Feb. 05, 2005 - 20:23 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

Just Semi ?

OOB is me (Opinionated Old Boy), and some of my opionions are here:

There is a tenured professor at Colorado University at Boulder Colorado who is at the center of controversy that is using up, oh, so much newspaper space and causing public controversy. It is perhaps due to the present atmosphere of the "Patriot Act," "Homeland Security," and other pressures caused by national hysteria and paranoia. I guess that is what set the stage.

Professor Ward Churchill is the man of the news right now. Our paper is full of things concerning him.

In his writings recently he asserts that the Twin Towers victims were, "little Eichmans," I think comparing them to bureaucrats who went through the motions not caring what boded ill for the masses.

Unfortunately he was the head of his department.

His assertions primarily were that the Twin Tower monstrosity was to avenge things our government had done to the Muslim world, as near as I can tell.

He subsequently resigned as chairman of his department and retained his job as a professor.

I haven't read his writings and understand that he wasn't teaching at the time, but writing for publication. In other words he was calling it like he sees it. In my opinion he is way off bouncing off the walls, but not inciting to riot.

I wish I could supply more facts on the events in New York quite a number of years ago wherein Nazi supporters were going to hold a mass meeting in the city and asked for police protection. From what I read the mayor supplied police protection for the meeting, assigning every man of Jewish descent on the force to the task of providing protection for the meeting.

I have been noticing that people of our administration who had even the slightest thoughts against what was going on or was being thought of are disappearing from government.

I do not subscribe to what Mr. Churchill is saying -- but I do think he has a right to publish what he wishes, say what he wants to say -- as long as he doesn't incite to riot. Some of his supporters shut down a meeting by the regents, but not at his behest. I think those people have a right to be heard on the subject, that the meeting not be shut down but the protestors be heard, as long as they didn't break the meeting down. Seems to me that if they had been offered a chance to speak, in turn, and not rave and rant they should have been accorded the right to do so.

Seems that we are leaning toward preventing free speech. That any of us who might have a different opinion than others can suffer the consequences the others might visit on us.

Quoting from a column by Paul Campos a professor of law at the University of Colorado in today's Rocky Mountain News -- in part:

Real question is, how did prof get on CU's faculty in first place ?

"Anyone who reads widely in the collected works of professor Churchill, and especially anyone who listens to his speeches, will, if they are not blinded by certain ideological commitments, recognize the essentially facist tendency of his work."

"All this was merely par for the course for Churchill, who believes that a Columbus Day parade as an incitement to genocide, and therefore something that he and his followers have a legal right to disrupt."

The question of whether a serious research university ought to hire someone like Churchill is laughable on its face. What's not so funny is the question of exactly how someone like him got hired in the first place, and then tenured and named the head of the department."

"That, in the end, is a more important question than what will or ought to happen to Churchill now. Churchill is a pathetic buffooon, but the University of Colorado is far from alone in having allowed itself to toss intellectual integrity and human decency overboard in the pursuit of worthy goals."

"Speaking truth to power, giving a voice to those who have been silenced, pursuing controversial and unpopular ideas in an intellectually rigorous way -- these are all things that the university in general, and this unversity in particular, has done and continues to do."

"That through whatever combination of negligence, cowardice and complicity we have allowed Ward Churchill to besmirch those ideals by invoking them in the defense of his contemptible rantings is now our burden and our shame.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I don't always agree with what Mr Campos has to say, yet he and I see eye to eye on many things. He lays the onus on the University for hiring the man in the first place. Basically I think the University has the right to remove a professor as the head of a department but not to fire him or censor his work.

We seem to be in the "politically correct" age wherein books that upset some of our population are removed from library shelves, where evolution cannot be taught and any deviation from "popular" thought is punished. So, I wonder, is freedom of speech now Just Semi ? . . . . . . . . . .

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