Not all Univ. Professors are left wing nut jobs

[johnny861]

There's plenty of right wing nut jobs in academia as well...

I find it darkly amusing that this history professor was revisionist historian


Campus shocked over professor’s Nazi views

Fairleigh Dickinson fires man who joined ‘America’s Nazi Party’
The Associated Press Updated: 6:07 a.m. ET May 16, 2005

TEANECK, N.J. - Jordan Ingram always thought his history professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University was a little quirky.

Jacques Pluss certainly had an unusual style, Ingram recalled. But Ingram, who is black, never thought his professor was a racist — until after Pluss was fired.

Pluss said he was dismissed in March because university officials learned of his involvement in the National Socialist Movement, which bills itself “America’s Nazi Party.” School officials said he was let go for missing too many classes.

The 51-year-old professor bristles when he is called a white supremacist or racist.

“The world is made up of different cultures, all of which have a place, all of which have a direction and all of which should have a say in determining their own futures,” he said.

University officials declined to elaborate on Pluss’ ouster. It was unclear what role — if any — Pluss’ political views played in the decision.

Pluss, who had taught at the university since 2002, said he joined the neo-Nazi group in February but kept his views a secret on campus.

Derogatory comments about school, athletes

Just after dismissal, Pluss went on “White Viewpoint,” a radio show on the National Socialist Movement Web site. He talked about FDU as a “Jewish plutocratic university” and described the school’s men’s basketball team as “nigger to the core.”

“They (the players) have absolutely no right to be in that classroom because they do not possess either the merit or the enhanced intelligence to be there,” Pluss said on the show.

Those views shocked many of Pluss’ former students, including Ingram, a sophomore who earned a B-plus in the professor’s Western Civilization class.

Ingram had thought so highly of Pluss that he considered asking him for a recommendation for a job or academic program. His opinion quickly changed.

“To come in every day and know you’re going to have class with a white supremacist, that’s definitely going to affect me,” Ingram said.

Fairleigh Dickinson, a private, liberal arts college, emphasizes diversity and teaching with an international perspective. It has frequent guest speakers from the United Nations, and about 1,000 of the school’s roughly 10,000 students come from outside the United States.

A university is within its rights to remove faculty members for their political views under certain circumstances, said Robert Kreiser, a senior program officer at the Washington-based American Association of University Professors.

For example, if Pluss had given misinformation about the Holocaust, Kreiser said, that would be a legitimate cause for dismissal.

Holocaust should be 're-examined'

Pluss said he questioned the way the Holocaust is described as the killing of 6 million Jews in Nazi concentration camps.

“I don’t deny that a Jewish Holocaust of some kind occurred,” he said. “However, I do believe that the Holocaust needs to be re-examined from a general vantage point.”

Pluss said he joined the National Socialist Movement because he “was looking for alternative political parties that presented what I thought were more solid and sensible plans for the common good of America.”

The group, whose members wear Nazi regalia at its meetings, sometimes has joint meetings with the Ku Klux Klan.

The party’s 25-point platform includes limiting U.S. citizenship to non-Jewish, straight whites. Nonwhites should not be allowed to enter the country and those already here should be “required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force,” it states.

Some former students did not think Pluss’ views influenced his teaching, however.

Only in retrospect did Sharrod Young, a sophomore who had a class with Pluss in 2003, see signs of discrimination.

“When it was two people raising their hands, he called on certain students. It just so happened it was white males,” said Young, who is black.

Pluss, who received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, is being paid through this semester. Adjunct professors at the school generally make between $1,500 and $3,000 per course.

[Funkenstein]

Originally Posted by AP article

Pluss said he was dismissed in March because university officials learned of his involvement in the National Socialist Movement, which bills itself “America’s Nazi Party.”


“The world is made up of different cultures, all of which have a place, all of which have a direction and all of which should have a say in determining their own futures,” he said.

turns into

Nonwhites should not be allowed to enter the country and those already here should be “required to leave the nation forthwith and return to their land of origin: peacefully or by force,” it states.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Originally Posted by AP article

The 51-year-old professor bristles when he is called a white supremacist or racist.

turns into

Just after dismissal, Pluss. . .described the school’s men’s basketball team as “nigger to the core.”

. . . . . . . . . . . .

Which leads to the last two points:

Originally Posted by AP article

“They (the players) have absolutely no right to be in that classroom because they do not possess either the merit or the enhanced intelligence to be there,” Pluss said on the show.

“I don’t deny that a Jewish Holocaust of some kind occurred,” he said. “However, I do believe that the Holocaust needs to be re-examined from a general vantage point.”

. . . . . . . . . . .Egad.

[Adam D]

I don't like the idea of instructors being fired for their beliefs, but in this instance he was directly acting offensively toward the university and its students, which is an understandable reason to terminate.

Originally Posted by Adam D

I don't like the idea of instructors being fired for their beliefs, but in this instance he was directly acting offensively toward the university and its students, which is an understandable reason to terminate.

indeed - and the gentleman in Colorado was not offensive, didn't lie, plagerize, steal copyrights etc etc etc

If one lies about one (or several) of the fundamental bases for selection for a position - he ought to get the boot as well

[Adam D]

Originally Posted by xiannaix

indeed - and the gentleman in Colorado was not offensive, didn't lie, plagerize, steal copyrights etc etc etc

If one lies about one (or several) of the fundamental bases for selection for a position - he ought to get the boot as well

I don't think being offensive is a legitimate reason to fire academic staff...that's too broad of a stroke. Anybody could be deemed "offensive" and terminated. That's a bad labor standard, especially in a field that requires academics to be able to pursue and research lines of thinking without worry about censorship or termination for having the "wrong" idea.

If Churchill's scholarship can be deemed a lie, etc. that's an entirely different matter, and certainly not the primary reason people have an issue with him.

And for the copyright issue...that wasn't a matter related to his academic position, and certainly should be resolved by the copyright holder.

There's a big difference between being an offensive character and suggesting some students are genetically too stupid to be in class. That lends to the idea that Ingram likely discriminates against minority students in class, whether it is in terms or grading or simply classroom behavior. That, would violate the precedents and laws passed in the 60s and 70s to prevent just that. It becomes a matter of preventing racial discrimination on campus by university staff, which the university has a legal obligation to do.

Originally Posted by xiannaix

indeed - and the gentleman in Colorado was not offensive, didn't lie, plagerize, steal copyrights etc etc etc

If one lies about one (or several) of the fundamental bases for selection for a position - he ought to get the boot as well

What it really comes down to is a stretch of the church vs. state argument...

The gentlemen with the degree from Colorado has or became a person with adequate proof of his bias...if the state (in this case University) wants a biased professor with obviously opinionated viewpoints then the "church" that he is affiliated with needs to be that of an ethical and moral position...

His viewpoints on the basketball team show a prejudice that has been passed down through generations...In the 60's and the 70's he would've been one of those that watched the oppression and degradation of a subset of our species...different cultures was the operative word and it should of been replaced with race {as the oppropiate variable}!

Besides what's the definition of Adjunct! The staff needed to be toned down...He wasn't giving the availability for fair and equal treatment of a species (OURS) and his overtly biased opinions would be passed down as his father probably passed them down to him...

The gentlemen in question came from Chicago but the acts in question were commited in N. J. to be blatantly honest...

or maybe he was showing a more intelligent subset of our species the truth...he does know his history

Originally Posted by idris

What it really comes down to is a stretch of the church vs. state argument...

The gentlemen with the degree from Colorado has or became a person with adequate proof of his bias...if the state (in this case University) wants a biased professor with obviously opinionated viewpoints then the "church" that he is affiliated with needs to be that of an ethical and moral position...

His viewpoints on the basketball team show a prejudice that has been passed down through generations...In the 60's and the 70's he would've been one of those that watched the oppression and degradation of a subset of our species...different cultures was the operative word and it should of been replaced with race {as the oppropiate variable}!

Besides what's the definition of Adjunct! The staff needed to be toned down...He wasn't giving the availability for fair and equal treatment of a species (OURS) and his overtly biased opinions would be passed down as his father probably passed them down to him...

The gentlemen in question came from Chicago but the acts in question were commited in N. J. to be blatantly honest...

I'm not defeinding the ass that was the subject of the article - I was simply saying Churchill deserves as much vilification - even if for different reasons

wasn't it Churchill that was getting the FBI to monitor the acts of the Civil Right movement and most importantly Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.!