Earlier, I had mentioned Assistant Professor Lawrence Torcello’s despicable climate ugliness and offered some links to addresses on where to complain to. Monckton took the lead on that. I urge others to write such factual and courteous letters.
14 March 2014
The Provost and Senior Vice-President for Academic Affairs
Eastman Hall
Rochester Institute of Technology
New York, New York, United States of America
asenate@rit.edu, stp1031@rit.edu
Sir,
Breaches of Principles of Academic Freedom (Policy E2.0) and of the mission statement of the Institute by Assistant Professor Lawrence Torcello
Principle of public law relied upon
The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States applies to all. It says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Principles of private law relied upon
The Institute’s policy on academic freedom applies to all faculty members, including Assistant Professor Torcello. The Institute declares that its policy is “guided” by the principles of academic freedom promulgated by the Association of University Professors in 1940, and, in particular, by the third such principle:
“3. College and university teachers are citizens, members of a learned profession, and officers of an educational institution. When they speak or write as citizens, they should be free from institutional censorship or discipline, but their special position in the community imposes special obligations. As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.”
The Institute’s mission statement includes the following paragraph:
“Respect, Diversity and Pluralism: Provides a high level of service to fellow members of the RIT community. Treats every person with dignity. Demonstrates inclusion by incorporating diverse perspectives to plan, conduct, and/or evaluate the work of the organization, department, college, or division.”
Alleged breaches of the said principles of law
On 13 March 2014, Assistant Professor Lawrence Torcello published a blog posting[1] entitled Is misinformation about the climate criminally negligent? at a tendentious propaganda website, “The Conversation”. In that posting, he committed the following breaches of the Institute’s policies:
1. Mr Torcello describes himself as “Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology” and makes no effort to comply with the explicit requirement of the principles on academic freedom by indicating that he writes neither on behalf of the Institute nor in his capacity as an assistant professor there but as a private citizen.
2. Mr Torcello offends against the requirement of accuracy stated in the principles of academic freedom in that his posting falsely said “the majority of scientists clearly agree on a set of facts” about “global warming” on which they do not in fact agree. Mr Torcello links his cited statement to a reference to three papers each claiming a “97% consensus” to the effect that most of the global warming observed since 1950 was manmade. However, as Legates et al. (2013)[2] have demonstrated, a review of 11,944 papers on climate published in the 21 years 1991-2011, the largest such review ever published in the scientific literature, had marked only 64 papers, or 0.5% of the sample, as explicitly endorsing that proposition. Though it may well be that 100% of scientists publishing in relevant fields accept that – all other things being equal – our returning CO2 to the atmosphere from which it once came will be likely to cause some global warming (though the record amounts of CO2 we have emitted recently have not caused any warming at all for up to 17 years 6 months[3]), legitimate scientific doubt remains about the quantum of future global warming that may be expected, with an increasing body of peer-reviewed papers moving towards a climate sensitivity of only 1-2 Celisus degrees per CO2 doubling[4], and the IPCC itself drastically reducing its predictions of global warming over the next 30 years.
3. Mr. Torcello offends not only against the Institute’s requirement to treat every person with dignity, including those persons with whose views he disagrees, but also against the Constitution’s assertion of the right of free speech, which includes the right to fund those who wish to exercise it in opposition to what he falsely regards as the prevailing scientific opinion, when he says: “We have good reason to consider the funding of climate denial to be criminally and morally negligent. The charge of criminal and moral negligence ought to extend all activities of the climate deniers who receive funding as part of a sustained campaign to undermine the public’s understanding of scientific consensus” – a “consensus” which, as the three papers on the subject that Mr Torcello has linked to his posting define it, does not in fact exist.
4. Mr Torcello offends against the requirement of accuracy stated in the principles of academic freedom in that he links the statement in his posting that “public uncertainty regarding climate science, and the resulting failure to respond to climate change, is the intentional aim of politically and financially motivated denialists” to an allegation, long demonstrated to have been fabricated by one Peter Gleick, a climate change campaigner, that the Heartland Institute had circulated memorandum stating that Heartland intended to persuade schoolteachers that “the topic of climate change is controversial and uncertain – two key points that are effective at dissuading teachers from teaching science”. In the interest of accuracy Mr Torcello ought to have made it plain, but did not mention at all, that Gleick had been suspended from his post at an environmental campaign group for several months as a result of this incident, in which he had corruptly posed as a member of Heartland’s board so as to obtain access to its private documents, to which he had added documents of his own when the private documents he had obtained proved to be disappointingly innocent.
5. Mr Torcello shows no respect for Constitutional freedom of speech, or for the principles of academic freedom for those with whom he disagrees, when falsely alleges that all who fund those who dare to question what we are (inaccurately) told is the “consensus” position on global warming are “corrupt”, “deceitful”, and “criminally negligent in their willful disregard for human life”.
6. Mr Torcello, in perpetrating his me-too hate-speech about the alleged “loss of life” from “global warming”, fails yet again to comply with the requirement of accuracy in the principles of academic freedom, in that he departs from the “consensus” to the effect that a global warming of up to 2 Celsius degrees compared with 1750, or 1.1 degrees compared with today, will be not only harmless but net-beneficial to life on Earth. He also ignores the fact that the very heavy additional costs of energy arising from arguably needless subsidies to “renewable” energy systems make it impossible for poorer people to heat their homes. These energy price hikes may, for instance, have contributed to the 31,000 excess deaths in last year’s cold winter in the UK alone – 8000 more than the usual number of excess winter deaths.
7. By looking at only one side of the account, and by threatening scientists who disagree with him with imprisonment for criminal negligence, Mr Torcello offends fundamentally against the principles of academic freedom that he will himself no doubt pray in aid when he is confronted with the present complaint, and against the principle of tolerance of diverse opinions – including, horribile dictu, opinions at variance with his own – that is enjoined upon him by the Institute’s mission statement, and by common sense.
The academic senate will, no doubt, wish to consider whether Mr Torcello is a fit and proper person to hold any academic post at the Institute, and whether to invite him not only to correct at once the errors of fact that he has perpetrated but also to respect in future the academic freedom of those with whom he disagrees as though it were his own freedom – a freedom that, in his shoddy little posting, he has shamefully and ignorantly abused.
Yours faithfully,
Viscount Monckton of Brenchley
[1] https://theconversation.com/is-misinformation-about-the-climate-criminally-negligent-23111
[2] Legates, D.R., W.W.-H. Soon, W. M. Briggs, and C.W. Monckton of Brenchley, 2013, Climate consensus and ‘misinformation’: a rejoinder to ‘Agnotology, scientific consensus, and the teaching and learning of climate change’, Sci. & Educ., August 30, DOI 10.1007/s11191-013-9647-9.
[3] Least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomaly dataset, September 1996 to February 2014 inclusive.
[4] See e.g. Lindzen, R.S., and Y.-S. Choi, 2011, On the observational determination of climate sensitivity and its implications, Asia-Pacific J. Atmos. Sci., 47:4, 377-390, doi:10.1007/s13143-011-0023-x.
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Torcello speaks of “the well documented corporate funding of global warming denial”. I want to see the documents, please.
Roger Sowell,
You seem to be advocating for Torcello. Why? Is there not anything you see that is despicable in what he has done?
If people like Torcello get to set the agenda, then we have a harder time fighting these dishonest vermin.
Yes, “vermin”. That is what Torcello is IMHO, and I would hold that opinion no matter what LM or anyone else thinks or says. He is a hate-filled denizen of the ivory tower; a reprobate using his position to attack honest people for nothing more than holding opinions different than what he approves of. How is that any different in principle from a Stalin or a Hitler?
You say that “Torcello has the right to express his views.” But you appear to defend him at Lord Monckton’s expense. Where do you draw the line? These ivoy tower rascals can apparently say anything with impunity, but scientific skeptics are held to the very highest standards — standards that don’t seem to apply to the Torcelli’s of the world.
But you cannot find anything about Torcelli to criticize??
Why not?
yeah. the school should support their local chapter of the Klimate Katastrophe Klan – in the name of diversity, maybe.
he can help them learn to embrace their inner torquemada.
makes a person just want to hug the nearest unabomber.
torcello akhbar! feel da lurve!
Mr Sowell and a handful of others willfully misunderstand the head posting. Mr Torcello is advocating a change in the law that would be unconstitutional in that it would drastically curtail the freedom of speech that the Constitution guarantees. Given that the “consensus” specifically pleaded by Mr Torcello has been demonstrated not to exist, and that the central proposition around which that imagined “consensus” is said to adhere has been in substance falsified by events, his pretext for imprisoning those with whom whom he inexpertly disagrees does not rank alongside libel and other legitimate exceptions to the Constitutional principle of free speech.
Finally, I should very much like to thank all of those who have been kind enough to express their appreciation of the fumbling efforts that we questioners of the New Religion have been making to keep the academic and scientific world from descending into a new Dark Age. It is a long and lonely furrow we plow, and it means a great deal to us to be reassured that we do not speak only for ourselves. Ever since I first went public with doubts about the Party Line almost eight years ago, the great kindness of so many who have sent generous notes of support has been a noble demonstration that human nature is at root good, as it was made to be. Thank you all.
Quick note: The Book of Proverbs is self-attributed to King Solomon and is sometimes subtitled The Wisdom of Solomon.
I’m crafting something that doesn’t go after the professor, but rather show how it reflects on the institution. I suspect the reputation of an assistant prof is not of much interest to them. Their own reputation might be.
I’m in the woods today spring cleaning* but I’ll get back on it tomorrow.
*chainsaw rather than feather dusters 😉
Monckton of Brenchley:
I see what you do and it is good.
I also remember Maggie giving the debutante ball for Teh Big Lie with the CRU and the launching of the IPCC.
Because you have mentioned association with her in capacity of science advisor (if i correctly recall), I wonder if you would be so kind as to give the inside scoop on what was going on?
I have some perceptions that clash which i’d like to reconcile and relish the opportunity to ask you, here at WUWT, where you make yourself accessible on occasion.
pottereaton: “Right. Consensus and all that. Whatever.
Let’s see your letter. You’re the expert. Show us how it is supposed to be done. You’ve been carrying on now for a while. If you are going to be patronizingly critical, you need to put up or shut up.”
Does that line of reasoning look familiar to you? I’ll explain: you are saying I am not entitled to point out faults unless I am a domain expert. Really?! You’re going to come here and use that argument?
excellent! One comment: what is the source for this “These energy price hikes may, for instance, have contributed to the 31,000 excess deaths in last year’s cold winter in the UK alone – 8000 more than the usual number of excess winter deaths.”?
In answer to “Gnomish”, I advised Margaret Thatcher on various scientific questions, including the climate question, but science was merely part of my brief as one of her six special advisors.
However, it was my successor, George Guise, who worked with the Prime Minister on her 1988 speech to the Royal Society in which she announced the funding for what became the Hadley Centre.
In that speech she predicted that global warming would occur at a rate of 1 Celsius degree every ten years. I should not have allowed her to make any such prediction.
My advice had been that the scientists were saying there might be a problem and that it would be prudent to work out how much of a problem there might be.
@ur momisuglyEustace Cranch : Speeling is my worst subject.
@ur momisuglypottereaton : The whole concept of “private law” is ridiculous. In “real” law, you don’t make exceptions for your friends and relatives, but faculty rules can make such exceptions. Monckton’s letter will be disregarded because it comes from an outsider who has no standing trying to enforce faculty rules, which can be changed or disregarded anyway.
@ur momisugly David L Hagen : You are confirming what I said about state constitutions requiring explicit protection of rights. Due process rights can’t apply to rules that exist at the pleasure of an unelected body because the remedy is to leave the group. You won’t win a lawsuit because everyone but you got to do casual Friday. See http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/01/judge-dismisses-law-professors-lawsuit-over-tenure-denial.html . Follow the government money, as I recommended, and you have cause. That wasn’t an idle comment. Does anyone know if this guy is using government money to fund “research’ suppressing free speech?
@ur momisuglykwinterkorn : Torcello isn’t attacking freedom of speech in general. If you have a sinking ship with the crew trying to get people to the lifeboats and someone goes around announcing that the ship isn’t really sinking and that this is just a drill, please return to your staterooms; that isn’t protected speech because it causes a positive harm. This is the sort of argument he’s making. We are free to make the opposite argument, that the corporate shield protecting their alarmist fraud should be stripped and that they, as individuals, should be held financially accountable for the economic damage they have caused, that their universities should not receive state funding while they are employed there and until the effects of their fraud have been compensated, etc. So, I think Monckton’s letter is addressed to the wrong people and takes a legalistic tone that won’t convince anyone. I’m not aware of any of Monckton’s other letters having any effect on a faculty body. How is his track record on that point anyway? Is anyone keeping score?
Roger Sowell,
I am surprised by your remarks. You employed errors in logic to make points and I had not previously observed that you were willing to engage in such behavior.
Pamela Gray says:
March 14, 2014 at 8:16 am
Lordy Lordy I love how the English write
=========================================
That’s the result of a Liberal Classical education. Something which has now more or less disappeared, sadly. Now, schools on the whole produce illiterates. Lord Monckton’s education is now seen as elitist, and despite the fact that it produces the best and most productive citizens, this has been driven out of the state system, and indeed, much of the private sector.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/7857364/BT-boss-attacks-illiterate-job-applicants.html
Monckton of Brenchley
Thank you for typically cogent reply.
First hand info can’t be beat.
JDN –
I think you must have gone to a different law school than I did. You are correct in your assertion that the 1st amendment to the US constitution ORIGINALLY applied only to the Federal Government, but in the case of Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925) SCOTUS specifically made that amendment applicable to the states and local governments in light of the ratification of the 14th amendment’s ratification following the Civil War.
As a philosophy professor perhaps he should read Voltaire’s words in his Essay on Tolerance: “Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too.”
I do so like their aspirational byline at The Conversation
“Academic rigour, journalistic flair”
Nothing so plain and factual as Anthony’s straightforward and to the point:
“The world’s most viewed site on global warming and climate change”
at Watts Up With That?
Just have to beware of Academic rigor mortis creeping in and echoing around the chamber with pieces like the offending one in question.
https://theconversation.com/is-misinformation-about-the-climate-criminally-negligent-23111#comment_333276
It is an exaggeration to say that George Guise, persuaded Margaret Thatcher to speak up about the matter of climate change. Guise may have been the Policy Wonk who drafted the speech, but he himself did not promote these ideas, per se.
Margaret Thatcher did credit Sir Crispin Tickell for persuading her to make the speech on global climate change to the Royal Society in September 1988 (though the speech was written by Thatcher and George Guise at Chequers as described by Lord Monckton).
Tickell chaired John Major’s Government Panel on Sustainable Development (1994–2000). He was also British Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1987–1990), and is author of “Climate Change and World Affairs”. So where did Tickell get his ideas from. Well in the introduction to his book, Tickell explains ….
“This seminal book was first published in 1977, having been written the previous year while the author was on sabbatical from the Foreign Office as a Fellow at the Centre for International Affairs at Harvard University.” Tickell himself oddly includes a graph, which shows the Medieval Warm Period being much warmer than today, and a succession of ice ages. Tickell also states on the graph that it had been cooling from the 1940’s. He then goes on to state that, “all major change must come as a result of the earth’s relationship with the sun”.
With the second edition of the book, published in 1986, Tickell had radically revised his ideas first founded upon the Harvard research, and first draft of the publication. Tickell now takes a dystopian view of a doomed future for mankind, caused by exploding populations, and extensive damage to the environment, and importantly “man made climate change”.
In 1979 a panel chaired by Jule Charney concluded that if the quantity of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere should double (in other words, reach around 580 ppm) there would be a global warming of around 3ºC . These conclusions were examined and confirmed by another panel under the chairmanship of Joseph Smagorinsky in 1982. Tickell claimed that, if the annual increase of 4 percent in fossil-fuel consumption in the 1970s had continued, atmospheric carbon dioxide might, other things being equal, have reached 580 ppm by the year 2030.
Tickell wrote that, “But if the world is not to relapse into anarchy, with states warring over use and abuse of natural resources, some sort of international agreement in this respect – at least a self-denying ordinance and commitment to consult – seems essential ,,,, climatic agreements of the kind suggested would require a central body to manage them”
Tickell then went on to state that, “The work of the United States Department of Energy on carbon dioxide has far exceeded that of any other organisation anywhere. All work on the climate should be co-ordinated under international auspices, and major decisions which governments singly or together may take in that respect should have the sanction of the world community” and “Climatic problems are at once important, urgent, and long-term.” A code of conduct of Nations was proposed, which “should also recognise the more global threats to climatic stability represented by the increase of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other industrial pollutants in the atmosphere.”
Yes, Crispin Tickell had a lot more to do with Margaret Thatcher’s Speech than any other single person. George Guise was naught but an apparatchik of sorts, and does not deserve the blame for diverting Mrs. Thatcher from the true path of the real science of climate change, and what is responsible for that. No doubt Sir Crispin had many long meetings with UN Climate Supremo, Sir Maurice Strong, and therein lies perhaps the real truth of how and why a British Diplomat was brainwashed and corrupted into the Malthusian Doctrine of John P. Holdren and the Ehrlichs.
Read more on this fascinating evolution of this green prison we now find ourselves in, by clicking on the link to my name above, at the website of The Green Agenda.
I Thank You.
Mr Torcello is a typical CAGW alarmist, although his position gives him a slightly larger microphone than others.
Perhaps his microphone will either be turned off or at least turned down a bit now.
Saying there is a 97% consensus is easy. Proving that there is, is only possible if the consensus is very broad – such as there is a 97% consensus that climate changes.
Similarly, there may be wide-spread agreement that human CO2 emissions may cause an increase in the atmospheric temperature, but proving that it does and at what level (from barely discernable to dominant), has not be something that has been either observed or measured.
Mosher says; “In short, there is an inherent limit on the absolute free expression of academics: they are not free to suggest that others be prosecuted for thought crimes.”
Would you like to reconsider that statement Steve?
So, Torcello thinks it immoral and criminal to disagree with CAGW, but stays mum on whether it is criminal or immoral to withhold scientific evidence which cast doubt the theory (re: Mann and Censored, Phil Jones and Hide the Decline, Briffa and The One Tree, etc, ad nauseum).
This pretty much sums it up for me:
Steve Allen says:
March 15, 2014 at 6:38 am
Mosher says; “In short, there is an inherent limit on the absolute free expression of academics: they are not free to suggest that others be prosecuted for thought crimes.”
Would you like to reconsider that statement Steve?
________________________
Mosh implied, but left unstated, the underlying truth of freedom. Freedom means that we are “free” to live out the consequences of our thoughts and actions. True enough, academics are free to express anything, but they are not free from the repercussions of their speech.
The dishonestly pseudonymous “Thatcher’s Real Climate Guru” says it is an exaggeration to say that George Guise, my successor at 10 Downing Street, persuaded Margaret Thatcher to speak up about climate change.
That remark is a flagrant breach of the Eschenbach Rule that a commenter should cite and, if so minded, criticize what I actually said, and not what the commenter finds easier to attack than what I actually said.
What I actually said was: “However, it was my successor, George Guise, who worked with the Prime Minister on her 1988 speech to the Royal Society in which she announced the funding for what became the Hadley Centre.”
That statement is in all respects true. I was silent on the question of who persuaded the Prime Minister to take the extreme line from which she subsequently resiled.
Crispin Tickell says it was he, and Margaret admitted to having been influenced by him. However, he and I recently debated the climate issue at a country house somewhere in England, before an audience of almost 100. Though nothing as populist as a vote was taken, by common consent Tickell came second.
Tickell was also a trustee of a dubious charity run by Railroad Engineer Pachauri, whom he refers to as “Patchy” – not a bad description of Pachauri’s knowledge of climate science, or of Tickell’s, for that matter.
However, when I told Tickell that I had reported the charity to the Charities Commission for flagrant under-declaration of its income over a three-year period, he swiftly resigned as a trustee, leaving Pachauri – who was safely overseas and could not be touched – to face the music at a distance.
Patchy was very angry with me and made a couple of testy speeches at the time, asking who was this aristocrat who only got a dozen people at each of his speaker meetings. The previous week I had addressed 100,000 mineworkers and their families and friends, live, from a sound-stage on a mountain-top in West Virginia. Not long thereafter I addressed 40,000 Tea Partiers at the Washington Monument. Well, the IPCC were never very good at getting their quantities right.
@ur momisugly dbstealey, from 11:35 pm March 14,
“You seem to be advocating for Torcello. Why? Is there not anything you see that is despicable in what he has done?”
As you know from my writings and previous comments, I am firmly in the climate change skeptics’ camp. I am quite certain that much of the measured warming is due to man’s measurements, UHI, and not much else. I also have a chemical engineering degree and therefore know that gaseous CO2 does absorb and radiate thermal energy. We engineers use that principle to design fired heaters that actually work.
I do, and will continue to, advocate for Free Speech in the United States. Even speech that is annoying, offensive, bothersome, or despicable must not be suppressed, in my view. The US Supreme Court has explained at great length over many decades why that is so. The problem is, if annoying speech is to be illegal, who gets to decide what is annoying? Who decides what is offensive speech?
Speech is a valuable and very precious thing. The solution to those who espouse despicable actions based on wrong conclusions is more speech, not less. Shining the spotlight on Torcello may be a good idea, if that spotlight is accompanied by the good data, sound logic, and supportable conclusions employed by good climate warming skeptics. By the way, you are pretty good at providing such data, logic, and conclusions, dbstealey. On the other hand, giving a person like Torcello the spotlight may simply spread his views to a wider audience.
Next, you ask if what he wrote is despicable to me? He advocates charging supporters of climate research with criminal negligence, but only those whose research shows there is no cause for concern. I see it more as pitiable. First, Torcello argues that climate change inaction will result in human deaths. I see no evidence of CO2-induced human deaths. Even if Torcello can produce human deaths, proving that those deaths were caused by man’s increasing CO2 in the atmosphere will be quite a challenge. Certainly there have been deaths due to storms, and those deaths are indeed cause for regret and sadness. I lived for 25 years in hurricane-prone Houston, Texas. I have seen the destruction and deaths caused by violent storms. But, even alarmist scientists admit there is no causal link between increased atmospheric CO2 and storm severity or frequency.
“If people like Torcello get to set the agenda, then we have a harder time fighting these dishonest vermin.
Yes, “vermin”. That is what Torcello is IMHO, and I would hold that opinion no matter what LM or anyone else thinks or says. He is a hate-filled denizen of the ivory tower; a reprobate using his position to attack honest people for nothing more than holding opinions different than what he approves of. How is that any different in principle from a Stalin or a Hitler?”
I see the difference is that Torcello is a professor in a small university, not the leader of a country with vast military resources. He has a very small pulpit from which to preach his views.
“You say that “Torcello has the right to express his views.” But you appear to defend him at Lord Monckton’s expense. Where do you draw the line? These ivoy tower rascals can apparently say anything with impunity, but scientific skeptics are held to the very highest standards — standards that don’t seem to apply to the Torcelli’s of the world.”
I do not defend Torcello’s views on criminalizing climate science research. I defend his right to speak out, even when he is wrong. I also wrote above how Lord Monckton made some errors. This letter of Monckton’s fell short of his usual brilliance. Even the best ball players strike out from time to time. Do I draw a line? Yes, I draw the line where the US Supreme Court has drawn it on Free Speech. Should the Free Speech laws be changed so that what Torcello advocates is criminal? No. I much prefer that he be free to speak within the bounds established by many decades of Supreme Court cases on Free Speech.
“But you cannot find anything about Torcelli to criticize??
Why not?”
I could criticize Torcello’s bad analogy of the Italian earthquake deaths and deaths due to climate change. The one had deaths, provably caused by the earthquake. The other has, to my knowledge, zero deaths. The professor tried to make a case but failed.
I could criticize his advocacy of extreme measures for an unsettled scientific question. I could criticize his desire to suppress research into areas that differ with his view. I do say it is wrong to criminalize research into climate science.
@ur momisugly JDN
March 15, 2014 at 3:27 am
Academic standards and ethics are not “ridiculous.” That is what you are saying. Professors should be teaching young people not only knowledge, but the virtuous use of that knowledge. What we have here is a professor expressing fascist attitudes toward dissent. “If you can’t get down with the struggle, we will arrest you.” As you correctly note, no laws have been broken here; he cannot be arrested. But he can be disciplined severely, and should be if the university doesn’t want to be justly accused of tolerating fascist ideology in its ranks of instructors. This person, if he is not exposed and disciplined, may, for example, achieve a level of influence in the university that allows him to choose who will be hired in the philosophy department.
So contrary to your assertions, “private law” is everything here. It’s the only way to correct what is devious behavior by, of all people, a philosopher, whose very existence and effectiveness depends on free expression and the exploration of new metaphysical ideas.
Lawyers are useless in this case. The professoriat at RIT is the only hope for some form of justice in this case. If the problem is not pointed out to them in the form of letters of protest, how will they know to act?