Posted on 10/04/2008 10:24:54 PM PDT by Lathspell
CSULB: Academic Senate distances itself from Kevin MacDonald's controversial works.
LONG BEACH - The Cal State Long Beach Academic Senate has voted to disassociate itself from the writings of a controversial psychology professor who has been accused of having anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views.
"While the Academic Senate defends Dr. Kevin MacDonald's academic freedom and freedom of speech, as it does for all faculty, it firmly and unequivocally disassociates itself from the anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views he has expressed," according to the resolution Thursday.
Responding to the resolution, MacDonald, a tenured professor, said "everyone has ethnic interests."
"This is an absolutely respectable scientific proposal," he wrote in the e-mail to the Press-Telegram.
"European Americans are the only group whose ethnic interests have been pathologized," he added. "No one disputes that Koreans, say, have ethnic interests and have a right to keep Korea Korean."
"Quite a few of the people who voted to censure me are ethnic activists on behalf of their ethnic group," he continued. "The College of Liberal Arts is full of these people. Yet only I am censured."
MacDonald had been invited to discuss his work with the Academic Senate prior to the vote, but he did not respond, according to Academic Senate chairman Praveen Soni.
MacDonald's research on Jews has been called anti-Semitic by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In approving a resolution disassociating itself from MacDonald's work, the Academic Senate was following the lead of the departments of psychology, history, anthropology and linguistics, which had already approved similar resolutions.
MacDonald's controversial research also recently prompted a statement by CSULB President F. King Alexander that MacDonald's views "are his own entirely."
"I also would like to reiterate a statement that I have made on previous occasions that I personally find his views deplorable and reprehensible, and they in no shape or form whatsoever represent the views of this great university," he said.
Members of the Academic Senate did not call for MacDonald to be terminated or disciplined because they believe that would conflict with the concept of academic freedom, Soni said.
According to the resolution, MacDonald "repeated descriptions of Jews as a threat to white, European civilization" and characterized Western anti-Semites as "a rational, defensive response to the presence of Jews and their `hyper-ethnocentrism' and collectivist culture.
"MacDonald has advocated for the protection of the interests of `White European' Americans: ideally through the creation of a white ethnostate or failing that, through a return to the racially based restrictions of earlier U.S. immigration policy," the resolution stated.
MacDonald has also come under criticism because his research has been cited approvingly by white supremacist David Duke.
He also has been criticized for serving as an expert witness in 2000 in support of a London libel lawsuit brought by David Irving, who was found guilty by an Austrian jury of the crime of denying the Holocaust and sentenced to jail.
Irving lost his lawsuit against another professor and was rebuked by the judge, who called him an "active Holocaust denier."
MacDonald in the past has said he testified to defend Irving's "free speech," not to endorse his views.
MacDonald has accused his critics of misrepresenting his research. He also has said that he doesn't have control over his research being used without his consent by Duke and other white supremacists.
When interviewed by the Press-Telegram last year, he said that the interests of the "organized Jewish community" are in conflict with those of other ethnicities and ultimately aim to "lessen the power of the European-derived majority."
He claims that a major "Jewish interest" is a "liberal" immigration policy that has led to a "fragmentation of America," putting the country at risk of ethnic conflict as the formerly white majority becomes the minority.
History professor Don Schwartz said that he would have supported the resolution of disassociation if he were a member of the Academic Senate.
"He certainly seems to represent a white ethnocentric viewpoint that sees multiculturalism as a negative influence in America, and I would disagree with that," he said.
But the Academic Senate also was right to declare support for MacDonald's right to free speech, Schwartz added.
I fainted when I read he had “white ethno-centric views” they should fire him for that.
As long as profs at various academic institutions can hold non-white “ethnocentric views” and be anti-Caucasian under the guise of academic freedom, what’s the problem? Not that I necessarily care for this professor’s viewpoint, but this shows the folly of political correctness applied in academia.
No kidding. A white man is censured for supporting his culture while every other race and ethnicity goes merrily on their way fighting to gain more privilege for their group.
Whomever voted to censure this man showed their own racism.
JoMa
If you believe this professor should be fired for have “white ethno-centric views”, you will of course want anyone who espouses “black ethno-centric” or “Latino ethno-centric” views fired as well, correct?
JoMa
Its a joke, liberalism is a joke, PC is a joke, but yet these cult sociopaths rule by fear and such grevious double standards are kept as some bizarre pacification ritual lest we have “no justice no peace.” As for MacDonald I have read some of what he has written and the fault to his work is that he never ever spoke to a Jew, he instead introduced a hypothesis as theory without complete inquiry, but he is an academic after all.
The fellow that made up Kwaanza teaches there too. He is quite the race hustler. Served a sentence for murder, IIRC. No doubt he was condemning Macdonald.
Not murder, but assault, imprisonment, and torture of two women in his cult. But it was some of his followers who murdered some Black Panthers.
And he was definitely a separatist...totally against integration.
He later became a Marxist in prison, so when he founded Kwanzaa, he added the Marxist principles.
"The sevenfold path of blackness is think black, talk black, act black, create black, buy black, vote black, and live black." --The Quotable Karenga
Disgusting that this creep isn't rotting in solitary confinement on sustinance rations.
bookmark
I have my disagreements with McDonald. But IMO there is no denying that he has shown far more intellectual courage and respect for academic principles than the typical PC clone in the Cal State system.
Did they contact Ward Churchill as a consultant?
Him & “Doc Kwanza” would make a good pair of expert witnesses.
MacDonald actually have done several interviews with Jewish magazines, authors, and etc. Also, the editor of his book, “Culture of Critique”, is Jewish. So your claim that he doesn’t know any Jews is quite inaccurate.
Nonetheless, I am not quite sure how that is relevant as his book is a historical and group-centric approach in which his information is based on things written in history and documented in the present world.
They interviewed him, his work should have been vice versa. I read CoC fine book, certainly raises the specter of skeletons in the closet, but I don’t think it went completely from hypothesis to theory. For example Sydney Blumental in some recent worthless book brought forward the “Studies in Predjudice” work perhaps MacDonald could interview him.
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