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Thomas Klocek was, until September 2004, a popular adjunct professor in the School of New Learning at DePaul University in Chicago. A private university linked to the Vincentians, DePaul may not be prestigious, but it is one of America's fastest-growing universities. Many readers will recognize it as the home of the notorious anti-Zionist, Norman Finkelstein. Klocek taught at DePaul for fourteen years until his dismissal on what I can only describe, not merely as the flimsiest, but as the most prejudicial of grounds. During a Student Activities Fair, a group of eight students representing Students for Justice in Palestine and...

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...

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...

CHICAGO, May 18, 2005—DePaul University administrators have suspended Professor Thomas Klocek without a hearing after he engaged in an out-of-class argument with pro-Palestinian students at a student activities fair. When the students complained to administrators, Klocek was denied the rights that DePaul guarantees to professors accused of wrongdoing and immediately suspended. Statements from DePaul administrators indicate that Klocek was disciplined because of his harsh criticism of the students’ viewpoint, despite DePaul’s stated commitments to free speech and academic freedom. “DePaul has unquestionably violated Professor Klocek’s due process rights, and the university did so because his statements were allegedly offensive,” commented...

Facts are stubborn things - except when you create your own. When I was asked about the "Jenin Massacre" by a Muslim student during an event at Norfolk's Old Dominion this week, it became clear we were coming from two very different perspectives: reality vs. mythology. There was no "Jenin Massacre." Period. The only "massacre" that took place at Jenin was that of the truth. Palestinians, long masters of media manipulation, went by the hundreds to foreign media - whom Israel kept outside of the armed conflict - to claim that over 500 innocents had been slaughtered. The man at...

Catholic universities in the United States have in recent years shown a weakness for cultivating far-leftist anti-Semites and haters of America. Perhaps the best known has been Notre Dame, home of the extremist Kroc Institute, which attempted to sponsor Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Arab with ties to Al Qaeda, for a three-year professorship. But in many ways, DePaul University is even worse. DePaul is a large, if not particularly academically renowned, Catholic college in Chicago, nominally associated with “Congregation of the Mission,” more popularly known as the Vincentians. Until recently, the main cause of controversy surrounding DePaul was its insistence...

During his 14 years at DePaul University, Thomas Klocek dwelled in adjunct-professor purgatory, quietly coming and going times a week from his Loop classroom and his home on the city’s Southwest Side. His evalutions from students in the university’s School of New Learning were consistently positive—and that, apparently, was enough for his bosses because nary a supervisor visited his classroom. Klocek’s invisibility ran out, however, one day in September when he got caught up in a heated debate at a student activities fair on the school’s downtown campus. He stopped at a table where two student groups—Students for Justice in...