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You can't make this stuff up
New Jersey's Warren Community College became the scene of ideological intolerance and professorial bullying this week when freshman Rebecca Beach announced that WCC's chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom would be bringing Lt. Col. Scott Rutter to campus to discuss the war in Iraq. Beach coordinated the visit, spending $1000 in student activities fees to finance Rutter's appearance, and sending out a campus-wide email publicizing the event. In response, she received an email from adjunct English professor John Daly noting that "Real freedom will come when soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors," and threatening "to expose [her] right-wing, anti-people politics until groups like [Rebecca's] won't dare show their face on a college campus." Daly also noted his plan to ask his students to boycott the event.
When asked about his response to Beach, Daly did not back down and did not seem to recognize either that it is inappropriate to threaten a student whose views differ from his or to pressure his own students to become pawns in his own political expression. Instead, he expounded on the dangers of the YAF: "The administration at WCCC believes Rebecca Beach is an innocent student acting alone, but I recognized her literature right away as being part of a national right-wing movement. ... Her group is an ultra right-wing, possibly fascist, group." Founded in 1960, YAF is a conservative youth group whose intellectual origins lie with William F. Buckley and National Review; its founding issues were free-market economics, traditional values, and anti-communism. Daly, it should be noted, is a member of the ultra left-wing ANSWER. ANSWER has strong ties to the Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Beach, who founded the WCC chapter of YAF, is unfazed and unimpressed. "We were just celebrating and raising awareness. ... We want free speech and tolerance, and they want it for themselves and not for others. That's just utterly ridiculous."
Daly has every right to disagree with Beach's politics, and even to revile them. He also has a right to respond to her email with vigorous criticism--just as University of North Carolina professor Mike Adams had a right, in the fall of 2001, to vigorously disagree in writing with a student who had mass emailed him a far-left anti-war missive. Adams was wrongfully punished for his expression by a UNC administration that failed to grasp his First Amendment rights; WCC should not make the mistake of punishing Daly for his speech.
However, WCC should be quite concerned by Daly's inability to recognize and respect the line between spirited dissent and professional misconduct. He had a right to repudiate Beach's views. But he should not have threatened to "expose" her, and he certainly should not have involved his students in his own political vendetta.
UPDATE 11/21/05: InsideHigherEd.com has more.
UPDATE 11/28/05: Daly has resigned, and debate about academic freedom, free speech, and civility rages at InsideHigherEd.com and Volokh.com.
Posted by acta online on November 20, 2005 at November 20, 2005 07:51 PM
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