Sunday, January 27, 2008

Must not even CONDEMN naughty words

Nasty bureaucrats looking for an excuse to show their power:

"Brandeis University declared a professor guilty of racial harassment and placed a monitor in his classes after he criticized the use of the word "wetbacks" in his Latin American Politics course. Professor Donald Hindley, a nearly 50-year veteran of teaching, has neither been granted a formal hearing by Brandeis nor provided with the substance of the accusations against him in writing. Hindley has turned to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

"Brandeis's actions demonstrate a fundamental disregard for academic freedom and for fair, rational fact-finding procedures," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "Professor Hindley is a respected scholar who until now has not faced a single student complaint in nearly five decades of teaching. Punishing him for actually criticizing the use of what is often considered an ethnic slur shows a mindless application of `sensitivity at all costs' at the expense of freedom of expression."

In his Fall 2007 course on Latin American politics, Hindley allegedly used terms that at least one student found objectionable. Despite his repeated demands to Brandeis administrators to disclose in writing precisely what offended some students in his class, they have refused to tell him.

Source