Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Professor facing termination for emailing Washington's Thanksgiving Day Proclamation

This is absolutely amazing. When the words of our history are banned because they "offend" someone, then it's time to pack it in. These are the words of our founding president, one of the greatest leaders in our history. These words are a part of the national record and a college should understand that. Academic inquiry and preservation of knowledge by passing it down to future generations used to be the goal of colleges, now they are just indoctrination centers and a place to prepare to get a job. True education appears to be a thing of the past:

The Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) has placed a professor on forced administrative leave and has recommended that he be terminated for e-mailing a Thanksgiving message to his colleagues last November. On the day before Thanksgiving, Professor Walter Kehowski sent out the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” and a link to the webpage where he’d found it—on Pat Buchanan’s web log. After several recipients complained of being offended by the e-mail, MCCCD found Kehowski guilty of violating the district’s Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy and technology usage standards. Kehowski then contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

“It simply boggles the mind that a professor could find himself facing termination simply for e-mailing the Thanksgiving address of our first president,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. “This situation is an embarrassment to MCCCD and would be laughable if a professor’s most basic rights and very livelihood weren’t on the line.”
(via)