To: TimF who wrote (222931 ) 3/8/2005 5:21:10 PM From: tejek Read Replies (1) | Respond to These are serious allegations and yet no where in the article are they confirmed to have happened. That isn't just a claim that someone else alleged something. Either it is known that Massad said this or the article is dishonest in a way that you can't tell without personal knowledge of the situation. The other "charge" is the allegation that "he refused to answer a question from an Israeli student unless that student told Massad how many Palestinians he had killed." This is not reported as fact but as an allegation. The standard for publishing this alegation would be lower then the previous claim of fact but if there is any reason to think the allegation isn't true the article should state that reason, or better yet not repeat the claim. Do you know any good reason to think the claim is false? If you do then please state it and we can than agree that this is a big hole in the story. "If you look closely at the two stories, you will note some substantial differences. One of the professors has been accused of actual unethical conduct in a classroom setting (refusing to permit a student to dissent from his teaching)." If you accuse me of wearing an ugly sweater in the classroom you are not accusing me of actual misconduct. If you accuse me of hitting a student over the head with a baseball bat for no good reason in the classroom than you are accusing me of actual misconduct. Even if I didn't hit anyone with a bat I would be "accused of actual misconduct". If instead of saying "accused of actual misconduct", the author had said "committed actual misconduct", than you would have a point. I find it very hard to believe that this DePaul professor was the model of professional classroom behavior but exhibited very heated and inappropriate behavior at the student booth. I doubt that the student booth incident was an aberration. Excuse me, but I am sure the GOP bake sale had its defenders. Where are they now when the issue of Churchill is on the block? In fact, with Massad, there had been no retribution in terms of students and their grades. Why does this article ignore that fact? "Determining the boundaries of this dispute is a slippery exercise. At root it is about some Jewish students and recent graduates, who could number several dozen, contending that in recent years they felt mocked and marginalized by pro-Palestinian professors. They have not, however, pointed to any grade retribution. Complaints of this sort have buzzed around campus for some time, but the issue flared into international news in late October, when the news media was shown a film, "Columbia Unbecoming," which had been made at the behest of unhappy Jewish students at Columbia by a pro-Israel group in Boston called the David Project." nytimes.com Do you agree with the article's final statement? - A campus culture that for twenty-five years (at least) has used its intellectual energy to suppress dissent now finds itself under unprecedented national scrutiny, and the conduct that once spawned chuckles in the faculty lounge now leads to headlines and appearances on Fox News. Simply put, free speech needs room to breathe. So free Thomas Klocek from his suspension, and restrict any “investigation” of Massad to only those allegations involving actual violations of student academic freedom."
