Defending a Nazi
OK, not really. At least, I'm not the one to do the defending. However I do call upon academia to do so. Last week Professor Jacques Pluss, a history professor at Fairleigh-Dickinson University, was fired for his political views. Pluss made several racist statements regarding Jews and blacks on a National Socialist web site. The university acted quickly and fired him. They were right, and within their rights, to do so.
Contrast this with the quagmire of the Ward Churchill "firing" in Colorado. Churchill compared victims of 9/11 to "little Eichmanns", said "more 9/11's are necessary", and compared Indian reservations to Nazi concentration camps. He lied about serving in combat in Vietnam, has apparently lied about his Native American ancestry, and fraudulently passed off another person's art as his own.
That's bad stuff. But Churchill is a leftist, and in the ultra-liberal world of academia, academics are loathe to call out one of their own. Say what you will about them, but all that education has not made them stupid. Rather than defend Churchill's remarks (an obvious loser of a proposition), the left has hidden behind his "freedom of speech." If the state-funded University of Colorado were to fire him for what could be called "speech", it is engaging in censorship, which runs contrary to the ideal of free inquiry and discourse.
Well. This brings us back to Professor Pluss. Pluss' speech is reprehensible by any civilized standard, and we're not sad to see his career cut short. But we're sure the left will, in the name of fairness, come to the aid of a brother-in-arms who has been terminated simply for engaging in unpopular speech. Just like Churchill. Note to those in the Ivory Tower: I'm holding my breath. Please hurry.
Contrast this with the quagmire of the Ward Churchill "firing" in Colorado. Churchill compared victims of 9/11 to "little Eichmanns", said "more 9/11's are necessary", and compared Indian reservations to Nazi concentration camps. He lied about serving in combat in Vietnam, has apparently lied about his Native American ancestry, and fraudulently passed off another person's art as his own.
That's bad stuff. But Churchill is a leftist, and in the ultra-liberal world of academia, academics are loathe to call out one of their own. Say what you will about them, but all that education has not made them stupid. Rather than defend Churchill's remarks (an obvious loser of a proposition), the left has hidden behind his "freedom of speech." If the state-funded University of Colorado were to fire him for what could be called "speech", it is engaging in censorship, which runs contrary to the ideal of free inquiry and discourse.
Well. This brings us back to Professor Pluss. Pluss' speech is reprehensible by any civilized standard, and we're not sad to see his career cut short. But we're sure the left will, in the name of fairness, come to the aid of a brother-in-arms who has been terminated simply for engaging in unpopular speech. Just like Churchill. Note to those in the Ivory Tower: I'm holding my breath. Please hurry.
Comments