Tuesday, September 19, 2006

First fall DePaulia is out, no mention of Klocek controversy

After a summer hiatus, the new DePaul school newspaper is out. Ever since the outside-DePaul world started taking notice of the Thomas Klocek free speech controversy, the school paper, The DePaulia, has for the most part ignored the case.

That pattern continues. Until this issue, there has been no DePaulia published since May. Since then there have been two major revelations in the Klocek case. Wesley Thompson, the former DePaul Student Government Association president, backed Klocek's version of what happened during the 2004 cafeteria discussion with the Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead.

And the role of CAIR Chicago, the local outpost of the Chicago Council of American Islamic Relations, became public. CAIR, which touts itself as a civil rights organization, recommended that DePaul fire Klocek.

Aren't real civil rights groups supposed to expand rights and employment opportunities?

CAIR Chicago has a big presence at DePaul, something the DePaulia is not likely to report on anytime soon.

Ironically, the DePaulia did report on the cafeteria encounter shortly after Klocek was suspended by DePaul. The DePaulia piled-on the professor, going to print without getting his side of the story. The article does note that the DePaulia did contact Klocek, but that he failed to respond before the paper's deadline.

Klocek told me that the DePaulia did not contact him for that story at all.

In fairness to the paper, the following spring the DePaulia did publish an op-ed by Klocek outlining his side of the story.

In the blogosphere, however, the Klocek affair is still a big story. But not in the DePaulia.
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