-year part-time professor, has not worked at DePaul since the Sept. 15 incident involving students from two groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead. Both Klocek and the students agree that a loud argument began after the instructor picked up a pro-Palestinian flier from one of the groups. The students complained to school authorities that Klocek identified himself...

Under the title of "DePaul's predicament: The choice--Stop--or stop justifying--anti-Israel sentiment," the Chicago Jewish Star returns to the issues haunting Chicago's DePaul University. In its previous edition, the Star summarized Thomas Klocek's free speech struggle against DePaul, and it included this quote from Klocek, "I stood for Israel, because it is in the right. I paid the price at a Christian University." The Chicago Jewish Star is not available online, it's a free-weekly. If you're in Chicago's Loop, look for a Jewish Star newspaper box and pick up a copy to see the entire editorial. Here are some excerpts: During...

Publication of The Case for Israel has made me the target of vicious personal attacks. A systematic effort to discredit the book, and me, has been undertaken by a well-organized group of Israel bashers led by Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Alexander Cockburn. As soon as the book reached the bestseller lists and began to get good reviews around the country, this triumvirate went to work. They had a model for their attack going back 20 years. The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that...