Centerfield

If he doesn't put forth those views in the classroom, or with his university titles attached in public, it should be his own damn business. We have a psychology professor in the local university who's a major creationist. I object mightily to him putting himself forth as a "scientist" in order to gain traction for his religious views, but if he keeps it out of the classroom there's no good reason to use that to try and get him fired. He's apparently a decent professor in his field.

Ward Churchill, I note, was dismissed for multiple instances of egregious plagiarism and repeated lying about his credentials and ethnicity in official documentation. His views may have called attention to him, but it was his basic dishonesty and perpetual prevarications that bought him the discharge.

I have had experience with many people who are science professors who espouse some very strange, and frankly unscientific, viewpoints. Many of them do try to dress thier views up in scientific jargon, but if you listen closely, you can tell that its just a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Granted, this is somewhat uncommon, but not entirely. Still, I will defend the right for these people to say what they believe, even in the classroom, if they can do so within context of the lesson.

The whole point of having academic freedom in the first place is to allow academics to push the limits of human knowledge, even if that knowledge, or an interpretation of that knowledge, is highly contraversial, or even flat out wrong. Even the academics who are flat out wrong in some areas still contribute to the discussion, so long as they are honest with themselves, and back off their position when sufficient evidence of their wrongness has been presented.

Especially at the college level, students should be expected to be able to think critically of the things thier professors tell them in class...or at least I think they should. Why should we get up in arms if a professor is denying the holocaust in class? Perhaps we should thank him, because in doing so, I gaurantee that many of his or her students will grasp onto that as a moment of some inspiration to do the research and take a closer look at the holocaust, and most likely come away from the whole experience with a much more profound respect for its impact on world history.

The problem with the holocaust denier teaching a class dealing with issues concerning the holocaust is that they tend to not tolerate respectful debate on the part of those who actually care a bit about things like facts. Worse, while he may indeed inspire a few kids to stand up and fight back and disseminate information about the truth, he also very well may corrupt some of the kids who are a bit more gullible, which would be a very bad thing.

I'm a strong supporter of academic freedom, but as with all freedoms it must have some limits at the extremes. The English professor who is perfectly fine teaching English, and then puts on his Nazi costume on the weekend and joins up with Fred Phelps, I've got no problem with him continuing to teach English. But when he starts spouting off the same speeches during class time, when he uses the particular authority of his position to indoctrinate his pupils into extremism, that goes too far.

As Ann Althouse has noted in her extensive coverage of Barrett (Althouse is very concerned because she is a law professor at the University of Wisconsin), Barrett is being hired specifically to teach a course dealing with the subject matter on which he is such an irrational whacko. Universities have no responsibility to hire irrational whackos in the first place (note that Barrett, unlike Churchill, is a new hire, not a long-time tenured faculty member). His bizarre and extreme opinions render him unqualified to teach that subject matter.