Intolerant liberal professors news

There are two stories I want to discuss in this post, stories that add more proof in the evidence file that the term “tolerant liberal” is an oxymoron.

First, from Ohio State University comes this letter written by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of OSU librarian Scott Savage who has been slapped with a ’sexual orientation harassment’ charge for – get this – recommending conservative books for freshman reading, two of which the professors in question apparently found offensive. Via the ADF:

Scott Savage, who serves as a reference librarian for the university, suggested four best-selling conservative books for freshman reading in his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading Experience Committee. The four books he suggested were The Marketing of Evil by David Kupelian, The Professors by David Horowitz, Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis by Bat Ye’or, and It Takes a Family by Senator Rick Santorum. Savage made the recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy Carter and Maria Shriver.

Just where does the ’sexual orientation harassment’ part of all this come into play? Via Eugene Volokh:

The professors claim in a formal complaint filed with OSU that this suggestion, and the librarian’s arguments in its defense (which were apparently not otherwise anti-gay, not that this should matter), create a “hostile environment” for them based on their sexual orientation. (The complaint has been referred to as a sexual harassment complaint, but it’s really a sexual orientation harassment complaint, see the first paragraph on page 2 of the Ohio State harassment policy.)

Back to the ADL letter:

Savage was put under “investigation” by OSU’s Office of Human Resources after three professors filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment against him, saying that the book suggestions made them feel “unsafe.” The complaint came after the OSU Mansfield faculty voted without dissent to file charges against Savage. The faculty later voted to allow the individual professors to file charges.

This is absolutely insane. It’s nuts that OSU would take the complaints remotely seriously (he recommmended two books that were pro-family and frowned on homosexuality and two profs freak out because the books “create a hostile environment” which would make them feel “unsafe”? GMADB!). Not only that, but hello – first amendment?

Maybe these two profs should adopt a motto: “tolerance for me but not for thee!”

More commentary on this can be read via Tigerhawk, Ace of Spades, Tammy Bruce (must-read!), Jawa Report, Riehl World View

The second story comes out of Northern Kentucky University, where a professor there actually encouraged students to destroy a pro-life display – a display that NKU officials approved:

HIGHLAND HEIGHTS – A professor at Northern Kentucky University said she invited students in one of her classes to destroy an anti-abortion display on campus Wednesday evening.

NKU police are investigating the incident, in which 400 crosses were removed from the ground near University Center and thrown in trash cans. The crosses, meant to represent a cemetery for aborted fetuses, had been temporarily erected last weekend by a student Right to Life group with permission from NKU officials.

Public universities cannot ban such displays because they are a type of symbolic speech that has been protected by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Witnesses reported “a group of females of various ages” committing the vandalism about 5:30 p.m., said Dave Tobertge, administrative sergeant with the campus police.

Sally Jacobsen, a longtime professor in NKU’s literature and language department, said the display was dismantled by about nine students in one of her graduate-level classes.

“I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to,” Jacobsen said.

Asked whether she participated in pulling up the crosses, the professor said, “I have no comment.”

She said she was infuriated by the display, which she saw as intimidating and a “slap in the face” to women who might be making “the agonizing and very private decision to have an abortion.’”

Jacobsen said it originally wasn’t clear who had placed the crosses on campus.

She said that could make it appear that NKU endorsed the message.

Pulling up the crosses was similar to citizens taking down Nazi displays on Fountain Square, she said.

“Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged,” Jacobsen said.

Which meant it was perfectly ok for you and your students to go out and literally walk all over someone else’s free speech rights, right, Prof. Jacobsen?

For the record, Jacobsen actually did participate in the destruction of the pro-life display. See the first photo on this page.

Hat tip for the NKU links: Michelle Malkin.

Are there anymore questions now from those who doubt that conservatives feel repressed on college campuses across America?

Read more via Six Meat Buffet, Kim Priestap at Wizbang, Rhymes With Right, Texas Rainmaker, Center for Sanity, Stop The ACLU, Shape of Days

Related Toldjah So posts on left wing educational nonsense:

• UC Santa Cruz: violently anti-military
• Cindy Sheehan to speak at a high school in San Francisco
• Cartoon controversies from across the border (re: The University of Saskatchewan)
• Congressional Medal of Honor recipient not the ’sort of person UW wanted to produce’
• NAACP chairman makes GOP/Nazis comparison (Fayetteville State University)
• Turning their backs on the truth (Georgetown University law school)
• Helping third-graders become anti-war (Frank Allis Elementary School – Wisconsin)
• Ward Churchill confronted (University of Colorado)
• Another censoring of Christmas (Jackson County School System – Georgia)
• Anti-war crowd fights military recruiters in schools (Washington)
• L.A. school district assists students in attending anti-Bush rally
• Former NCSU visiting prof calls for extermination of white people
• Racist logo? (McKinney, TX school district)
• Confronting racism through ‘workshops’ (Guilford County Schools – NC)
• The demise of the homecoming queen as we know them
• Feds Investigate ‘hate Speech’ Incident at UNC-Chapel Hill