UO ought to be embarrassed by that definition [of diversity]. And any taxpayer reading your report should demand that you de-fund all of your diversity initiatives until you decide exactly what “diversity” really is.

sounds fair enough as well. Is it his tone of voice that’s got you riled up, or what?

Yeah. I can’t stand those goddamn criminology professors. And we all know what people from Mississippi are like, right?

(OK, that was a cheap shot. But although it’s true that phrases like “pro-homosexual bias” do set some alarm bells ringing, I thought the column made some quite valid points.)

Erik,
I heard him speak, and what’s wrong with debating? He seems to get the facs right about our current situation.

“Mike S. Adams was born in Columbus, Mississippi on October 30, 1964. While a student at Clear Lake High School in Houston, TX, his team won the state 5A soccer championship. He graduated from C.L.H.S. in 1983 with a 1.8 GPA. He was ranked 734 among a class of 740, largely as a result of flunking English all four years of high school. After obtaining an Associate’s degree in psychology from San Jacinto College, he moved on to Mississippi State University where he joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. While living in the fraternity house, his GPA rose to 3.4, allowing him to finish his B.A., and then to pursue a Master’s in Psychology. In 1990, he turned down a chance to pursue a PhD in psychology from the University of Georgia, opting instead to remain at Mississippi State to study Sociology/Criminology. This decision was made entirely on the basis of his reluctance to quit his night job as member of a musical duo. Playing music in bars and at fraternity parties and weddings financed his education. He also played for free beer.

Upon getting his doctorate in 1993, Adams, then an atheist and a Democrat, was hired by UNC-Wilmington to teach in the criminal justice program. A few years later, Adams abandoned his atheism and also became a Republican …
After his involvement in a well publicized free speech controversy in the wake of the 911 terror attacks, Adams became a vocal critic of the diversity movement in academia. After making appearances on shows like Hannity and Colmes, the O’Reilly Factor, and Scarborough Country, Adams was asked to write a column for Townhall.com.”

Sounds like a stand-up guy to me — I know that I take all of my advice on diversity plans from some douchebag from Mississippi who teaches Criminology, and touts the fact that he is “debating a feminist Dean from the University of Maryland” on his website, right next to the advertisement of how Dr. Adams is accepting donations for “Operation Cockroach”. Come on! This guy is no better than Bill O’Reilly … it’s one thing to fight for free speech, and another thing to pander to angry white men for attention.

But anyway… it seems to me there are a few problems with Adams’ letter that may preclude its being seriously considered by the man to whom it is nominally addressed. Specifically:

Of course, the fact that UO supports free speech when it agrees with the speech and opposes free speech when it disagrees with the speech can be roughly translated as follows: UO does not support free speech.

The UO has made it pretty clear that it does not “agree” with the Insurgent’s printing of Jesus cartoons, which seems to be Adams’ point of reference here. Similiarly, the University as an institution never expressed a position of disagreement with the Commentator during our 2005 scuffle with the Programs Finance Committee. The University administration might have done well to guide the PFC somewhat more strongly on that issue– but as we all know, in what turned out to be a learning experience for the PFC, there was a shake-up among its personnel and free speech was eventually upheld. UO does in fact support free speech.

This is a requirement that UO cannot seem to follow because of its own anti-Christian and pro-homosexual bias.

An anti-Christian bias, you say? Oh, I guess I’d nearly forgotten about those lengthy forms I had to fill out upon admission to this University explaining that I was not, nor had I ever been, a member of a Christian church. Come to think of it, I suppose the prominence of the Newman Center and the Students of Faith, the Koinonia Center, the evangelists in the EMU amphitheater, and the campus of Northwest Christian College adjacent to our own have all been figments of my imagination.

But what exactly is a pro-homosexual bias? The position that individuals shall not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation? From what I can gather we do endeavor to adhere to US law on that one, so I suppose perhaps we are guilty as charged. Oh… unless he’s referring to the official University administration policy that students shall be coerced into providing their professors with homosexual favors in order to obtain A’s in their classes. Somehow in my state of delusion, hallucinating the vestiges of Christianity on our campus, this fact had escaped me.

And, of course, since you have expressed support for the racially biased MRRF, you, too, are promoting bias. Hence, before it is eliminated, the bias response team should eliminate you, President Frohnmayer.

If the President makes it this far into the letter before his eyes glaze over, I’m inclined to doubt he’ll make it much further. It might be assuming too much to regard this tossed-off statement as evidence of some sort of Donohue-O’Reilly-Adams trifecta, quixotically campaigning to have Frohnmayer’s head served up on a plate. Still, it’s a tad ridiculous.

It’s one thing, and a noble endeavor at that, to examine the specifics of the Five-Year Diversity Plan and to agitate against its egregious elements. It’s another thing entirely to get so bent out of shape about its very existence as to lose all perspective on how and why the Plan has become a fact of our lives, and to childishly thrash out at the tallest monsters on the horizon. Frohnmayer is in no more a position to scrap this plan than he is to censure or censor the Insurgent. Just as the Supreme Court decision in Southworth prevents the Administration from exercising editorial control over publications, the US District Court of Oregon holds authority to ensure that it implement a diversity plan in keeping with the terms of its 2002 out-of-court settlement with former academic advisor Joe Wade. Why on earth John Moseley didn’t either grant Wade the promotion he deserved or document his failures is at this point moot (or not), but now we have to deal with the fallout. Frohnmayer didn’t dream this plan up, but he is bound by law to spepherd it into existence in one form or another. It seems childish to waste time demonizing figureheads rather than attempt to productively influence the language and the scope of a plan that will undoubtedly cement into place in a very short amount of time.

A few weeks ago Prof. Mike Adams, Townhall.com columnist, spoke at the University of Oregon (ODE Article), and consistently stated that offensive speech should be ridiculed, not censored, on college campuses. He also provided comical antidotes of himself helping libertarian and conservative campus groups avoid censor and promote free speech despite liberal, authoritarian rules. I took particular pleasure listening to him extol the virtues of ridicule as I felt it pertained to the mission of the Commentator. I e-mailed him afterward and while he edges on factual error, Adams correctly identifies hypocrisy. (drink).

“But, of course, UO’s commitment to Equal Protection of the Law has become clear in light of the recent controversy concerning another student publication, The Insurgent. When the radical leftist paper published pornographic pictures of Jesus Christ (portrayed as a homosexual), the school maintained a steadfast commitment to free speech – one they did not hold when the Oregon Commentator scandal erupted the year before.”

-Townhall.com Article

The article goes on to blast the diversity plan and even the incidental fee. Enjoy.