Roger L. Simon: Ill Wind from the Windy City

John Ruberry of Marathon Pundit disrupted my Saturday night.... I was just heading for the DVD collection... when he emailed me a link to the cover story in the Chicago Jewish News. Thomas Klocek, a teacher at DePaul University, got into a dispute with some Palestinian students that may be costing the teacher his job of fifteen years as well as his health insurance. (Klocek, who is 58, has a serious kidney condition. He is also Catholic, not Jewish, although he defended Israel against accusations of - what else? - Nazism by the students.)

If even half of what the CNJ article says is true, we have another case of la vie à l'envers in the American academy. The Depaul dean, a woman named Dumbleton, seems a particularly terrified and pathetic character, another victim of now-reactionary political correctness run amuck.

Of course, I have only read what is essentially Klocek's viewpoint in the CNJ story and on Ruberry's blog, so there could be more here than meets the eye, but I am skeptical. We have heard too many similar tales in this "Ward Churchill" academic world. I suspect too there is something else at play besides PC and that is the university's economic fear. DePaul is not exactly Princeton on the academic pecking order, although I would imagine it still charges tuition fees rivaling more renowned institutions. Places like DePaul always must cater to students who can take their business elsewere. That of course includes a growing number of militant Muslim students who insist that only their views be expressed. Where do we go from here? It's becoming like the Middle Ages when, as I recall, the students bought their professors.

In any case, Klocek's lawyer says he will be suing DePaul. This blog will be watching for further developments.

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"The loss of intellectual empowerment the students suffered". Translation from PC speak to English- The teacher challenged their position, he didn't swaloow their agit-prop for palestinians, their feelings are hurt, teacher is fired. Isn't one of the purposes of a college campus spirited debate where your idea's are challenged. The qoute that not all Muslims are terrorists but the majority of terroists acts, the intentional targeting of non combatants, have been committed by radical muslims is a FACT, not a wild opinion. And if teachers can't hurt peoples feelings then Churchill should have been dumped long ago. The anti israel aspects of academia have been codified in the PC laws to a point where Sharon can be called a nazi butcher by the pro palestinian groups and have nothing happen but if someone attempts to point out some of the less beautifull aspects of suicide bombers and the fact that most of them are Muslims then "Intelectual Empowerment "has been violated. That term itself is so devoid of clarity that the fact that anyone could be accused of violating that dribel is a sin against logic all by itself.

It can't be a desire to satisfy students as customers that drives this absurd political correctness. Most students and an even larger majority of parents are not in favor of this kind of thing. The PC pressure internal to the academy itself.

Not to worry. Thousands mobilized in defense of Ward Churchill's academic freedom. I'm sure Professor Klocek can count on them too.

Joseph Massad demanded an Israeli student who disagreed with him "How many Palestinians he killed" IN CLASS
Dabashi, an Iranian Professor at Columbia, told a student who disagreed with him that unless she admitted Israel's atrocities IN CLASS she had to leave CLASS.
Professor Kloeck got into a heated debate, students and the Professor at a University Fair.

Scnario 1 and 2 were in the middle of a CLASS LECTURE. The students were intimidated.
Scenario 3 was at a University fair where the students were at the least aggressive and provocative with the Professor.

Columbia conducted a full hearing and still has not done 1 thing or admitted the total bias of the MEALAC program. The ACLU said the Professor's rights are protected for not the students in regards to the Columbia incidents.
SO WHERE IS THE ACLU WITH PROFESSOR KLOECK?

If history were to follow normal paths then in the off year elections of 2006 Republicans will suffer big losses, especially having already defied history for 3 straight election cycles. No doubt the Republican majority should be in jeopardy but I do believe Republicans have been defying history not just because of their leader (George W. Bush) but also with much help because Democrats and the political left with whom their fortunes are tied have been defying history at even greater levels.

Democrats have been the ones accepting the behavior of PC. They have not fought against this outrageous behavior going on our College campuses, but they accept the behavior of MoveOn.org, Michael Moore and Senator Byrd so at least they are consistent. Democrats are the ones trying to block Judges and Democrats will be blamed for every activist decision by judges that oversteps the will of the people represented by their elected legislatures. Despite ones opinions on Right to Life issues, the Terry Shaivo case is unsettling as she left no note that expressed a will to be helped to her death. Anyone who has seen videos of the women responding to family members has every right to question what the term "vegetative state" really means. But clearly an elected legislature has ruled one way, the judges have vetoed them. In Massachusetts we have Judges mandating to the Legislature that they pass a specific law, mandating that they legislate a law to the judges specifications! (Constitutionally legislatures give mandates to judges, not the other way around).

It doesn't matter how one may feel about Gay Marriage, Euthanasia or other divisive issues to realize that Political Correctness and Judges overstepping Legislatures is beginning to really annoy people and for the purposes of Politics, it mostly cuts against the Democrats. Add Ward Churchill and now this and I would almost feel sorry for Democrats if I wasn't so disgusted. We must realize that Democrats don't really have time for these things because they have their hands full, they're swamped! They are busy undermining the WOT and trying to preserve for Social Security it's own right to die a slow and painful death, but hey at least they are consistent.

What's amazing is the blatant opinions of people who weren't present when the "situation" occurred. For Dumbleton to apologize to the students for the "insult and disrespect" is insane. She wasn't there.

I was in an academic milieu for more than 30 years and what's being reported now has been going on for decades. Political correctness continued to get more and more crazy and corrupt over the years because there was absolutely no check on it.

Its victims had no recourse because the left had total control of information until a combination of Ronald Reagan and Rush Limbaugh started to make a dent in that solid wall. Other talk radio, FOX News and the blogosphere followed and the rest is history.

Like all entities, academic institutions exist to perpetuate their existence. Right now the aging hippies, dregs of our late and unlamented cultural revelation of the 60's, are literally running the institutions and I think it's poetic justice that their students are seeking to overthrow their leftwing agenda and restore our institutions of higher learning to their former place as custodians of our long and cherished history of a truly liberal, not leftwing, education.

Let the sun shine into the dark corners of leftoid life whether in the academy, the media, the U.N., the "arts" or wherever else it might be lurking and then sit back and watch the uglies scurry for cover. This is going to be so much fun.

Roger, I doubt if the behavior of DePaul in this case has much to do with catering to the demands of students who can take their business elsewhere. In general, I think the only "market" that most university administrators are concerned with is...the market for university administrators. The people they want to cater to are those who hire administrators for better-ranked colleges, or higher-level positions at the same college.

DePaul is not exactly Princeton on the academic pecking order, although I would imagine it still charges tuition fees rivaling more renowned institutions.

Yes and no - yes, DePaul is not exactly Princeton on the academic pecking order (and I say that as somebody who did his undergraduate work there), but no, its tuition does not rival Princeton's. DePaul's annual undergraduate tuition (except for the music and theatre schools) is just under $20,000, while Princeton's (including a mandatory health care fee) is just under $31,000. You can confirm this by visiting their respective web sites.

Not to worry. Thousands mobilized in defense of Ward Churchill's academic freedom. I'm sure Professor Klocek can count on them too.

I hope that you're right, but I fear that you're not. DePaul is still primarily a non-residential university, with a substantial part-time, night-school attendance, and that, I think, makes any sort of protest less likely. I withdrew my financial support from DePaul in, I think, 1999, when they awarded an honorary degree to Jesse Jackson.

I dunno. Loyola has a downtown campus a bit more than a mile north of DePaul's, and the University of Illinois at Chicago is about a mile and a half west of DePaul's downtown campus. It may well be, of course, that Loyola and UIC have similar problems with PC; since I'm not an alumnus of either, I don't get as much news about them.

Jew hating students from the World Islamic Studies department try to stifle discourse. Somehow, I'm not surprised. It ain't the tuition money that's at stake here but it would be interesting to know the source and size of gifts from the ME that fund this department.

It would also be interesting to know which prof from the department jacked up the students and Dean Dumbleton. It's OK for the little Islamofascists in training to disseminate malicious and false anti-Israeli propaganda on campus but God help you if you call them on it. Perhaps shining a little stronger light on this will be helpful.

It is the ideology even of my "conservative" campus; we can't say Christmas, but can attend a Ramadan dinner on site. The school is sponsoring and paying for a "social justice activism" workshop day featuring CAIR, Rep. Hilda Solis (Democratic Party), By Any Means Necessary, and an assortment of prison activists, feminists, etc. Hey, where's the other side? Fair and balanced?

And the thesis I wrote about earlier that cited varous anecdotes about white racism against Indians without ANY supporting footnoting/documentation has been nominated for THESIS OF THE YEAR!! I almost fell off my chair.

And here's one of Churchill's (conservative) colleagues who is getting the shaft:http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~2748616,00.html

I think it's safe to say the original comment was a bit of sarcasm. The type of people who would rally around Ward Churchill most likely wouldn't touch Professor Klocek with a ten foot pole. Of course it will put to a lie their claims that they were supporting academic freedom when in reality all they were supporting was a "bash America" mentality.

You're absolutely right. I completely misread the context of the statement. I think that I confused the faculty at Colorado with the students at Alabama who are, in fact, standing up for freedom of speech, while their faculty are opposing it.

The teetering tower. Excuse me, but a college degree is just an overrated piece of toilet paper.

Ben Franklin, who wanted people to read (because it was good for business) set up the American system of FREE LIBRARIES.

Museums, libraries, and personal experiences, will all add up to give you more than most schools are willing to host.

Are there great professors out there? Sure. And, students fight, sometimes, to get into those classes. But you can learn and drive. Just by going to the Teaching Company and buying their tapes. I love to listen to them.

What happens in the future? I'm going to guess that our military men and women, coming back from Iraq, will have better futures, than the kids who've reached puberty, but decided to postpone marriage; so they go to college to drink drink beer, and screw themselves silly.

What's going to change academia? The marketplace. Computers. And, perhaps the delivery of higher education; once someone figures out what to do with all those empty movie theaters! Heck, they can open for business at 6:00AM. And, they can host the best lecturers. We'd get a new class of stars. And, databases can house all the information needed to stamp toilet paper, proving your ears were open.

Just because you see these ANIMAL HOUSES (Dartmouth hosted that story, ya know? Of course, you do, Roger. You went there.)

I can't wait for all the ex-students, swamped with debt, throwing out their post graduate obligations. How else do you end all the chicanery? Imagine, ahead, all the Ph.D's, who can't even be taxi drivers. Hey, that might end illegal immigration, when people who are citizens, and need to eat, vie for these jobs.

A contretemps down at DePaul
Saw an outspoken Prof take the fall.
Had he tried to disguise
Palestinian lies
It would never have happened at all.

Perhaps he should have just called the Palestinians little Eichmans and said that Rachael Corrie's death was a result of chickens who come home to roost.

Like I said if I did have a kid he would have to either work his way through school or go to military first because I would not bankrupt myself for this crap.

I'm going to be a Dad in a few weeks, and no way am I going to save a penny to send my kid to a 4 year Commie re-education camp. If he's a genius he can get a scholarship for science, engineering or something useful like that. If not, he can start working when he graduates high school.

College used to be for rich kids and star pupils. Then it became a status symbol for nouveau riche baby boomer parents who wanted to give their kids the "fancy education" they never had.

9/11 and the war on terror have dealt a Mike Tyson-like blow to the jaw of leftist academia. They're on the ropes, bleeding profusely and circling the wagons.

College is no longer a place to get an education that will help you in the real world. It's just a warped little closed society. Sort of like the Amish with tweed jackets and elbow pads.

The U of I in Champaign is up there with Princeton on the academic pecking order. Tuition room and board run about half of De Paul's tuition alone. Since most De Paul students come the Chicago area, what does that tell you about the people who go there?

The U of I is probably just as PC but at least you can still get a great science/engineering education.

I wrote about this about 3 weeks ago here: http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005534.shtml then later here: http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005558.shtml when the guy from FIRE mentioned the case at the big Columbia event. I wasn't able to understand why the story wasn't getting more play. The facts of his treatment do not seem to be in dispute.

I know some Amish here in the sticks in southern Indiana and the Amish have far more common sense.

Roger: Sorry to have disrupted your Saturday night, but hopefully it will all end up worthwhile for Dr. Klocek. Lots of good posts here as well.

So what's the story with American Jewry? They are largely mute, largely Democratic. Who stands up for them? The "Evangelical Right" and others of us in the conservative camp. When will American Jews face the fact that the American Left has a fascist, anti-Semitic core? I am most discouraged that non-Jews defend American Judaism while the Jews themselves do so little and remain in the camp of their enemies. Bizarre.

March 19, 2005: Ill Wind from the Windy City

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