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Old 11-06-2007
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Meridious Meridious is offline
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University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

Quote:
Flag-burning 'lesson' provokes UM student
By Toni-Lynn Robbins

Saturday, November 03, 2007 - Bangor Daily News

ORONO, Maine - A University of Maine student alleges her former professor offered extra credit to class members if they burned the American flag or the U.S. Constitution or were arrested defending free speech.

On the first day of class, associate professor Paul Grosswiler offered the credit to members of his History of Mass Communications class, according to sophomore Rebekah McDade. Disturbed by the comment, McDade dropped the class and intends to take the course again next semester with a different professor.

"I was offended," McDade said Friday. "I come from a family of military men and women, and the flag and Constitution are really important symbols to me because of my family background."

In an e-mail responding to a request for comment from the Bangor Daily News on Friday, Grosswiler said he thought McDade misunderstood the class discussion, which was intended to elicit thought about the First Amendment. He said he has held this same discussion for years without incident.

"I don’t intend for students to burn either the Constitution or the flag, and over the years hundreds of students have understood that," Grosswiler wrote.

The incident was made public recently when The Leadership Institute, a Virginia-based nonprofit organization, distributed a press release detailing the classroom discussion.

The Leadership Institute was founded in 1979 by Morton Blackwell and has a mission to identify, recruit, train and place conservatives in politics, government and the media, according to the organization’s Web site.

A field representative for the institute met McDade on Oct. 1 at UM, when she shared her experience and expressed an interest in spearheading a group "Students for Academic Freedom," Blackwell said Friday.

The group’s initial goal would be to convince UM to enact a "Student Bill of Rights," as other colleges have, which would protect students from professors who treat and grade students differently based on religious or political beliefs, McDade said. The institute has assisted McDade in the startup process, she said.

"When we heard the story, we said ‘Hey, this is probably worthwhile our doing a news release,’" Blackwell said. "When you expose leftist abuses, it invigorates conservatives. I am sure that the administration, like most administrations we deal with, is not happy when leftist abuses come to life. They far prefer to have students under their thumb and indoctrinated."

McDade said Friday she was a little uncomfortable with the publicity and that it might have gotten out of hand. She said her intent was not to put the focus on Grosswiler, but to give students an opportunity to voice their concerns.

A journalism and political science double major, McDade said the first class of her fall semester at UM began with the typical syllabus introduction and class overview. Despite repeated "liberal" comments made by Grosswiler, McDade said, she was not uncomfortable in the classroom until the flag burning comment.

"Everyone is entitled to their own political beliefs, and more power to you if you are passionate about it," McDade said.

When Grosswiler listed the extra-credit opportunities, McDade said the class of approximately 50 students grew very quiet, and some questioned whether he was serious.

At first, student Kathleen Dame said she thought Grosswiler was joking, but then he went on to explain to the class that burning the flag was not illegal. While Grosswiler approached the topic in a serious manner, Dame said she felt he used it as a tool to educate the class on the First Amendment.

"It was pretty outlandish and [he was] trying to prove a point," Dame said Friday.

While McDade said she would not be surprised if students followed through with the flag burning, Dame disagreed.

UM spokesman Joe Carr said Friday that Grosswiler’s classroom comments were not intended to be taken literally and that extra credit would not be granted for carrying out such activities.

A second person in the class did submit a complaint about the lecture, but Carr did not know in what form it was filed.

When asked whether the university would pursue disciplinary action, Carr replied, "No."

He said Grosswiler has worked at the University of Maine since 1991, is one of the more veteran professors in the department of communication and journalism, and is a "well-respected member of the faculty."

In his e-mail Friday, Grosswiler, who is a former BDN employee, explained that he refers to provocative examples, such as flag burning, to demonstrate the courage necessary to support free expression.

"If they don’t tolerate thought that they hate, they don’t believe in the First Amendment," he wrote.

"I applaud the student’s exercise of free expression. If she had stayed in the class, I would have given her extra credit for publicizing her opinions."

Hmmmmm...announces extra credit for anyone who burned the constitution or flag or was arrested "defending free speech.....then says he never intended for anyone to burn the flag or constitution or be arrested.

What a freaking nutball.

With no balls.

I am a college grad and I only received a small taste of ludicrous liberalism and was able to shrug it off....this is just wacko.
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Old 11-06-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Meridious View Post
I only received a small taste of ludicrous liberalism and was able to shrug it off....this is just wacko.
You're lucky; the college I attended (and from what I've gathered ), most are becoming more and more Liberal....

And you know most college kids today: They know everything, are exceptable to brain-washing....THEY still rely on their parents until their 30 yrs old, etc, etc, etc.
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Old 11-06-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Meridious View Post
Hmmmmm...announces extra credit for anyone who burned the constitution or flag or was arrested "defending free speech.....then says he never intended for anyone to burn the flag or constitution or be arrested.
From reading the article, I don't think this conclusion can be reached at all. There's hardly enough information nor is there enough debate between the professor and the student as to what actually happened, and no other students were given an outlet either. The first two paragraphs of the article are really misleading, IMO.
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Old 11-06-2007
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TheLastBoyScout TheLastBoyScout is online now
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

This story was fed to the media by "The Leadership Institute" which only operates with motive.

I would like to see an independent investigation done to see what happened there.

If the way it is portrayed turns out to be true and is corroborated by other students, I think the professor should be disciplined.
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Old 11-07-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

According to the article it's pretty obvious that the teacher wasn't actually offering extra credits for burning the flags.
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Old 11-07-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

i think it is obvious that acadamia has way to many liberal wackos.......
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Old 11-08-2007
wooyarn wooyarn is offline
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

Quote:
Originally Posted by Meridious View Post
Hmmmmm...announces extra credit for anyone who burned the constitution or flag or was arrested "defending free speech.....then says he never intended for anyone to burn the flag or constitution or be arrested.

What a freaking nutball.

With no balls.

I am a college grad and I only received a small taste of ludicrous liberalism and was able to shrug it off....this is just wacko.
ACU: Board of Directors: Morton C. Blackwell

This tells you all you need to know about Blackwell and his take on things. Burning a flag is not against the law, while I would not burn one except to dispose of a dirty and worn flag. I would not condemn someone from doing so. And before some of our so called war heros start calling me un-american, I spent 25 years defending this country,our flag,our freedoms and our constitution.
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Old 11-09-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

dude, if you think that is bad....check out antioch college...



Antioch's students, its faculty--whose numbers have also drastically shrunk (just 37 today, down from 140 during the early 1970s)--and many residents of Yellow Springs, a pleasant college town of handsome old houses and businesses that advertise their liberal-leaning, Antioch-friendly "green" and "fair trade" consciousness, are fighting to save the college, citing its long and illustrious history. Antioch's first president, in 1853, was the famous education reformer Horace Mann, and until things went bad, Antioch regularly turned out graduates who went on to become stellar public figures, writers, and scholars: Coretta Scott King, wife of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, anthropologist Clifford Geertz, Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, the District of Columbia's Democratic congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, and, most recently in the news, Mario R. Capecchi, co-winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine and physiology for his work on embryonic stem cells in mice. (This was Antioch College's second Nobel; José Ramos-Horta, president of East Timor, who had received a master's degree in 1984 in a peace-studies program now incorporated into Antioch University, won the Peace Prize in 1996.)
A group of Antioch College's chronically lethargic alumni says it has rushed to raise $18 million in donations and pledges in a last-ditch plan to save the college, and at an emergency meeting of the university's trustees in Yellow Springs on October 25 presented a $100 million business plan (based on an aggressive five-year fundraising drive) designed to cure their alma mater's deficit, keep its doors open, and revive its attractiveness to high-school seniors.

The trustees had been expected to issue a decision on October 27 whether to accept or reject the alumni plan, but they declined to do so, leaving Antioch College in an even more precarious state, given that autumn is the time when colleges and universities do their most aggressive recruiting and prospective high-school graduates start filling out their college application forms. Discussions among trustees and alumni were continuing on November 2, as this article went to press.

Antioch College's declining fortunes and uncertain future are reflected everywhere you look on the Yellow Springs campus, which gives the impression of having been swept some years ago by a sudden and devastating plague. Campus plantings are mostly dead, dying, or choked with weeds (most of the maintenance staff was dismissed soon after the closing was announced in June, although a plumber and electrician who have yet to be laid off still manage to mow the lawns). The crumbling sidewalks leading from deserted Antioch building to deserted Antioch building resemble the ruins of Roman roads, with grass sprouting lushly from their numerous cracks, and the murky windows of an abandoned greenhouse display rows of withered plants. An inviting cluster of wooden benches outside a classroom building seats .  .  . no one at all. The fact that Antioch, nearly alone among U.S. private and public colleges, forbids journalists to roam the grounds or enter buildings without an officially designated escort adds to the general air of isolation and contamination. (Antioch says the minders are a holdover from the Saturday Night Live era, when reporters and television crews from all over the world flooded the campus in search of amusing sexual anecdotes, disrupting academic life.)


A July 20 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Ralph Keyes, author of the bestselling Is There Life After High School? and a 1967 graduate of Antioch who moved with his family back to Yellow Springs some 20 years ago, described similar adventures by Antioch students in the intimidation of people who do not share their views. Keyes took pains to reassure the Chronicle's readers that he himself had been proudly "left-wing" as an Antioch student, but he also detailed a once-tolerant campus culture that had deteriorated since his student days into "insults, name-calling, and profanity." As Keyes described it (and others connected to the campus corroborate his observations), Antioch students regularly engaged, both inside and outside their classrooms, in the practice of "calling out" (public humiliation followed by social ostracism) their classmates for even the most trivial violations of an unwritten campus code of ideological propriety. One of the called-out was a Polish exchange student who had made the mistake of using the now-taboo word "Eskimos" instead of "Inuit" in reference to Alaskan aboriginals. Another called-out student had worn Nike sneakers, verboten among the radically sensitive because they are supposedly products of Indonesian sweatshop labor (the Nike-wearer was so demoralized by his treatment that he transferred). Keyes lamented what he called the "crack-house décor" of Antioch's student union, whose second floor features a 30-foot wall of student-painted graffiti with themes and language running the gamut from revolutionary to obscene. The Antioch school "uniform" for many students seems to consist of as many tattoos and piercings as the human dermis can hold (a tattoo parlor in downtown Yellow Springs looks designed to accommodate this student fashion statement).

Of the eight student organizations currently listed on Antioch's website, only one, the Antioch Environmental Group, is not focused on identity politics of one sort or other. The others are By Any Means Necessary for students of African descent, Unidad for Latinos, the Third World Alliance, Kehilla (formerly the Jew Crew) for Jews, two separate groups for gays and lesbians (the Queer Center and Queers of Color), and the Womyn's Center. (The spelling looks like another Saturday Night Live parody, but it is in fact the center's official orthography, although "wombmen" is also in current use on campus.) The only Antioch College students who do not have a campus organization listed in their name are white, heterosexual, non-Jewish males. Traditional college clubs centered around student interests--say, French or music or film or chess or debate--seem to be entirely lacking. Even the events featured for this fall's "Community Day" on October 16--an Antioch tradition in which classes are suspended to accommodate student hayrides and other social events--seemed obsessively focused on identity. The evening events, for example, consisted of a queer lecture followed by a queer movie followed by a dance to the music of a queer band--leaving one wondering what Antioch's non-queers were supposed to do with themselves.

You might call the current sad state of Antioch College death by political correctness. The rigorous academic programs that fostered Nobel laureates such as Capecchi are no more: Antioch scrapped its 40-odd traditional majors in 1996 in favor of eight vaguely delineated interdisciplinary programs that allow the students themselves to design their courses of study. The civic activism of yore--registering African American voters, starting a proto-Peace Corps--gave way to in-your-face street theater at shopping malls. It has been a long, slow death, and it would be unfair (although certainly tempting) to blame the current crop of students for the pending demise of their alma mater. The blame might be more fairly placed on four decades of decisions made by Antioch College faculty and administrators in the name of keeping Antioch at the forefront of "progressive" academic fashion, which led inexorably to today's campus nearly bereft of students and treasury nearly bereft of funds.
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Old 11-09-2007
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Meridious Meridious is offline
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

I read that earlier today.
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Old 11-10-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

thats what happens when the inmates take over the asylum....
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No individual can plan his own existence in their view.

So the state planners must arrogate to themselves the right to manipulate any sector of the economic system if the good of “society” or the “general welfare” is paramount.

Ipso- if the rights of the individual get in the way, the rights of the individual must be sublimated.

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Old 11-10-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

FIRE - Foundation for Individual Rights in Education

lists a lot of University policies and PC ness and just plain anti American , Anti white , anti personal responsibility , anti pretty much anything that is decent or moral

which is being brainwashed into the younger crowd today in college .

U of Delaware had the audacity to use their RAs to enforce a" ideological " reformation campaign which included mong other things

the definition of racist to be " all white persons " and go on to declare that " no non white can be racists"

supposedly , through the dedication and hard fighting of decent folks this has
been stopped .

but there is no telling what kind of immoral , indecent , or just plain wrong crap that is being taught to our kids in "the halls of higher learning " these days.

If any of you are parents of college age kids , I suggest you check into the curriculum and policies of your kid's college.
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Old 11-10-2007
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

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Originally Posted by Imperator View Post
thats what happens when the inmates take over the asylum....
And the inmates with differing views sometimes can escape the insanity. Of course, this leads to a lack of balance of diversity in views among the faculty.
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Old 01-10-2008
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

Quote:
ORONO, Maine - A University of Maine student alleges her former professor offered extra credit to class members if they burned the American flag or the U.S. Constitution or were arrested defending free speech.
why do you think they're called "maniacs"
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Old 01-10-2008
SomeMarine SomeMarine is offline
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Re: University of Maine Professor Goes Bonkers

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Originally Posted by wooyarn View Post
ACU: Board of Directors: Morton C. Blackwell

This tells you all you need to know about Blackwell and his take on things. Burning a flag is not against the law, while I would not burn one except to dispose of a dirty and worn flag. I would not condemn someone from doing so. And before some of our so called war heros start calling me un-american, I spent 25 years defending this country,our flag,our freedoms and our constitution.
Doesn't offend me either. Do what you want, until it unlawfully physically injures another.
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