An adjunct English professor teaching at Tarrant County College claims he was fired for showing Michael Moore's film, Fahrenheit 9/11, to his class. Kendall McCook, who has taught at Tarrant for several years, was fired Wednesday after he turned in his grades. He says it was because a conservative student complained when he assigned Moore's film. From this news article, it sounds as though McCook was making a genuine effort to ask students to grapple with the question of whether Moore's film could be classified as art, as propaganda, as neither, or as both; in other words, that he was not attempting to indoctrinate students into the One Right Way of understanding the film or of thinking about the Bush administration's response to 9/11. It sounds, too, as though administrators may have caved in to a conservative student's outrageous claim that he has a right not to be offended, choosing not to renew McCook's contract rather than employ a teacher who causes unwelcome controversy.

"I feel like I lost my job because of one student with a political ax to grind," said McCook, adding that his dismissal calls into question the administration's support of academic freedom.

"I wanted to show the movie because I believe it is one of the most important films and pieces of art that has been produced the entire year," McCook said Friday in a telephone interview. "Besides, I teach the concept of art and the concept of propaganda.

"I wanted the students to see the film and define it as art, propaganda or a combination of both, but one student threw a fit," McCook said.

McCook described the student, who could not be located for comment, as an outspoken conservative.

Over the years, McCook has been associated with liberal causes, but he said that in the classroom, he tries to remain politically neutral.

"There is no place in the classroom for liberal or conservative labels because these are distinctions that stop thought," he said.

Adjunct professors are contract workers, and are enormously vulnerable to the kinds of agenda-driven personnel decisions that tenured faculty can largely escape; the principle of academic freedom means virtually nothing when applied to the position of the adjunct--McCook is an at-will employee, and can be fired (or "not renewed") at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all. The only case he has is a moral one, and that case can only be made in the media. McCook is trying to change that, though, and says he wants to launch a teachers' union for adjuncts teaching in the Tarrant County system.

"I wanted to show the movie because I believe it is one of the most important films and pieces of art that has been produced the entire year," McCook said...

McCook was trying to propagandize. That he thinks this is acceptable, no matter the nuanced defense, is unacceptable. He sees it as for the good of the students. Firing him is for his own good.

This kind of thing is rampant elsewhere. I just completed an uncontested, single attorney, divorce. To my surprise I found I was required to attend some feel-good informational class on how children react to divorce, paying $240 for my wife and me, before the judge would sign the papers [this being also a divorce tax, which the program implementers did not seem to realize, since it was "for the children"].

In the class the female leader gratuitously remarked that Bush did not know what death is. Where did that come from? We were not talking about Bush, but rather wether divorce might be worse than having a death in the family.

This self-righteousness is bizarre and unacceptable. I was not going to argue about it, partly because I had no interest in debating an imbecile, but also because I was not divorced yet, and the community is very, very small. My divorce could have been gummed up by the intrusion possible based upon political views, which I will not explain further.

But here is the same zealotry manifested by McCook, in a situation in which the audience is dependent.

Every effort should be made to teach these weirdos what is not their job, and why they can't get away with abusing their power in these venues. I doubt they will learn very well, since they haven't so far, while having had plenty of chances.

So they bring their fate upon themselves, given current conditions. Now we are looking for them, too, in case they have not noticed this, either. They also seem to have erased the existence of the Terrorists totally from their memory banks. Then they think they can teach anything? God help me.

1. Showing propaganda in a classroom is not the same as propagandising. If you exclude propaganda from the classroom it becomes impossible to teach students about politics, current affairs, literature, history... or just about anything.

2. I'd like to know more before I automatically accept the teacher's claim that this is why he was fired.

J. Peden,

Yes. A recurring theme in these stories is abuse of authority. Someone thinks he must sit through offensive prattling in silence because he otherwise might lose a needed credential or certificate or credit or grade. I wonder how often those who teach in these abusive settings glimpse what lies behind the blank faces before them, or suspect the extent to which apparent boredom masks contempt. Seldom, I suspect.

J Pedan: This whole situation sounds dreadfully like part of the right's new attack on academic freedom. Is it in Virginia where republicans ruled that only the institution has academic freedom, not the individual professors and researchers?

The most recent Tom Tomorrow comic strip says it all: "The problem: Conservatives are flush with victory -- but they still want to see themselves as *victims*. The solution: Pretend that someone with no power whatsoever is actually *very* powerful -- and fight with renewed vigor until another battle is won!"

And let's not forget that McCook isn't necessarily a "rabid" critic of the President just because he calls Bush a "frat-rat, cocaine-snorting, draft-dodger rich kid." That's an accurate description of the man before his conversion to fundamentalist Christianity. And only if you believe that Bush really was "born again" do you think he's not still a frat-rat rich kid (as AA says, you're never cured from addiction; you're always an addict).

And while I generally think teaching should uphold the liberal ideal of being even-handed with opposing viewpoints, let's not degenerate this into some hippy-dippy moral relativism.

I love the fact that conservatives opposed identity politics on the left and then adopted them for their culture wars. Then they opposed affirmative action, until it was convenient to attack the academy for left-wing bias and they started demanding that right-wing voices be represented. Then they attacked relativism, only to argue that all professors must teach both sides of the story -- and it's always *both* sides, as if there are only two possible positions on any issue.

Like I said, I try to be even-handed in my teaching. But I can't see why a professor can't teach an elective with a political bias. As long as the students know up front that the course will have a bias, and as long as there are other choices to fulfill the same degree requirments, "bias" should fall under academic freedom.

^^Your partisanship is showing.

You might think about actually reading what you're responding to in the future, both in terms of this particular incident and in terms of what conservatives are doing. Tom Tomorrow is not really a valid source of info, you know.

Of course, you'll have to have your leftist filter removed, first.

I'd very much like to read the whole article, but refuse to register to a web site.

Whether it's art, propaganda, or both, has a valid place as a topic of discussion in a filmmaking class, but does it have that same validity in, say, a history class, or an English class? Does the professor not contradict himself by stating he believes it is one of the "... the most important films and pieces of art that has been produced the entire year..." while claiming to offer the student the chance to "discuss" the point?

Without knowing the true point of the lesson, it's easy enough to get caught up in the emotional responses to this mocumentary/ docudrama. I don't see enough in what's here on the blog to discuss the validity behind the lesson.

Questions that seem important here:

1)Was this part of a broader unit on propaganda? Did it include other works of propaganda, such as Triumph of the Will, or was this the only thing read or shown?

2)Did the instructor allow negative comments about the Moore film, or were those expressing such opinions mocked and belittled?

Without answers to these questions, it's hard to know if an injustice was done here, though I'm suspicious given a single complaint in a single class. In general, I think that university and public school administrators tend to be cowards who will do almost anything to avoid controversy.

I find it hard to believe that F/911 would be the cause of such a termination. Faren*hype* 9/11 maybe (heck, one may argue that giving the student who did the alternative project an "A" was enough for some faculty to nix him), but seriously folks... As Erin properly points out, adjuncts are vulnerable to "agenda-driven" personal decisions. And I know of enough profs who have preached in the classroom in their English or similar classes to know that playing off left-leaning politics isn't a terminal offense.

Tess half right, I bet. There *is* something the main story leaves out. But I'll bet a dollar that it had little to do with *that* particular lesson plan. And I'm weighing it on Erin's last comment about organizing the adjuncts. It wouldn't be the first time that a "difficult" professor was "fired" for doing what other professors do feely while the real dynamics of the termination hides elsewhere under the shellgame of highly intelligent (and tenured) teenagers.

Unfortunately, this will give those deservedly bristling under the scrutiny of FIRE and other watchdogs (including the "Academic Bill of Rights" people, with whom I don't completely agree) false righteous indignation, while happily sacrificing adjunct, non-tenure-track and other non-unit faculty in the name of their own insulated and self absorbed sense of ìfairness.î

Some professors have HORRIBLY abused their powers--I had one American history professor spend TWO HOURS ranting and raving about how horrible the Iraq war was and how much he hated Bush. (The ironic thing: he was Canadian. If he hates America so much, what in the world is he doing here?) Obviously, we didn't learn much American history--although I learned more about eco-terrorism than I ever wanted to know.

Other professors have obviously tried very hard to give equal treatment to all sides of an issue, but I have yet to see one really succeed. A professor's opinion has more weight than a student's, so even though he may allow students with other opinions to express them in class, his side ends up being favored.

Quite frankly, I am of the opinion that there is one subject and one subject alone where discussion of politics is allowed: political science. All others, especially English, should stay out of it. I most certainly wish my history professors would stop giving analogies to modern-day events. They keep equating the Iraq war with the Vietnam war, which is a very politically loaded and, I think, incorrect analogy. Although I can see that sometimes the students may need some modern-day examples to help them understand an idea, wouldn't it be better if the professor stayed away from politically charged events altogether?

Some professors have HORRIBLY abused their powers--I had one American history professor spend TWO HOURS ranting and raving about how horrible the Iraq war was and how much he hated Bush. (The ironic thing: he was Canadian. If he hates America so much, what in the world is he doing here?) Obviously, we didn't learn much American history--although I learned more about eco-terrorism than I ever wanted to know.

Other professors have obviously tried very hard to give equal treatment to all sides of an issue, but I have yet to see one really succeed. A professor's opinion has more weight than a student's, so even though he may allow students with other opinions to express them in class, his side ends up being favored.

Quite frankly, I am of the opinion that there is one subject and one subject alone where discussion of politics is allowed: political science. All others, especially English, should stay out of it. I most certainly wish my history professors would stop giving analogies to modern-day events. They keep equating the Iraq war with the Vietnam war, which is a very politically loaded and, I think, incorrect analogy. Although I can see that sometimes the students may need some modern-day examples to help them understand an idea, wouldn't it be better if the professor stayed away from politically charged events altogether?

I grew up on the right; I'm from a conservative family. I was a Republican until I became increasingly libertarian. I have seen the left abuse its power in some institutions (read God and Man at Yale by William F. Buckley, Jr. as a beginning of the quest). I now see the right doing the same thing that they complained bitterly about. Look closely at the antics of the Republican majorities in the House and Senate for an example of the very same misuse of power. To paraphrase the comic Chris Rock, I am conservative about some things and I am liberal about some things. A person who is ideologically predisposed is not thinking reasonably and clearly. Last election I voted for a Republican for the Senate, a Democrat for the House, and the Libertarian candidate for the Presidency. I vote the person not an ideology. About the only ideologies that I would not vote for are monarchism, fascism, Bushism, and communism. I pray that the world and this country survives Bushism. I want to hear from thoughtful liberals and conservatives. Barry, we need you now! I do not know all the facts of this firing; I would like to learn more. It seems reasonable to present controversy in an academic setting. Where else do we learn to criticise? The conservative student should have written a scathing and insightful critique of the movie; perhaps he could have convinced some other students to agree with him. The way he did it is polarizing. His cause suffers for it. He removed the offending "art"; he did not refute its premises. That is an anti-intellectual response. The administrations response was fascist.

First off, let's not forget that professors are human. I've had taxi drivers, Target check out clerks, and, most recently, the guy who sells apples at our farmer's market rant at me about Bush's mishandling of the Iraq war. For those of us who care deeply about human life and the civilian cost of war, it's hard *not* to break down at times and show some emotion. Should professors do all they can to avoid outbursts? Of course. Should they be judged based on a couple isolated incidents? Of course not.

As far as "politics" in the classroom goes, I don't think it's reasonable to restrict political discussions to poli sci classes. The idea that politics is far removed from literature is simply ignorant. *The Canterbury Tales* takes on politics, as does *Piers Plowman*. Shakespeare's plays are all about the uses and abuses of political power. The English language canon is based on works of art that respond to the politics and social debates of their times. And because their power resides in the resonance of these texts in today's cultural and political debates, I can't see how one can discuss any work of literature in depth without discussing politics. Of course, politics isn't the sum total of literature; but literature without some social content is impossible.

And no, the professor in question does not contradict himself by claiming that the work, to him, is important, while opening the question up for discussion in his class. It's simply called having an opinion on a subject. Being fair-minded does not preclude professors actually having strong views on the subjects they teach.

For example, I think Henry James's *The Ambassadors* is the greatest novel ever written. When I teach it, the topic of the difficulty of the style always comes up, with students attacking the book's worth. I allow various opinions to be discussed, even as I ultimately try to defend the book's value. Value-less or objective arts education is impossible. Students must be free to disagree with faculty, but faculty cannot be forced to keep all value-based claims to themselves. As David Hume wrote, the basis of aesthetic decisions is experience, and the experience of the instructor is what he or she is being paid for.

Luther, promulgating political biases in an English class is not covered by "Academic Freedom", as Barbra Streisand seems to think in virtually applying the same disordered thinking - this time under the related guise of "being unbiased" - also to the media. She argues that the charge of Liberal bias is false, but that she wishes it were true, so that we could then have an unbiased discussion about things. [go to Bra's site]

Such a view is impenetrable. As you suggest, it seems to have something to do with being attracted to certain kinds of comic books as sources, or to similar comic productions, where thought disorders reign in their substance and production:

[From Tim Blair]"VERY SIMPLE ANSWER DODGED
Before the US election, Michael Moore was anxious that his documentary Overweight 9/11 be broadcast everywhere so that it might turn voters against Bush:

[Moore]'The only problem with my desire to get this movie in front of as many Americans as possible is that, should it air on TV, I will NOT be eligible to submit "Fahrenheit 9/11" for Academy Award consideration for Best Documentary. Academy rules forbid the airing of a documentary on television within nine months of its theatrical release (fiction films do not have the same restriction).

'Therefore, I have decided not to submit "Fahrenheit 9/11" for consideration for the Best Documentary Oscar. If there is even the remotest of chances that I can get this film seen by a few million more Americans before election day, then that is more important to me than winning another documentary Oscar. I have already won a Best Documentary statue. Having a second one would be nice, but not as nice as getting this country back in the hands of the majority.'

[Blair]"It was all about the election.. But now, with the US safely returned to absolute Bush control, Moore has -- big surprise -- changed his mind. Asked by Rolling Stone if his movie failed, Moore replied:

'No. I mean, Bush is still in office, but the film is about the war in Iraq and the war on terrorism. Those were the original reasons I made the film. It wasn't about the election. The feeling I had after Roger and Me was different because those of us from Flint [Michigan] who made the movie felt like we had the power to change things. In this case, you know, I wasn't the candidate. I couldn't make John Kerry give a very simple answer to what he would do with this war.'"

It is not possible to penetrate Streisand's, Moore's, or your thought, because it is disordered, though comic, well evidenced also by the substance of "Bowling For Columbine" and "Farenheit 9/11".

You will not be cured. I'm speaking predictively. And you seem to miss the fact that Moore also seems to be directed mainly by the drive to make money from duping the dupable. In this regard his efforts do make some sense, though they should be taught somewhere other than in English classes.

I am not sure what Babs Streisand has to do with Academic Freedom, but she does have something that many Academics have. A flaming sense of self-absorbed conceit that can be used to hector their audiences.

Being highly educated (albiet overspecialized), we *can* put off airs as being smarter than everyone else. All of this, of course ignores Orwell's cautionary snap about how some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them, and naturally, many of us do forget that line. Indeed in my experience, academics can be the dumbest people around. Such zingers as falling for howlers like "Gravity as a Social Construct" and "Gender Symbolism in Food" come to my mind.

Moreover, our arrogance can also turn into that thing we dread seeing in students - someone who is too smart to study and therefore too dumb to learn. The limited but fashionable solid angle from which many "liberal" faculty get their info on the world (e.g., NPR, BBC, etc) can put them at extreme disadvantage to those intellectually and politically aggressive student wonks who have, for example, more bi-partisan new-jogging habits (e.g., reading the New York AND Washington Times, Telegraph AND Guardian, etc). But the lectern is an equalizer beyond par when it comes to such things, especially when viewed by students who feel that their professor's biases come may out in the grade sheet. The actual intellectual honesty of the professor is immaterial to the argument at the time of delivery. All that matters to the student is the apparent threat.

In such a case where an "educated" and therefore "smarter" professor is flying on the handle on a given tirade or "biased political opinion," the student may get the signals from the prof that what the prof is saying is not *opinion* in the prof's eyes, but undeniable *fact* drivable form F=ma and the first law of thermo (even when the prof believes that such physical laws are tools of oppression of the hegemonic patriarchy). Under such a cloud, who but the ballsiest of student will complain, especially when the student is, for example, a Science or Engineering student who has given up on Liberal Arts as a source of knowledge due to such professorial arrogance and dishonesty and just wants a grade that won't sabotage his GPA (and is more interested in fighting through Thermo)? I know -- as a student, I was one of them. As a prof, I have kept my trigger finger itchy but my hammer uncocked.

I have coworkers who have political ideas that differ from mine. When they go on a tirade I close my mouth and wait for them to wind down, then change the subject back to the business at hand. I absolutely refuse to get sucked in because there is no good outcome possible. The thing is, I am paid to be there (although I am not paid to listen to political tirades). The student *pays* tuition. If I paid tuition to take a class in English lit and found myself forced to sit through F 9/11 I would be mad as hell. On the other hand, if the student in question was in fact allowed to do an alternative assignment, I can't see where the problem is. It does look like there has to be more to this story.

I think I've mentioned this before, maybe quite recently, but anyway: My daughter's AP Latin teacher happens to be a cousin of a prominent Democrat. This is her third year to have this teacher. The teacher is open about the fact that she is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat but before the election when the kids had the inevitable political discussions she absolutely insisted that everyone be respectful and courteous toward those on the other side of the aisle. She told the kids that they were all friends and would still be friends no matter how the election turned out. Discussions in the rest of my daughter's classes and in the hallway got quite ugly at times. The Monday before the election my daughter told her teacher that that classroom was her refuge, and the teacher hugged her. When she did, my daughter smilingly told me, her donkey pin clanked against my kid's Bush/Cheney pin. Is it studying ancient civilizations that makes that woman so civilized? Maybe teaching the political stuff that happened millennia ago gives her some perspective? I do appreciate her influence on my daughter's perception of how disagreeing people ought to act. Her class was almost the only one that my kid has been in, since middle school, where political discussions didn't involve somebody getting mad or getting their feelings hurt. Maybe teacher education ought to include specific courses on how to oversee civilized political debate.

Laura writes, "The student *pays* tuition. If I paid tuition to take a class in English lit and found myself forced to sit through F 9/11 I would be mad as hell. On the other hand, if the student in question was in fact allowed to do an alternative assignment, I can't see where the problem is."

I'm sorry, as long as the film is relevant to the class subject, I don't think the "tuition" argument holds water. Conservatives shouldn't be "shielded" from contrary thinking, anymore than a liberal should be allowed not to read, say, Fukuyama, who was assigned in my graduate course on Hegelian thought in the 20th century. Moore's film is agit-prop, and should be studied as such. If the "tuition" argument is given any credit, all hell will break loose. Any book that a student doesn't want to read will result in a complaint: "*Ulysses* is too leftist. I want to read *The Fountainhead*." "*Kim* is too colonialist. I want to watch *Seinfeld* reruns instead."

Academic freedom should protect a professor's right to teach how he or she feels is best. Provided the evaluations are fair we can't start letting everyone and their mothers tell teachers how to teach.

Finally, I love conservatives who criticize Moore for making money! Since when is capitalism wrong? Since when has Moore said he's not interested in turning a profit? Why do we demand aceticism from left-wing folks, while Coulter, Hannity, O'Reilly, Clear Channel, Fox, Hoff Sommers, Paglia, Fukuyama, Horowitz, and so many other anti-left thinkers keep their eye on the bottom line?

There are three issues at hand here

1) using F9/11 as a reason to terminate an adjunct (given the facts before us here, doubt that a F9/11 is the whole story).

2) Academic bullying vs Academic Freedom and

3) F9/11 as suitable courseware on propaganda. Given the polarizing effect this movie still has and the unwillingness for some to fully see it for what it is, I doubt it. Additionally having seen some of the aggressive fact checking on the movie, I've seen some of the F9/11 courseware associated with it and found it lacking much as the BFC courseware. And to give it the fact checking that it deserves (from half-truths to half-sentences) would hit some faculty a little too close to comfort. Though many on the academic left correctly recognize Moore as a sometimes-clever sometimes-artless propagandist, not all know the whole extent and continue to hold him up as an information source. Many still don't get the fact that Moore's Bowling **doesn't** feature a cartoon by Matt Stone and Trey Parker and are thus puzzled by his being blown up in Team America. Explaining that one can be ìinteresting.î To fess up that F9/11 and BFC contain deliberate attempts to mislead the viewer may be too much if an embarrassment to those faculty who were duped, and also put the substance of Moore's arguments (which they often share) into doubt with the very students they feel a duty to reach. I'd see "The Clinton Chronicles" or Rush Limbaugh's show given a more thorough thrashing as agitprop than F9/11, and F9/11 not being ready for the classroom for a few more years if ever.

I guess people who truly want to study English lit just need to go to the library and puzzle it out on their own.

O Lutherrrr, you are making my point.

C.S. Lewis wrote "The Abolition of Man" when he was asked to review a textbook for teaching English.

"The very power of [the authors] depends on the fact that they are dealing with a boy: a boy who thinks he is 'doing' his 'English prep' and has no notion that ethics, theology, and politics are all at stake. It is not a theory they put into his mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all. The authors themselves, I suspect, hardly know what they are doing to the boy, and he cannot know what is being done to him."

Bill: Doesn't the very fact that this professor taught the film in a discussion of propaganda and art tell us that he's well aware of how Moore presents some facts while manipulating others? Sure, the film is polarizing, but that's no reason not to try to examine it analytically.

J. Pedan: I don't know how to respond to what was essentially a typed sneer on your part. But I'll just say that I'm glad that reason, logic, example, and debate are alive and well. If you care actually to respond with reason or logic or example to anything I've written, then I'll take you seriously.

Laura: the Lewis quotation is interesting. It gets at the heart of education. But that's just it: all education is at some level the moulding of a person. It's unavoidable. The key, as Lewis's words make clear, is to be as up front and reflexive as possible when teaching students; to let them know that the very act of teaching and learning is a social construct (which isn't to say there's no facts or truth, but rather that to teach anything in an institution is by definition a *social* thing, not a natural thing -- a la B.S. Johnson's brilliant novel, *Albert Angelo*).

Finally, I'm all for people going to libraries and teaching themselves how to read literature. Or anything else they want to teach themselves. But to insinuate that that's the only way to *really* learn about literature is to slag off a lot of intelligent, hard-working, and damn-well inspiring teachers. Teachers who, when you sit down in their classes and observe what's really going on, teach great literature with respect for form, style, genre, context, nuance, etc.

BTW: I didn't need a liberal brainwashing to tell me that literature speaks about politics, religion, cultural conditions, etc. I realized that while reading through the American classics in my local seaside library in high school: Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Frank Norris, Nathanial West, Ralph Ellison, Edith Wharton, Twain, Emerson, the James bros., etc.

Give me a coherent argument about why politics and literature are necessarily separate spheres and then I'll reconsider. Literature isn't only politics; but the "never the twain shall meet" school of thought is simply a way of dictating how and what to teach.

It's Q.E.D. all over again, Luther.

Of course I don't want to "slag off a lot of intelligent, hard-working, and damn-well inspiring teachers." I just want to slag off the idealogues who pretend they are teaching English when they really want to push their views on a captive audience.

It matters what the course was entitled, and how it was described in the catalog. If the course was entitled "Art and Propaganda" the student has no complaint. If the course was entitled "American Lit" then he does. Because why waste the kids' time making them watch Moore's ouvre when they can read "Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Frank Norris, Nathanial West, Ralph Ellison, Edith Wharton, Twain, Emerson, the James bros., etc." and draw their own conclusions, as you did?

And even if it is "Art and Propaganda", if the film is required then so ought to be Unfit for Command. Let's have at least some pretence of balance.

And even if it is "Art and Propaganda", if the film is required then so ought to be Unfit for Command. Let's have at least some pretence of balance.

I have yet to see if the professor had parity in propaganda. And as I keep saying, I doubt that F911 was the reason for terminating him. The Conscience Coersioon issues seems not to apply here. I for one dread the day an advisee comes in saying that he or she even marginally felt intimidated by a professor's politics, but this would not have sent me into Momma Grizzly mode. I may be protective of my cubs, but...

However, Laura is spot on here:

...Because why waste the kids' time making them watch Moore's ouvre when they can read "Dreiser, Sinclair Lewis, Frank Norris, Nathanial West, Ralph Ellison, Edith Wharton, Twain, Emerson, the James bros., etc." and draw their own conclusions, as you did?

By all means let them examine Lewis regarding the areas of muckraking. The issues may exist but have a historical firewall. Plus, let's face it. There are more artful propagandists out there asside form Moore. And there is far better and effective sources of political agitprop both historically and currently but none as ìhip and withit.î

Even if you show F9/11 and Farenhype 9/11 together, my money would be on at least one conservative student having a hissy about having to put up with possible viewpoint coercion and on the other side one liberal comparable fits about having to listen to Moore's integrity being put on the chopping block. You're pretty much putting yourself into a target-rich environment. And honestly, as I indicated, I doubt that a partisan professor would be all that willing to show Moore as a teller of half-truths while insisting the film is "facutally accurate" ala Memogate. Once again, consider how you'd feel if you had been publicly seen as being "duped" by Moore (take the Parker/Stone cartoon that wasn't in BFC as an example).

Better still, imagine a open conservative professor prostelitizing in class without counter argument: if you can see the same shoe being on the other foot, you are a better prof than others I've seen. I wouldn't worry about you. but I would be a damned fool not to worry about the others, it takes only one dirty pool player to screw up the entire bar. And asserting that such dirty pool players don't exist would bring new meaning to the word sucker.

As a whole, I would see the professors who hold F911 up as valid courseware without counter examples or arguments as a little too naive if they don't expect to have their integrity or fairness questioned even just a teeny tiny bit. Itís like standing out in the rain and not expecting to get wet. And though this one, unfortunately, may have just had a fire hose turned on him from an other direction, soggy he remains.

As a former student of Professor McCook's I was stunned to open the paper and read of his dismissal from TCC. He was one of the best professors that I have ever had and while I may not have agreed with all of his political views-myself being what some would call a staunch conservative-I never felt that he was pushing his political beliefs on me. Instead he nurtured a love for politics and encouraged us to question this wonderful, nonsensical thing we call government. As a young college student I think that society has stifled the ability to think, to question, to change. If a college fires him for asking students to formulate their own ideas and views of the world then I think that we have to ask ourselves-what is really wrong here? Professor McCook was an outstanding teacher and his dismissal is a sad reminder that formal education is just a didatic barrage of useless facts and not knowledge. The student who complained is one that has no interest in knowledge and harbors no desire to see beyond the world that we build around ourselves. What is so wrong with asking people to question what they believe, to not blindly accept what we are told. What are they afraid might happen-that people might start thinking?

I'm sure there *is* more to this story than we've seen as of yet. However, I dearly love to read the complaints of people like Luther about "academic freedom" when over the last 20 yrs. it has been conservatives or *anyone* at odds with PC orthodoxy on American campuses. They've been the targets of kangaroo student "tribunals," assumed guilt, forced into "sensitivity training" and other myriad instances of utter nonsense.

So, while I agree that McCook should be granted a sizeable degree of leeway here based on what I've read, I'm snickering at the "dangers" you (Luther) feel are posed to your "academic freedom."

I neglected to add "that have been the targets" to my 2nd sentence.

Is there only one allowable point of view on politics now? Are "leftist" ideas biased, while presumably "rightist" ideas are unbiased?

Would anyone object terribly to a professor showing a film thought of as conservative? Or is it only so-called liberal points of view that must not be presented in classrooms today?

And if politics, in any form, cannot be discussed in an English classroom, how is anyone supposed to deal with Shakespeare's history plays? With Machiavelli? With Hobbes? With Milton?

As a libertarian, I am beginning to think Mercutio had it right...A plague o' both your houses. I'm hearing--here and elsewhere--supposedly conservative rhetoric that sounds an awful lot like the kinds of supposedly liberal rhetoric that used to be called P.C. Now it's just the other side that wants to tell me what to think. Conservative bullying is no better than liberal bullying. Conservatives, liberals, libertarians, communists, Straussians, etc., all have the right, don't they, to free expression? So what's with telling people--of whatever stripe--what they can and can't say?

I have no problem hearing what other people think. I do have a problem with them telling me what to think. And there is a big difference between the two things, one that many of us seem to be ignoring these days.

"I have no problem hearing what other people think. I do have a problem with them telling me what to think."

Well, there it is.

I have to wonder how my teachers managed to teach English lit without cramming politics down our throats.

"Cramming politics down our throats"? Does that refer to contemporary politics?

The kind of politics I heard a great deal about in English (Renaissance lit, thus the examples) was presented as part of the historical circumstances that surrounded and helped shape the work (and that the work contributed to, argued against, etc.). Many of my profs called themselves "Historicists" or "New Historicists," and sure, some of them had a pretty clear contemporary political agenda. But not one of them ever *forced* me to adopt his or her point of view on history, much less on contemporary politics. When I disagreed--fairly often--I argued back. No one crammed anything down my throat.

Learning to stand up for your point of view--and to be able to argue for it intelligently, without merely resorting to shouting--is a good thing, and having to deal with teachers whose points of view differed from mine *helped* rather than hurt me. I hear stories of adult (18+) students complaining about "bias" (as if there were such a thing as an "unbiased" opinion--a bias, is a point of view, after all) from their teachers and I just have to wonder what kind of world they think they live (or should live) in? One, perhaps, where everyone will agree with them?

Where's that world, exactly?

Once again, it's not clear what class McCook was teaching. If it was a class on art and propaganda, fine. If it was a literature class, then assigning F9/11 was cramming politics down the kids' throats, Michael. We will probably just have to agree to disagree about this one.

Well Laura, Iím not sure we either agree or disagree, as I don't really mean to be arguing either for or against McCook. Perhaps he was "cramming politics" down his students' throats, though the one student who actually commented here seems to dispute such a characterization.

What gets me is the sense I am getting that a certain kind of "victimization" is being rallied around here. The poor, helpless college student who can't stand up for or defend his or her own point of view--is that the cause of the day?

And (part-time) college professors are the new threat? I'm sorry, but if an adjunct English teacher at a community college is too powerful for a student to argue with, then the life that awaits him or her is going to be simply overwhelming. Try a boss on for size. Or a prosecuting attorney. Or an angry (perhaps justifiably) about-to-be former spouse. There are many things more powerful--and more potentially intimidating or troublesome--than a part-time English teacher (or a full-time one, for that matter).

Again, I have no problem with people expressing opinions that differ from mine (I simply assume that I have the right to respond/argue). But for anyone to get into the business of telling me, or anyone else, what they can and can't say, what they can and can't express--well, that I have a problem with. But just as our liberals have often thought it up to them to tell people what they can't say (college speech codes), now it seems that our conservatives are up to the same tricks (no political opinions from liberalsóat least if they are college teachers). Liberals don't want you to question affirmative action--especially when related to college admission--and conservatives don't want you to criticize President Bush. Each side claims some twisted notion of a moral high ground in its claim to be right in attempting to censor the speech of the other side.

Michael Moore is a propagandist. So was John Milton. (I'm making no comparison, of course, about the quality of their works--BFC and F 9/11 are certainly no Paradise Lost...) Moore often deals in half-truths and spin. So did Milton. The English Tories used to say even worse things about Milton than so-called conservatives are saying about Moore now. Would having students read Areopagitica be cramming politics down students' throats? And if so, should it be abandoned, never assigned, because of that? I get the feeling that a lot of people right now would say yes, at least if they found that the politics expressed therein differed from their own.

If conservative students really do feel oppressed by the political opinions of their teachers, then why do we not ask themó-expect themó-to learn to argue back? Is the almighty A so important that they feel they have to lie in order to get it? Perhaps it is. But again, if they canít stand up to a college professor, who can they stand up to? And when will they learn to do it?

Michael, how about the kid who loves to read and just wants to learn more about literature and the appreciation of it? Does everything have to be fought about? Does everything have to be controversial and edgy? I remember taking honors English Lit in college. We didn't discuss Gerald Ford v. Jimmy Carter, or whoever it was at the time. It was Wordsworth and Byron and so forth. Browning. William Blake. Obviously with Blake, anyway, as with Dickens, you have to talk about the social ills of the day, and I guess you could draw parallels with our time, but I think the teacher didn't think he had to connect the dots for us. I really want truth in advertising, I guess. Let the college catalog or the course syllabus or something tell the student what he or she can expect for the tuition money.

Michael:

We'll it's pretty easy to say ask where a contrarian student's fortitude is when you aren't a 18-21 year-old standing before a "mature" PhD. I've played the senile prof (I'm a ripe old 37) in a class devoid of politics to get the students to call me out as a prep for them to start competing with me in later coursework, and it is somewhat hard even then for the most capable students.

The Rank on its own, even when you don't put forth an attitude, can intimidate students even when you're just seeing if they will find a given feature in lab data. Now put the same students in a class with a genuine jerk of a prof who's ramming his politics down a student's throat. Now put that same student in McCook's class who appears to be opinionated but fair. Can he risk facing off with a prof who can scuttle his GPA? Expecting every student to be Spartacus is damn unfair to them, especially when all they want is a BS in engineering.

"how about the kid who loves to read and just wants to learn more about literature and the appreciation of it?"

I was that kid. Literature was an escape for me from the factory job I had gotten myself stuck in after high school. And I took courses from (probably part-time) teachers like McCook. And I didn't always agree with them when political topics rose out of the works (American lit, as I remember--Emerson and Thoreau). But no, not everything has to be controversial. Not everything has to be a fight. Somewhere along the way here, however, it seems that 18-21 year-olds (who are expected to be adults with the vote, with military service, with negotiating the worlds of employment, credit, etc.) are being characterized as helpless in the face of a college professor.

Yes, there are some genuinely bad profs--just like there are genuinely bad people in other professions. But I don't think I am expecting them to be Spartacus (who was standing up to someone with the power of life and death over him--rather more power than even the most exalted of my old grad profs) by wanting them to stand up for their own opinions and learn to defend them, rather than running to the administration on their local campus because their English teacher is a liberal.

Many of the pieces of literature that they hopefully are reading in English classes would recommend the same kind of self-reliant attitude. I thought that was a bedrock of conservatism anyway...but it sounds like what's really going on is just a slight variation on the old "right not to be offended" argument (didn't John Stuart Mill demolish that one 150 years ago in On Liberty?). I never realized I had such a right when I was the 18-21 year old. But I did know I had a right to argue if I felt I had to do so.

And isn't learning how to pick your battles also something valuable we all needed to learn at that age (or sooner, hopefully)? But the student in this case--assuming this isn't all an excuse for something else on the part of the college in question--seems to be learning the customer-service lesson: all I have to do is complain, and I can get the clerk fired. Sounds more like a future Crassus than a Spartacus to me.

OK, this is from the article:

"He said Bagley [dean of instruction] called him for another meeting with the student over the Thanksgiving break. McCook said he declined because it was during the holidays and he thought the matter had been resolved.

"'The ultimate reason I was fired, she said, was because I refused to have that meeting,' McCook said. 'There was never any indication to me that I would lose my job. If I had, I would have skipped on over for the meeting.'"

So maybe it wasn't the student's complaint that got him fired, as he said.

The article goes on to mention a lawsuit that McCook was involved in earlier, in Springer, NM. http://www.kscourts.org/ca10/cases/2002/08/01-2157.htm
This has no relevance to the current situation except that McCook claimed his problems were due to retaliation for exercising his free speech rights.

Laura:

So maybe it wasn't the student's complaint that got him fired, as he said.

The dynamics between departments and colleges not to mention Unit and Non-Unit faculty when it comes to both unionization and protection of a faculty member's students is a very sticky thing.

Anything from ... episodes of 'uncollegiality' to a weighty professor from a stronger department out to protect his advisee to "we really don't want to keep this guy lest his position become a 'creeping tenure' post."

Look at the smokescreens, natural haze and legal walls that keep us from seeing the full picture of the situation: FERPA, professional confidences, ethical and unethical academic freedom in grading and evaluation (a dishonest prof can downgrade a paper on fuzzy matters of "clarity" and hide behind AF just as an opinionated yet fair professor can show F9/11 and Farenhype 9/11 togehter and legitimately call on it for protection), not to mention union protections (and lack thereof) and the need for such matters to be handled quietly by one party (normally the unviersity via its lawyers) and the other going public...

It's gonna be hard as hell to see what really is the whole picture of the McCook firing, especially given McCook's non-Unit status. The F9/11 viewing does doesn't pass the smell test for me, but we don't have, even with the article the whole story for this particular event.

I think at least from the context of the situation, this teacher shouldn't have been fired. While far too many liberal professors are indeed trying to indoctrinate their students, the fact that the professor offered an alternate assignment I think absolves him of any blame. That's my opinion, and I'm quite a bit right of center.

I am Kendall McCook's eldest son and a graduate student at the University of Connecticut. I would like to take a moment to explain some of the facts of the case as well as offer a defense of my father.

First, as many of you have correctly observed, he was not fired for showing F. 9/11. The official reason we've been given by TCC is that he was fired for refusing to meet with the Dean of Instruction regarding this matter. I was home for Thanksgiving at the time of the phone call from the Dean of Inst. and I listened to the whole conversation. My father explained that he had met with the student and his department head three weeks before and that the matter had been resolved. In that meeting, the department head told the student that my father had been generous in offering an alternative assignment and gave the impression that she supported his handling of the situation. My father politely explained to the Dean of Inst. that we were leaving shortly for Thanksgiving and that she should contact his department head. From that point on, he received no further communication from either his department head or the Dean of Inst. The student was regularly attending lectures and no further conflicts, arguments, or problems arose in the classroom. On the last day of the semester, as my father turned in his grades, his department head explained that he was fired for refusing to meet with the Dean of Instruction.

I myself have been a student of my father's. In reality, I've been his student all my life, but I also had the chance to take Freshman Composition from him as well. I would like to point out that it was not English Lit. that he was teaching, but rather English Composition. My father's whole teaching philosophy involves encouraging people to think and reason for themselves. He asks only one thing from his students: that they take the time to examine the world around them and form their own opinions. He believes in the power of learning and teaches his students (and his children) not only to think critically about each issue but also to be able to articulate a point of view logically and clearly. He uses literature and poetry and art to teach his students to search for truth. Some have commented that politics has no place in an English classroom, and I couldn't disagree more. I do not pretend to be an English scholar, but I know that the separation of politics from literature is impossible. Can you imagine Steinbeck writing "In Dubious Battle" and making no mention of his opinions on labor organizing?

The F. 9/11 assignment was given because the class was following the required textbook and had reached a section about art and propaganda. It gave definitions of both and my father believed that showing Moore's film would allow the students an opportunity to examine a work that could be considered either art, propaganda, or both. He actually allowed the class to vote on watching the movie after a discussion about the assignment and made it clear that no one would be punished for refusing to see the film. Well over half of his students wrote anti-Michael Moore papers and defined the film as propaganda. The vast majority of them, and all of those who turned in quality work, received high grades regardless of their opinion.

There is no doubt that my dad is so-called "left-leaning." He's been politically active since the 1960s, and has never stopped. He has very strong opinions, and he's not afraid to express them. That being said, my father is also a kind, gentle, and fair man. He is soft-spoken and patient. He comes from a Western heritage of which he's extremely proud, and he lives his life by an unspoken code of honesty and respect.

For those who don't know, Tarrant County College is in Fort Worth, Texas, in the heart of "Bush country." My father estimates that 2/3 of his students are usually conservative-leaning. He has been in Texas for much of his life, and he's no stranger to right wing views. As his former student Ana wrote so eloquently, though, he never berates or attacks those in his classes who hold opinions contrary to his own. I find it interesting that he has never had a complaint from a student until this one complained, and has never had a conflict at TCC. This particular student, a middle aged Air Force retireee who is returning to school, decided that he would make getting my dad fired his personal mission. He succeeded.

In the interest of time and space I will conclude my comments. I would like to thank everyone who weighed in on this issue, for or against. If you would like any more information on this matter feel free to contact me at cdmccook@yahoo.com. Thank you.
-Clayton McCook

Right. Well that was a great comment by Clayton. I now think there's no reason at all that his dad should have been fired. As I mentioned before, I'm a conservative, but (as I hope is the case with most conservatives) I'm much more interested in justice that partisanship.

Is there any outcry about this? Or is this post, made in December, old news - and this link never to be visited again?

This case more and more hits me as material for FIRE, be it reverse political correctness or due process for non-unit faculty.

Nice to see a set of posts without flames and inane comments. At almost 70 it is a bit difficult putting myself into the shoes of a high school student. But I will try. Since Mr. McCook's leftist views appear to be so well known, it seems that a student is likely to be intimidated. The prospect of a bad grade tends to tell a student that he or she had better give the teacher the answers he is looking for or suffer the consequences. High school students do understand risk and reward, and when they hear that "McCook is a rabid critic of George W. Bush..." and that he has called the President (the article quotes him as calling the President a "...frat-rat, cocaine-snorting, draft-dodger rich kid"),the most likely first thought that will enter the student's mind is that saying anything favorable towards the President involves risk. Because of this, I do not believe that teachers should be expressing their personal views in a classroom, or where their students can hear them. When they do so, they place the students in a position where they will perceive that they are at risk. I do not consider this repression of free speech, but the acceptance by teachers that they have a greater responsibility to teach their students to think for themselves, and make up their own minds without bias or pressure. Teachers should be "even-handed" both in and out of the classroom