Thursday, October 20, 2005

DePaul professor to me: "I would never allow you in my classroom"


Pictured here are Chicago bloggers "Freedom Folks," also known as The Bald Chick and Jake Jacobsen. As we were awaiting the departing audience from Ward-a-palooza, the three of us were talking casually about--well, who knows what--but during this idle time, a short, 50ish olive-skinned woman with thick glasses approached us and pointed to Jake's sign, and said "If you were in there (Ward Churchill's speech), you would've learned something about free speech."

We didn't even know Churchill's talk had ended, and here we were already being heckled! And besides, we did want to be "in there" with Ward!

Jake responded to the woman that not only did he support free speech, he also supported Ward Churchill's free speech rights.

Jake just didn't think that DePaul should be paying Ward big bucks to speak there, in light of his "Little Eichmanns" comments and the like, as well as his shady academic reputation (plagiarism and fabrication for starters.)

There was some back and forth between them, and then I asked the woman, "What about Thomas Klocek's free speech rights?"

"Who," she said?

I gave her a brief rundown of Thomas Klocek's attempt to exercise his free speech rights while he was a DePaul professor.

(For more on Klocek, click here.)

She then told me, "I'm not familiar with all the details of that case."

I told her I was, and responded to her "DePaul fired Klocek when he spoke of things far less controversial than what Ward Churchill has said."

Her reply was, "You're not well informed on this story."

(Obviously she didn't recognize me as the "Marathon Pundit." Friends--and several enemies--of the blog recognized me right away.)

My response to her: "Have you ever spoken with Tom Klocek? Well I have! Several times. I've met with him, too."

It then became clear that this was a woman who was unaccustomed to being un-upped, because what she then said next completely astonished me:

"I would never allow you in my classroom."

Free speech at DePaul.

Oh, do you think I made this story up? The Freedom Folks were there. Was the woman lying about being an instructor at DePaul. Possibly. But remember Occam's Razor. The easiest explanation is usually the most credible.

Free speech at DePaul. Catch the spirit!

If anyone knows the identity of this woman, please leave that information in the blog comments.
Is she Professor Kay/Kaye? (See the post below this one.)

UPDATE Oct 21 11:15PM CDT: Freedom Folks offer their take on "The Teacher."

My favorite part is here:

The moral of the story? She was a teacher! Couldn't this alleged teacher read English? (Jake with FF is referring to his sign way up on this post.) Is this who's teaching our children? I'm more concerned about her being an idiot than a crusty old lefty!

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