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July 25, 2006

US: University's Islam Conspiracy Course

One wonders if higher education is all it's cracked up to be. When I took my degree there was an emphasis on reality. The University of Wisconsin Madison apparently believes that it is acceptable to peddle lies and wild hypotheses as part of its curriculum. The LA Times reports that one of its staff, Kevin Barrett, is convinced that the events of 9/11, in which more than 3,000 people died, were the work of the United States government.

In a free society, a person should be allowed to believe in any number of crackpot loony-tunes ideas. Even in a college lecturer, that right to be daft as a brush is sacrosanct, as long as it does not impinge upon what is taught to students.

There are several individuals currently peddling wild theories that 9/11 was carried out by the US, and most of these individuals are rather sad and pathetic losers who need all the attention they can get. They appeal to dissatisfied former hippies who smoked too much pot and who have a residual paranoia about anything connected with authority, especially if it contains the words "US government". When such theories involve UFOs and frozen aliens in Area 51, such theorising is irritating but harmless.

When such theories suggest that a government in an open democracy willingly killed its own people, for whatever reason, such theories go into the realms of gross offense (for victims' relatives seeking closure) and cause harm.

The amount of fanatical Muslims that I have seen on message boards recycling these daft 9/11 theories confirms that they are a convenient distraction from reality. It is so much easier to blame the actions of Muslim fanatics upon the US government, or upon the ever-convenient scapegoat the Jews (who according to many 9/11 theorists also run the entire United States and Free World by proxy).

Last month, Kevin Barrett spoke on a Milwaukee talk show about his paranoid notions of the US government rigging up the WTC with explosives and claimed that the notion of a hijacked plane hitting the Pentagon was preposterous.

Barrett will be holding a 15-week course for undergraduates entitled "Islam: Religion and Culture" which will commence in the fall, and he intends to devote one week of this course to discussing the elements of his 9/11 conspiracy theory.

The course as a whole is intended to discuss Islam and its effects on current US society. Barrett is also a co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth a group of paranoiacs seeking to have their fears confirmed or refuted by a public investigation. Surely Olanzapine would be cheaper.

If a course on Islam and society discussed conspiracy theories on 9/11 as a symptom of a reactionary phenomenon involving culture and unmedicated psychosis, perhaps there would be a place for it within the education system, training students to discriminate between fact and fantasy.

As Jonathan Knight, of the American Association of University Professors states: "It's all on how the information is taught. If a person uses a classroom as a forum to proselytize his views on 9/11, he shouldn't be there. If he's using those views to explore other ideas and how people reason, that's different."

But Barrett believes this nonsense, and on educational terms, his destructive fantasies would put his credibility as an authority into doubt. By appearing on Milwaukee TV and stating his beliefs in such a fantasy, he has already shown to potential students that he really does believe this crap.

Knight claims it is the college's decision whether or not Barrett remains employed at University of Madison-Milwaukee, and not the call of politicians.

But when a college receives $1 billion annually from taxpayers, perhaps politicians should demand that a college upholds certain standards. And one paramount standard in a place of education is truth. Not looney tunes fantasies masquerading as truth.

A letter was delivered yesterday to the administrators of the university and to the governor of Wisconsin state, James Doyle. The letter demands that the university sack Barrett before the college returns to duty in the fall. The letter was signed by 61 of the state legislature's 133 members. Republican Rep. Stephen L. Nass has said that some of those who signed the letter are threatening to cut the university's public funding in the next financial review.

Nass said that "my office is being flooded with calls and e-mails by people who are furious that their dollars are going to be spent teaching such falsehoods. If the university doesn't do something to stop this, then lawmakers will step in and try to deal with it."

Donald A. Downs lectures in political science, law and journalism at the university, and claims: "I'm offended by him having these beliefs. But it's censorship to say he can't say these things."

This is not about one fruitcake's right to believe in six impossible things before breakfast, or to pronounce upon them on a street corner. This is about the right of students to be taught fairly and factually. Sure, a healthy part of a student's education is to be taught to question, and to not accept verbatim mere dogma. But presenting conspiracy theories which have no factual basis, and advertising one's personal beliefs about such theories on TV, gives to a young student the impression that there is credibility in these theories.

That is wrong. A lecturer must have common sense, academic integrity and intellectual credibility. It appears that Kevin Barrett has none of these.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at July 25, 2006 7:07 AM

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