Friday, March 31, 2006

Scalia gives "dismissive" gesture that DePaul prez thinks is obscene


Pat Curley of Brainster e-mailed me a Boston Herald article this afternoon about the growing controversy over a gesture made by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia inside Boston's Holy Cross Cathedral.

It just happens to be the same gesture former DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek made to those thin-skinned Muslim students in the fall of 2004 that led to his dismissal.

Scalia, in a letter to the Herald insists the gesture, shown above, is not obscene. His explanation pretty much matches what Klocek said: "I'm outta here." Scalia says it means "I could not care less."

Here's what Steven Plaut has the skinny-on-the-chinny in the Autonomist Blog:

(Oh, thanks for the graphic!)

In the "minds" of the administrators at DePaul "University," using this same dismissive gesture is considered an unforgivable act. DePaul's president, Fr. Dennis Holtschneider, wrote the following words regarding Klocek's firing:

"...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." (Emphasis added)

DePaul was looking for any excuse to fire the conservative Klocek, whose only real transgression was that he dared defend Israel to some leftwing campus radicals.

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