A friend of this blog forwarded this e-mail to me, from the DePaul University's President, the Reverend Dennis Holtschneider:
Thank you for your recent letter regarding adjunct instructor Thomas Klocek, and for the evident concern and ideals you hold deeply in your heart. As you might suspect, the early media accounts of this situation had omissions and inaccuracies, which were then repeated via Web sites and blogs.
Because this is a personnel matter and privacy rights must prevail, and also because this instructor is threatening legal action unless the university pays him a great deal of money, I am not able to respond in full detail. However, this issue is not about academic freedom. It is about inappropriate and threatening behavior.
DePaul University has great respect for academic freedom. You can findevidence of DePaul's commitment to the free exchange of ideas throughout the university--in the formal curriculum, the range of faculty scholarship, and our co-curricular activities. On a daily basis, faculty and staff are committed to fully exploring with students the most important ideas of our time, including difficult and contentious issues. Our mission leads us to engage ideas in ways that respect the dignity and worth of each individual. This commitment and mission applies to this incident, as well.
Last September, while students were passing out literature at a table in the cafeteria, Mr. Klocek confronted them in a belligerent and menacing manner. He raised his voice, threw pamphlets at students, pointed his finger near their faces and displayed a gesture interpreted as obscene. This continued for some time before other students in thecrowded cafeteria summoned staff help to intervene.
After conversations during which Mr. Klocek would not acknowledge the inappropriateness of his behavior, we reached a mutual decision that he would withdraw from his single-course teaching assignment, with pay and medical benefits, while he attended to personal health issues that we discovered were impacting his effectiveness in the classroom.
DePaul offered to give Mr. Klocek a spring quarter class assignment if he met with the students to apologize for his behavior and if the program director could drop by his class to ensure that the healthissues that affected his teaching were resolved. He refused.
As an adjunct instructor who is hired on an as-needed basis each term, Mr. Klocek does not receive the same privileges as full-time tenured professors. However, the university and its Faculty Council have encouraged him to file a grievance and receive the hearing he claims he was denied. In the six months since that suggestion was made, Mr. Klocek has not done so. Instead, his lawyer threatened DePaul with litigation and demanded a large sum of money. Then, he hired a publicist in an attempt to exert pressure to secure the financial settlement.
DePaul is continuing to honor its century-long tradition of academic freedom, open-expression, and due process. But DePaul also will continue to insist on the highest professional standards of behavior from our faculty and staff. Our students and alumni deserve no less.
Fr. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M.President
Quick notes, as I had a tough 11 hour day at work and I'm pretty tired:
The words "menacing" and "belligerant" were also used in DePaul PR spokesperson's Denise Mattson's description of Dr. Klocek's confrontation with the Muslim students.
In another e-mail, another friend of the blog remarked that--in a tip of that hat to the classic Clint Eastwood westerns--that there were eight students and one 58 year-old professor at the September 15 cafeteria showdown. What did the Muslims think, that the bespectacled Dr. Klocek was Clint's "Man With No Name?"
In short, I don't buy this explanation.
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