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Jewish World Review June 23, 2005 / 16 Sivan, 5765 Our republic and colleges By Jack Kelly
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The University of Colorado announced last week that it is expanding its
apparently endless inquiry into misconduct by faux Indian Prof. Ward
Churchill after a recent series by the Rocky Mountain News demonstrated:
"All the facts laid out in recent days point to one unavoidable conclusion:
Churchill did plagiarize, and he did invent historical events to suit his
political agenda," the Rocky Mountain News said in an editorial June 10th.
"If Churchill's shoddy work is not beyond the pale, then the integrity of
all research at the university is in doubt."
But the University of Colorado has been about as eager to examine
Churchill's wrong-doing as the Volcker Commission has been to investigate
what UN Secretary General did or did not do in the Oil for Food scandal.
Both "investigations" have inched forward only after vigorous outside
prodding.
"Several of the clearest violations of scholarly practice aren't even being
investigated yet by the university, although they clearly ought to be," the
News said. "As reporter Laura Frank recounted a week ago, Churchill also
presented as his own, without apparent permission, an essay produced by an
environmental group. And he reprinted the work of three scholars under
their own names but without permission in apparent violation of copyright
law."
Churchill, you'll recall, came to national attention in February when it
came to light (thanks to the editor of a student newspaper at Hamilton
College, where Churchill was scheduled to speak) that Churchill had called
the victims in the World Trade Center Sept. 11th "Little Eichmanns."
Doubtless it is Churchill's virulent anti-Americanism that has permitted him
to keep his job for so long, despite clear and massive evidence of academic
fraud.
CU acted with far greater dispatch in the case of Prof. Phil Mitchell,
canned in March after 20 years when his department chief discovered that he
was a conservative and a Christian.
The grounds for firing Mitchell, 1998 Teacher of the Year at CU, were that
he quoted black conservative Thomas Sowell in a discussion of affirmative
action.
"The progressive head of the department berated Mitchell, calling him a
racist," reported Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi. Two of Mitchell's
nine children are black.
The final straw came when Mitchell used a book on liberal Protestantism in
the 19th Century in his history class. "So repulsed by the word "G-d" was
one student, she complained, and the department chaired fired him without a
meeting," Harsanyi reported.
Mitchell's situation is hardly unique in academia these days. DePaul
University in Chicago suspended without a hearing Prof. Thomas Klocek in May
after he vigorously defended Israel in a discussion with Muslim students.
Economics Prof. Hans Hoppe nearly lost his job at the University of
Nevada-Las Vegas when a student took offense to his (accurate) statement in
a lecture on money and banking that homosexuals tend to lead risky
lifestyles and tend not to save for the future, a trait they share with the
very young and the very old.
There is free speech aplenty at our colleges and universities for those who
malign the United States, white males, Christians, Jews, soldiers and
Republicans, no matter how false and vicious their criticisms be. But woe
be unto the professor or student who strays from the path of Political
Correctness.
Conservative professors are as rare on campuses today as bacon at a bar
mitzvah, but there appears to be a vigorous effort to purge the few who
remain. Our campuses have been taken over by the radical Left, who are more
interested in propagandizing our children than in educating them. If we do
not take them back, the republic will be in grave peril.
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© 2005, Jack Kelly |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
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