The decision disappointed the Three Stooges: Moe (Representative Steve Nass), Larry (Congressman Mark Green), and Curly (Governor Jim Doyle). Nass actually said that the decision is going to make it easier for him to argue for UW administrative cuts in the next budget. Curly and Larry were their typical gutless selves:
Matt Canter, a spokesman for Gov. Jim Doyle, said, "Everyone knows that Governor Doyle would have come to a different conclusion on this matter, but the governor recognizes the university has the legal authority to make their own personnel decisions."
Mark Green, the Republican candidate for governor, issued a statement calling Barrett "as unfit to teach our students as a math professor who would tell us that two plus two equals five."
I have a feeling we have not heard the last of this matter. Certainly The Stooges won't let it rest, especially in an election year.
3 comments:
Do you believe that this is academic freedom? This gentleman has no facts to base his theories on. Instead he has a lot of "what about this?" or "how do you explain this?". You can't teach a class on this kind of rhetoric.
Academic freedom is about teaching facts and tested theory regarding issues ---- all issues. This gentlemen hasn't done the work.
The course as described in the State Journal article linked in my original post seems quite rigorous. It clearly is not 15 weeks of conspiracy theorizing.
I personally think that the US government is too incompetent to pull off something like 9/11, but critical thinking requires taking a serious look at all possibilities.
But imagine if we were in 1956 and a lecturer was signed up to teach a course on "Fascism in our Times." He reveals to the press that part of the course will focus on his belief that the US government is deliberately withholding syphilis treatment from poor blacks in the south. We can imagine the roar of the politicians and press in the "conservative" Eisenhower years: "Crazy!" "Insane!" "We would never do that." "Only the Communists would do something like that." "He's incompetent to teach." "Fire the bastard."
And yet in 1972 it was revealed that the US government had in fact withheld syphilis treatments in one of the most vile and horrible experiments ever concocted. One of the reasons it took so long for this nightmare to be exposed was because every time an academic or member of the press suggested the possibility he was immediately shot down as crazy or a Commie dupe. Other Cold War biological warfare experiments were revealed in the 1990s.
My point is not to say that the fact that US government at one time approved evil experiments on its own citizens represents support for 9/11 conspiracy theories. On the other hand, to completely shut down challenges of the "official" version of what happened on 9/11 strikes me as irresponsible in its own right.
I think it is academic freedom if the man has presented an entire curriculum on a topic and the topic is put into "the marketplace" and allowed to sink or swim on it's actual merit, like interest level to students (it's one thing to assume bravado as you swagger into a controversial class but at some point these students will have to WORK - I suspect on Day One), and if it survives evaluations, etc.
So offering a course to the people and letting the numbers decide seems like academic freedom to me.
I wonder if Doyle's (and others) objections to the course are less the material itself and more a fear of another Ward Churchill situation being created. I'm sure he cost U-Colorado big in money and stress.
How was Janine able to assess this man's class prep time? I missed that. It seemed pivotal in her reaching the judgment she did. Additionally, I fear that by the standard she applied, the entire philosophy departments of all universities world-wide would be completely wiped out.
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