DEVELOPMENTS IN THE KLOCEK CASE: In 2005, Thomas Klocek was suspended by DePaul University in response to complaints from Muslim students who resented Klocek's challenge to their statements--see American Thinker for background. Since then he filed a defamation suit against DePaul.

According to an announcement by TC Public Relations, Thomas Klocek's case is poised to go to trial. On April 10, Hon. Daniel J. Kelley, a judge in the Circuit Court of Cook County, upheld six of the eight legal counts leveled against DePaul and others. In his 17-page order, Judge Kelley points to DePaul’s “reckless disregard for the truth” in statements made following Klocek’s suspension. According to Klocek's lawyers:

We also look forward to a public trial where DePaul students and the public can judge for themselves whether certain administrators silenced Tom Klocek because a few Muslim activists wanted his political and religious opinions repressed.”

The Klocek case has been featured in a FIRE article headlined, “Academic Freedom for all Professors, Tenured or Not” which gives the Klocek case as an example in a call for greater rights for adjunct professors.

It is also mentioned FrontPageMag.com in "Will America’s Largest Catholic University Give Tenure to a Fan of the Hezbollah?" about the tenure battle of Norm Finkelstein.

Technorati Tag: Thomas Klocek.

After Muslim Students Have Him Removed, Klocek Returns To Speak At DePaul

Following up on the case of Thomas Klocek--who was suspended by DePaul University in response to complaints from Muslim students who resented Klocek's challenge to their statements--Klocek has returned to DePaul as a speaker.

In addition to coverage by Fox News (view the video here), AP covered the event as well:

Klocek says DePaul asked him to give up his teaching assignment with pay for the following semester and said he couldn't return until he apologized to the students and agreed to have his classes monitored.

He refused, and filed a defamation lawsuit in June 2005, claiming School for New Learning Dean Susanne Dumbleton and President Dennis Holtschneider maligned him in the media.

"Two-and-a-half years later, I have never received a written series of the charges against me, I have never received a letter that says that I am suspended, I have never received a letter saying that I am terminated, so I guess ... I'm sort of a man without an academic country," said Klocek, who received a standing ovation from some audience members when he approached the podium with a white gag tied around his mouth.

Marathon Pundit also has coverage of Klocek's talk at DePaul.

See also the blog devoted to DePaul's suspension of Klocek: Free DePaul

For more background on the incident, including DePaul's double-standard on controversial subjects and the reaction of the judge who allowed the lawsuit, see Only Anti-Israel Professors Need Apply At DePaul University

Technorati Tag: Thomas Klocek and DePaul University.

Documents Reveal CAIR Pressure To Fire DePaul Professor

Press Release from Free DePaul

Islamic Group’s Threats to DePaul University Confirmed by New Evidence

Professor and Academic Freedom Took the Fall

Newly released evidence has revealed that the Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) worked privately to pressure DePaul University to fire adjunct professor Thomas Klocek for telling Muslim activist students that their views on Middle-East issues were wrong. According to a letter to DePaul’s President from CAIR’s executive director M. Yaser Tabbara, “In light of …Mr. Klocek’s biased remarks, we are requesting that the University…reprimand Mr. Klocek for his conduct by permanently dismissing him from any teaching post at DePaul University.” (Exhibit # DPU 945).

At a student fair on September 15, 2004, during the same month that DePaul launched its Islamic World Studies Program, Professor Klocek engaged several Muslim students in a heated discussion about the Arab-Israeli conflict. He strongly disputed their assertions that Israeli treatment of Palestinians was equivalent to the Nazi treatment of the Jews. He also cited a Chicago Sun-Times columnist who was quoting an Aljazeera writer to the effect that although not all Muslims are terrorists, today most terrorists are Muslim. Later, in another connection between DePaul and the Muslim community, a DePaul Trustee, Michael Murad, wrote to DePaul’s president asking, “What steps have been taken to ensure that DePaul programs in the Middle East are not undermined by this incident?” (#DPU 003174)

According to documents furnished by DePaul in response to document discovery in the lawsuit between Klocek and DePaul, less than a month after the student fair incident, on October 12, 2004, CAIR’s Tabbara sent an email to those who opposed Klocek, stating, “…we [CAIR] will be ready to file a formal complaint with the Illinois State Board of Higher Education… This will also be accompanied by a press release, a press conference or both.” (DPU 003493)

Tabbara’s email also referred to a letter sent to DePaul’s president the next day in which Tabbara made the following demands of DePaul, “In light of the grave implications of Mr. Klocek’s biased remarks, we are requesting that the University take appropriate and immediate responsive action…including:

1. Provide a formal written apology to the students who experienced the incident firsthand.

2. Reprimand Mr. Klocek for his conduct by permanently dismissing him from any teaching post at DePaul University.”

CAIR continued its campaign against Klocek when, according to another just released document (DPU 000763), on December 16, 2004 CAIR wrote Prof. Klocek’s Dean, Suzanne Dumbleton, and said, “The gravity of Mr. Klocek’s actions towards the students should result in his permanent dismissal as a matter of policy. Any alternative action will set a dangerous precedent…”

John W. Mauck, attorney for Thomas Klocek, said, “These documents confirm our suspicions. Rather than protect academic freedom or even treat Thomas Klocek, a professor with a 14 year spotless track record at DePaul, the university surrendered to behind-the-scenes Muslim activist pressure. At DePaul academic freedom has been subjugated to Sharia.”

To see copies of these and other documents view PDF documents:
DPU 3174.pdf - DPU 3493.pdf - DPU 763_764.pdf - DPU 945.pdf

To see copies of documents cited in this press release, please visit http://freedepaul.blogspot.com or contact TC Public Relations at 312-422-1333.

See Also: Only Anti-Israel Professors Need Apply At DePaul University

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinians and DePaul University and Thomas Klocek and
United Muslims Moving Ahead and Students for Justice in Palestine.

Only Anti-Israel Professors Need Apply At DePaul University

That's right--we're not talking about Columbia University here. In this case, we are talking about DePaul University in Chicago.

The university hired Norman Finkelstein, which American Thinker notes,

had lost his job at two different colleges in New York, following controversy over his support of holocaust denier David Irving and his bitterly abusive attacks on the state of Israel.

Last year, DePaul had no problem hosting a Palestinian art exhibit which claimed that 'in 1948 statehood was lost to Israeli occupation,'--both falsely claiming that an Arab Palestinian state ever existed and also implying that even with the 1948 borders Israel was an occupational power. In the interests of art, the statement was allowed to stand:

Warren Schultz, associate professor of history is quoted as saying, "Dan [Goffman, a professor and chair of the history department] and I are in agreement that this [the catalog’s assertion about Palestinian statement] is not a statement we would have made about the events in 1948, but I recognize that what this statement does reflect is a view of at least some Palestinians, and as such, it helps people to understand the art that is being produced."

The American Thinker also notes other activities that the student body have been treated to in the interest of free speech in the past number of years, by the Moslem students:

But speech hostile to Jews, or Israelis, or for that matter, the great mass of Americans grieving and offended by the 9/11 attacks, was perfectly legitimate. While New York and Washington were digging up their 3,000 dead, Muslims students at DePaul were using the post 9/11 environment to publicly attack America and Israel for their crimes and policies at campus forums, paid for with student fees. The campus has welcomed representatives of the Palestinian terror group Islamic Jihad to campus. The scurrilous propaganda “documentary” Jenin Jenin has been shown on campus.

It is in such an atmosphere that part time adjunct professor Thomas Klocek found himself fired after a 15 minute discussion--albeit with raised voices--with a group of Moslem students in the cafeteria during a student activities fair, during which Klocek spoke with members of Students for Justice in Palestine, and United Muslims Moving Ahead.

He says he told the students that Palestinians were Arabs who lived in the West Bank and Gaza – that they had no unique national historical identity. He challenged one student’s assertion that Israel was behaving like the Nazis. He stated that while most Muslims were not terrorists, pretty much all terrorists these days were Muslim. This statement had originally been made by the manager of an Arab news channel, and had recently been quoted in the Chicago Sun Times. It has the incidental merit of being true.

Being coddled and unused to being on hearing end of free speech, the Moslem students responded by issuing their own fatwa against Klocek. The students complained to the administration that he had insulted both them and their religion and went so far as to complain that Klocek had acted as if he was right and they were wrong.

In response, the administration acted solely on the word of the students, ignored their fatwa (or reacted directly to it) and suspended Klocek without a hearing--to which Klocek was entitled.

This was last year. The incident is back in the news because Klocek is suing DePaul University.

The Colossus of Rhodey has the latest on the lawsuit, noting that the judge did more than just say he would allow the lawsuit, first filed last June,--

Judge Nudelman believes that DePaul's actions to discipline Professor Thomas Klocek went to such extreme that their conduct rose to the level of defamation. He noted that DePaul exhibited destructive political correctness when it gave way to its fear of students' reactions to Prof. Klocek's challenges to the student groups' literature and perspective on the Middle East conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Judge Nudelman also commented that if such limited debate took place when he was a student, it would have resulted in having an inferior educational experience.

Judge Nudelman also stated that DePaul's public disclosures about Prof. Klocek defamed him in that they denigrated his ability to perform as a professor.

We can only hope that the law suit goes to court and the whole issue, and DePaul--as an example of what goes on in today's campuses, is revealed as an example for what constitutes 'Diversity' in today's universities.

See also: Documents Reveal CAIR Pressure To Fire DePaul Professor

Crossposted at Israpundit

Technorati Tag: Israel and Palestinians and DePaul University and Thomas Klocek and
United Muslims Moving Ahead and Students for Justice in Palestine.