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Saturday, July 08, 2006
Sorry, but those commenters of mine… …who wrote sympathetically about university search committees that come up with appointments like Kevin Barrett … the commenters who argued that it’s difficult to tell from paperwork whether you’ve got someone certifiable on your hands … are going to have to rethink their position. I was tentatively sympathetic to these arguments, actually. Times being what they are, madmen may pass, fools may rush in… But Kevin Barrett, recently hired by the University Wisconsin, Madison, to teach Islam, represents an instantly identifiable case of moronic paranoia. The search committee that rejected countless applicants for a teaching position in a sensitive and important subject in order to choose a man who signs a letter to the Governor of Wisconsin "Steve Nass, Reichschancellor, Thoughtcrime Division, University of Wisconsin-Madison" (Nass is one of Barrett’s many enemies.) is a search committee crying out for help. Because of this committee, the state of Wisconsin must now contort itself to flush out of the body politic a pitiable conspiracy theorist who‘s about to teach at its flagship university. This committee should write to the university community justifying or apologizing for what they did. And they should explain how Barrett’s being a University of Wisconsin Madison graduate played into this. Who taught him? Was his mentor on the search committee? Did he get preferential hiring treatment because he went to school there? What becomes of arguments that one can’t tell much about someone from mere paperwork when that person graduated from your school? Meanwhile, though, we’ve got the correspondence of Barrett to the Governor to delectate… I mean, those of us interested in language and its uses have to appreciate -- for analytic purposes -- the willingness of Governor Doyle to make public Barrett’s text: Gov. Jim Doyle is hinting that a controversial lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may be unfit to teach. It is indeed an issue of academic freedom. The state university wants this man to teach its students. It chose him above all others. Roman Hruska grasped this sort of situation very well during the G. Harrold Carswell controversy more than thirty years ago. Carswell, who Richard Nixon attempted to place on the Supreme Court, was by all accounts a mediocrity. To this charge, the Nebraska Senator responded: "Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. Aren't they entitled to a little representation and a little chance? We can't have all Brandeises and Cardozos and Frankfurters and stuff like that. I doubt we can. I doubt we want to." Similarly, you might argue that a lot of paranoid cretins in this country are going without professors to teach them… [via ann althouse] *************************** Update: I bow to Ben Wallace, a commenter over at Ann Althouse, who understands far more about this than I: 'I suspect the real Kevin Barrett was killed by the CIA or foreign terrorist groups in 2004 or 2005, shortly after defending his dissertation. The original Barrett mentioned the possibility of a conspiracy at a bar a couple of times in early 2002; such ramblings are how the CIA targets people for "replacement." What they do is find a left-leaning critic of the government and replace them with a plant who can unleash political controvery at will. There are actually undercover agents in all 50 states who can be activated at any time. In this case, the operative ("Kevin Barrett") was activated to help the Republicans continue to control the WI state legislature. Control of the state legislatures is obviously necessary to ensure the Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage is successful. The next step of the plan is to activate the conspiracy theorists in Oregon. This will inevitably lead to the universities supporting the conspiracy theorists, thus providing a platform for Republicans to galvanize control of the Oregon state legislature. ******************************** Second Update: Go back to Althouse's updated comment thread for some reliable sounding insider information about Barrett and others. ******************************* Third Update: A little more information on this increasingly bizarre situation, from the Wisconsin State Journal: Professor Muhammad Memon said he usually teaches the class himself, but he is going on sabbatical this fall. So Ralph Luker’s right -- he said in a comment here that Barrett was the only candidate. How’d that happen? Also - Professor Memon feels good about Barrett’s teaching. But can we trust his feelings? Here are three comments about Memon from Rate My Professors. And yes, that's very few comments, and you don’t want to generalize. But the content of these comments makes them worth reproducing. Overall ranking for this professor: lowest possible. before taking his class, i was really interested in it and afterwards, i felt as though i really did not learn much at all. i thought he was unapproachable, and did not really have organization to his lectures.. his tangents made me feel really lost, and no matter how hard i tried to pay attenion, i kept zoning out every time. |