Posted on 09/26/2004 9:04:36 PM PDT by rennatdm
Letter from the National Campus Director September 21, 2004
UGA Professor Investigated for Classroom Diatribe
Dear Students and Supporters,
Last week I reported the story of Bradley Alexander, a sophomore history major at the University of Georgia who attended the first lecture of a course on World Wars I and II only to find himself subjected to a hostile and profanity-laced tirade on why the President and Vice-President are “chicken-s—t” from his professor, John Morrow.
Bradley challenged the professor’s partisan remarks and his profanity, but his objections were summarily dismissed by the professor. Concerned about the professor’s unprofessional political diatribes and worried about the possible ramifications for his grades, Bradley dropped the course, but reported the experience to Students for Academic Freedom and developed it into an article for Frontpage Magazine.
The matter did not rest there. Having been confronted with Bradley’s detailed critique of his teaching and its detrimental effect on a Republican student, Morrow responded in a public article on the History News Network website. Instead of apologizing, he defended his remarks, inappropriate as they were, and their profanity. Morrow went so far as to personally insult Bradley, charging that he clearly must have lacked the courage of his convictions, or he would have willingly submitted himself to daily verbal abuse and harassment for his beliefs.
Morrow wrote: “In regard to the use of the epithet ‘chicken-s--t,’ I stand by it as well… ‘Chicken-s--t’ ….refers to people who do not have the courage of their convictions. I applied the term specifically to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, who avoided service in Vietnam, a war they both allegedly supported. I stated, furthermore, that it was ironic that Bush, who was able to avoid Vietnam service through the Guard, now had no difficulty sending the Guard to extended duty in Iraq, with the result that patriotic grandfathers—Bush’s contemporaries who served their country in Vietnam—have died there. Bush talks tough when the lives of others are on the line, but he did not act tough when his own life was at stake. The president should not say that he would have served if called, when he well knows that he was not going to be called to duty.”
Following this outrageous and unapologetic response, Students for Academic Freedom sprang into action. In a letter to University of Georgia President Michael Adams, David Horowitz urged President Adams to have Prof. Morrow deliver an apology to Bradley and the other students in his class. He further requested that UGA issue a statement that it is university policy that partisan political agendas have no place in an academic classroom and that professors should show respect for intellectual, political and religious diversity and should not introduce into their teaching controversial matters which have no relation to their subjects.
“Professors and students are not equals in a classroom setting,” Horowitz wrote. “Remarks such as Professor Morrow freely admits he made which have no relation to his subject are not-so-subtle means of intimidating students who identify with the President and have conservative views. They are a breach of the obligations professors have to their students—including their Republican students—to create an environment conducive to learning.” The full letter can be read here.
We are pleased to report that the attention brought to this issue by Students for Academic Freedom and Frontpage Magazine appears to have convinced the University of Georgia to take Bradley’s complaint seriously. We also owe thanks to the office of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue which contacted the University to express outrage at Morrow’s behavior. An attorney from the Office of Legal Affairs has been assigned by the Provost to investigate the situation and is planning to speak with other students from the class to confirm Bradley’s allegations. Professor Morrow will be informed that if he attempts to take any retaliatory action against Bradley for going public with this story, then disciplinary charges will be brought against him. We will continue to follow this story very closely and hope that Bradley will soon receive a well-deserved apology from Prof. Morrow for his appalling classroom conduct.
While this tale may ultimately have a successful resolution, many other students across the country are not so fortunate. Perhaps the course they are taking is required for their major and they don’t have the option of dropping the class as Bradley did. Perhaps they are fearful that administrators won’t take their objections to classroom indoctrination seriously. The example set by Bradley Alexander proves that students do have the power to curtail abusive classroom behavior and to make their campus administrations listen.
If your academic freedoms have been violated in the classroom, please contact me at Sara@studentsforacademicfreedom.org or at 202-969-2467. We can help you develop a plan of action to fight back and reclaim intellectual diversity on campus.
Yours in Freedom,
Sara Dogan National Campus Director Students for Academic Freedom
So how do we contact Mr. Morrow at UGA. I want to check out the courage of HIS convictions.
The kid shouldn't have quit the class. Instead he should have recorded each one. Then after he was graded he should have released the recordings to the public.
This student or someone else could likely now audit the course and do what you're suggesting, except that it costs money to do that. Record every utterance this guy makes in the classroom. That will probably mean he says nothing, but he'll know somebody's listening.
My husband's niece was complaining about this the other day -- she had had a similar thing happen to her -- a professor speaking to a class of freshmen (can't remember the course) was giving a profanity laced diatribe, and then said, "I know your little virgin ears are burning .... ... ... there is no absolute truth ... etc., etc.,"
Mr. Morrow's full contact data can be found via the search feature of uga.edu.
Here is what I found:
JOHN H MORROW JR
JOHN H MORROW
telephonenumber: 706-542-2536
postaladdress: 316 LECONTE HALL
postaladdress: ATHENS, GA
postalcode: 30602-1602
organization: HISTORY
mail: jmorrow@arches.uga.edu
title: PROFESSOR
The terms "professor" and "professional" denote an unequal, but nonetheless, a special relationship. To be worthy of the title of professional, a doctor has an obligation to his less informed patient to to use his knowledge and skill for the benefit of the patient. Likewise an attorney, to be worthy of being referred to as a "professional", is obligated to act in his clients best interest. At the same time, a professional has an additional duty to the public that a craftsman does not have.
This "professor" is lacking all the attributes that qualify him to be a professional educator. The man is simply a bully and should be made to at least apologize to his student.
I would like to see that that chickenshit professor get out from behind the podium and deal with the real world. There is truth to the saying "Those that can do, those that can't teach".
This commie deserves to be fired, but he probably has tenure, and most college teachers don't allow anyone to record their lectures.
(In memory of Roger Dancz)
Recordings could be made, and emailed from the pda in real time. Heck, for that matter, if wifi is available in the classroom, such lectures could be streamed live over the Internet.
Recording classes (on a tape recorder way back when, now digitally...) goes back a long way. That way one could sleep through the actual class, so he could gig later the night before. Not just for music majors, who also SHOULD record EVERY note they play.
Just as there's no such thing as non-partisan reporting of the news there's no such thing as a non-partisan view of history.
The proper way to deal with both situations is to make the citizenry, and students, aware of this. For example, the history of China from WWI to 1949 is still very much a partisan issue in this country. Students who disagree with their professors will have to learn how to defend their ideas. There's no other way - unless you want to impose McCarthyite censorship.
This is crap, Larry.
You fail to understand the difference between perfect objectivity, and honest attempts to be fair to different points of view.
We are only asking for the latter.
If that's true I withdraw my objection...but is it?
Staying with my example, how would you react to a professor who sided with Vinegar Joe Stilwell and Barbara Tuchman in their assessment of the factors which led to the Chinese civil war? Or with one who attempted to show the world as it looked to the Nazis during the Weimar period?
Assuming these professors were true professionals - they knew their periods well and treated their students with respect (perhaps using Socratic methods) - would you call for their removal because conservatives would be offended by the former and Jews by the latter?
I hate to see Georgia being infested by these liberal rats.
Ph.D. Pennsylvania 1971; Franklin Professor of History). Morrow joined the UGA faculty in 1988 as Franklin Professor and spent 1988-89 at the National Air and Space Museum as the Lindbergh Visiting Professor. He was elected history department chair in 1991, and then served as Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1993 through 1995 before returning to fulltime teaching and research. He has twice been selected an Honors Professor for superior teaching in the University Honors Program. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the History of Modern Europe and War and Sciety. The author of the books Building German Airpower, 1909-1914 (1976), German Airpower in World War I (1982), Morrow's book The Great War in the Air (1993) is considered the definitive study of airpower in the First World War. His latest work is the edited volume A Yankee Ace in the RAF. The World War I letters of Captain Bogart Rogers (1996). He authored the chapter on the air war in the prestigious Oxford Illustrated History of the First World War (1998), and he is currently writing a history of the First World War.
The Professor was paid to teach about WW1 and WW2, he had no business discussing current politics. Once when taking Western World Literature in College, the professor spent weeks talking about the Baccus fertility rites , and no time was spent discussing the literature selections we were reading. We took it to the top, and the professor was dismissed.
John H. Morrow, Jr. - Athens University of Georgia, Franklin Professor of History "Democrats must win back the 12th District, and John Barrow is the candidate who can do it."
http://www.barrowforcongress.com/endorsements.html
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.