When it comes to academic freedom, several local educators are siding with the rights of a University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer who believes the U.S. government staged the Sept. 11 attacks.
Kevin Barrett, who plans to spend one week teaching his theory to his 15-week "Introduction to Islam" students this fall, drew the ire of Wisconsin legislators, who are threatening to cut school funding if the university doesn't fire him.
Sixty-one of 133 state legislators signed a letter addressed to university administrators and Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle demanding Barrett's dismissal.
School officials say they won't kick Barrett out.
The university's stance is drawing an ovation from mid-Michigan higher educators who say a submission to the state squeeze would cross boundaries the nation's founding fathers drew. Saginaw Valley State University President Eric R. Gilbertson, who teaches courses about the Constitution, defends Barrett's right to present different views in the classroom.
"The best way to deal with ideas -- even silly ones -- is to expose them and put them up for debate," he said. "Free speech puts you to the test, but it's served us very well over history.
"I don't think the government, at any level, should be censoring free speech."
Retired Delta College economics professor Calvin A. Hoerneman hit on a similarly touchy subject when he taught a course centering on Dan Brown's controversial book "The DaVinci Code" in 2004. The class involved inviting guest speakers such as artists, ministers and mathematicians who presented ideas both opposing and supporting the fictional bestseller about a secret society covering up evidence that Jesus Christ married and bore children.
Hoerneman has no problem with Barrett's plans to bring his theory to the classroom, so long as Barrett makes it clear his theory is not historical fact.
"Academic freedom involves presenting different points of view and letting the students make up their minds after they've heard both sides," he said. "Then you say, 'What do you think?' It's not the job of the state Legislature to tell people what they should teach in class."
However, there is a line that an instructor can cross, said Brad L. Swartz, a communications associate professor and chairman of Central Michigan University's Academic Senate.
"But as long as that free speech does not incite riots or become harmful, we should be able to count on legislators to protect those rights and not to infringe upon them," he said. "If (Barrett) says anything so harmful, there are ways a university deals with faculty who overstep those bounds. It should not be (a government) issue." v
Justin Engel is a staff writer. Call him at 776-9724.