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CHICAGO, May 28, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – DePaul University in Chicago, one of the largest and most important Catholic universities in the US is hosting the second “Out There” conference on homosexuality and Catholic education. The conference, whose full title is the Conference of Scholars and Student Affairs Personnel Involved in “LGBTQ” (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and queer) issues on Catholic Campuses, is being organized through the DePaul Women’s and Gender Studies department. It is scheduled for October 19-20, 2007 and is calling for submissions for papers and workshops. The first Out There conference was held at Jesuit-run Santa Clara...

Sheik Jamal Said stood before the packed mosque and worked the crowd like an auctioneer. Speaking Arabic, the prayer leader asked for a donation of $10,000. No one responded. He asked for $5,000, and three men raised their hands. < SNIP> The recipient of the worshipers' generosity was Sami Al-Arian, a Palestinian activist accused by the U.S. government of aiding terrorists. And the prayer leader's passionate appeal is a reflection of the ascendancy of Muslim hard-liners at the mosque, one of the most outspoken and embattled in the U.S. The mosque did not become this way without a struggle. Relying...

How low will the forces of political correctness stoop? Well, all the way down to the basement of Chicago's Adler Planetarium, that's for certain. I took Litte Marathon Pundit there Tuesday afternoon. She's on spring break from school this week, and her third grade class is spending a lot of time discussing astronomy. The planetarium underwent a major expansion in the 1990s, I hadn't been there since the project was completed. My daughter liked our day-trip a lot, and that was enough for me. Almost. My probing eye picked up some frightening political-correctness in the astrolobe section of the planetarium....

WEB SITES LINK CATHOLIC COLLEGES TO PLANNED PARENTHOOD, ABORTION-RIGHTS GROUPS MANASSAS, VA (March 16, 2006) - Despite the Catholic Church's clear opposition to abortion, contraception and premarital sexual activity, a Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) review of Catholic college and university Web sites has revealed links and referrals to abortion clinics including Planned Parenthood-the largest abortion provider in the United States-and abortion-rights and pro-contraception groups.   CNS is a national organization to renew and strengthen the Catholic identity of Catholic colleges and universities in the U.S. Founded in 1993, CNS has more than 18,000 members.   Whether it's internship and job...

DePaul Offers Minor in Homosexual StudiesBeginning this semester, DePaul University is offering a new minor, officially called “The LGBTQ [Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer] Studies Program at DePaul.” The program includes courses in English literature, comparative literature, American Studies, psychology and women and gender studies. Offerings vary from “Queer Studies” to the history of sexuality from the Puritans to the Victorian Era. It has not been indicated that all courses and materials will be entirely consistent with Catholic teaching. To protest: Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, C.M., President, 55 E. Jackson Blvd., 22nd Floor, Chicago, IL 60604; (312) 362-8890; dholtsch@depaul.edu  CNS Urges...

A student group that protested a campus appearance by University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill has become DePaul University’s latest victim of censorship. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) intervened after the university banned its College Republicans from posting flyers protesting Churchill’s visit and actually changed its own rules to prevent the organization from attending a workshop that he would be leading. "Just as DePaul was free to invite Ward Churchill to speak, so should its students be free to object to that invitation,” said FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg Lukianoff. "DePaul’s president boasts of...

CHICAGO, December 21, 2005—A student group that protested a campus appearance by University of Colorado Professor Ward Churchill has become DePaul University’s latest victim of censorship. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) intervened after the university banned its College Republicans from posting flyers protesting Churchill’s visit and actually changed its own rules to prevent the organization from attending a workshop that he would be leading. “Just as DePaul was free to invite Ward Churchill to speak, so should its students be free to object to that invitation,” said FIRE Director of Legal and Public Advocacy Greg Lukianoff. “DePaul’s...

First, a flashback to Tuesday's Chicago Tribune article about Thomas Klocek's free speech struggle at DePaul University, as the Chicago college's president, Father Dennis Holtschneider, speaks out about free speech: "I get accused of being against free speech," Holtschneider said. "But freedom of speech for students requires they have a professor who treats them with respect." Well, the free speech problems at DePaul go beyond its reprehensible conduct in the Klocek affair. FIRE, by the way, is short for Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. From the organization's mission statement: The mission of FIRE is to defend and sustain individual...

Before he became an unlikely cause celebre, Thomas Klocek was an anonymous foot soldier in the bookish garrison of the ivory tower. The job title may be "adjunct," but their myriad ranks are a bulwark of higher education. They teach the introductory courses the permanent faculty disdains. That frees tenured professors to do research and work with graduate students. It also helps balance the budget. Adjuncts are paid by the course, at academia's equivalent of Wal-Mart wages. At DePaul University, where Klocek long taught, he reached a high of $34,000, one year. Other years, his earnings were $16,000. But he...

Heroic Todd Beamer was not in the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. But he led the famous "Let's Roll" charge into the cockpit of Flight 93, which crashed that same day in Pennsylvania after being hijacked by al-Qaida terrorists. He was a DePaul grad, earning his MBA from the Chicago school in 1993. So, does October 20 and 21 DePaul speaker Ward Churchill think Todd was a "Little Eichmann?"

As regular visitors to this blog know, renowned aca-demon Ward Churchill will be returning to his native Illinois and speak at Chicago's DePaul University on October 20 and 21. (The second event, I believe, is not open to the public.) Information, courtesy of the DePaul University Division of Student Affairs' Cultural Center, is available here on their web site. Here is the "Psycho" Ward stuff: October 20, 2005 Lecture: Ward Churchill -Open to DePaul Community 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., Student Center 314-A) October 21, 2005 Multicultural Human Rights Education Workshop (2:00 p.m. 4:30 p.m., Student Center 314-B) -Ward Churchill–...

DePaul University, currently being sued by a professor terminated for a spirited discussion with Muslim students about Middle East politics, has invited Ward Churchill to lecture next month. Churchill is the University of Colorado professor who attracted national attention for his essay characterizing Sept. 11 victims as "little Eichmanns," for explaining that al-Qaida had a legitimate beef with the U.S. and for questions raised about his own background and resume. But Chicago's DePaul as a venue is of particular note given its treatment of professor Thomas Klocek, currently suing the university for defamation over his suspension for behavior in a...

One year ago today, DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek had a discussion with some Muslim students... ....and was suspended because his ideas didn't match the PC groupthink found on almost all college campuses today. On September 15, 2004, Klocek, an adjunct professor at Chicago's DePaul University for 14 years, was walking through a campus cafeteria where a student activities fair was taking place. He noticed a couple of display tables staffed by United Muslims Moving Ahead (UMMA) and the DePaul Chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) More on Students for Justice in Palestine here, courtesy of Frontpage Magazine's Discover...

In the latest chapter of a fierce academic feud, Alan M. Dershowitz, the celebrity Harvard Law School professor, tried to pressure the University of California Press not to publish a book critical of Israel that also attacked his scholarship. The press is publishing the book despite Dershowitz's efforts, but with significant changes. The book will no longer include author Norman G. Finkelstein's claim that Dershowitz did not write, ''The Case for Israel," nor will it use the word ''plagiarize" in its argument that the Harvard law professor inappropriately borrowed from another work, according to the director of the press. An...

Why would the University of California Press (UCP) be publishing a sequel to a book that several distinguished historians have compared to the notorious czarist forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion? It is by an author whose previous works were eliminated from the curriculum by the Toronto School Board because they were “anti-Semitic.” This author has also been characterized as a “writer celebrated by neo-Nazi groups for his Holocaust revisionism…,” and as a purveyor of “crackpot ideas, some of them mirrored almost verbatim in the propaganda put out by neo-Nazis….” Imagine if a university press were publishing an...

Thomas Klocek, the DePaul professor who lost his job without due process after arguing with several students about the Middle East at a student activities fair, has now sued DePaul. Much of the suit focuses on claims that DePaul defamed Klocek, in part by providing the public with false and misleading information about his health. Klocek also claims breach of contract. In this case, DePaul has shamefully taken a single encounter where the facts are in dispute (the students and professor present radically different versions of the event), and has transformed it into a veritable festival of repression. First, DePaul...

A DePaul professor who was suspended after having a spirited discussion about the Middle East with Muslim students sued the university and two of its officials for defamation yesterday. Professor Thomas Klocek alleges the administrators wrongly characterized his arguments as racist and bigoted. He seeks damages against the school for maligning his "integrity and professional competence." Last September, Klocek attended a Student Activities Fair on the Chicago campus and happened to visit the table of the Students for Justice in Palestine, a statement announcing the lawsuit stated. After the professor took a handout that showed an Israeli bulldozer destroying a...

CHICAGO (AP) A former DePaul University instructor filed a defamation lawsuit Tuesday against the school, claiming officials maligned him publicly after he got in a heated argument with pro-Palestinian students at a campus activities fair. Thomas Klocek, a 14-year part-time professor, has not worked at DePaul since the Sept. 15 incident involving students from two groups, Students for Justice in Palestine and United Muslims Moving Ahead. Both Klocek and the students agree that a loud argument began after the instructor picked up a pro-Palestinian flier from one of the groups. The students complained to school authorities that Klocek identified himself...

Under the title of "DePaul's predicament: The choice--Stop--or stop justifying--anti-Israel sentiment," the Chicago Jewish Star returns to the issues haunting Chicago's DePaul University. In its previous edition, the Star summarized Thomas Klocek's free speech struggle against DePaul, and it included this quote from Klocek, "I stood for Israel, because it is in the right. I paid the price at a Christian University." The Chicago Jewish Star is not available online, it's a free-weekly. If you're in Chicago's Loop, look for a Jewish Star newspaper box and pick up a copy to see the entire editorial. Here are some excerpts: During...

Publication of The Case for Israel has made me the target of vicious personal attacks. A systematic effort to discredit the book, and me, has been undertaken by a well-organized group of Israel bashers led by Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, and Alexander Cockburn. As soon as the book reached the bestseller lists and began to get good reviews around the country, this triumvirate went to work. They had a model for their attack going back 20 years. The mode of attack is consistent. Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that...

CHICAGO, May 18, 2005—DePaul University administrators have suspended Professor Thomas Klocek without a hearing after he engaged in an out-of-class argument with pro-Palestinian students at a student activities fair. When the students complained to administrators, Klocek was denied the rights that DePaul guarantees to professors accused of wrongdoing and immediately suspended. Statements from DePaul administrators indicate that Klocek was disciplined because of his harsh criticism of the students’ viewpoint, despite DePaul’s stated commitments to free speech and academic freedom. “DePaul has unquestionably violated Professor Klocek’s due process rights, and the university did so because his statements were allegedly offensive,” commented...

URGENT NEED: DePaul students who support Klocek Please e-mail me at klocekbacker@yahoo.com if you are a current DePaul student who'd like to go "on the record" in support of suspended Professor Thomas Klocek. I will e-mail you back with the details. Thanks!!!!

During the past five years issues relating to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians have challenged university administrators. Not least among the institutions embroiled is DePaul University. The nation’s largest Catholic university, DePaul serves more than 23,000 students. Founded on the principle of admitting people of all religions, the university has no idea how many students are Catholics, Muslims, or Jews, although anecdotal estimates in the Jewish community peg the number of Jewish students at around 1,000. On the one hand, Jewish students at DePaul encounter a campus environment well equipped to serve their social, spiritual, and educational needs....

The elevation of Pope Benedict XVI to the Papal Suite at the Vatican might give some of America’s Catholic colleges and universities the chance to be more than Catholic in Name Only (CINO). “Catholic theology is not individual reflection but thinking with the faith of the Church,” then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said in a 1999 U. S. visit. “If you will do other things and have other ideas of what God could be or could not be, there is the freedom of the person to do it, clearly.” “But one should not say this is Catholic theology.” When Nigerian Cardinal Francis...

Like many other students, over the past four years at DePaul, I’ve had very little opportunity to directly see the administration working for the well-being of the student body. In fact, I would say quite the opposite. I’ve seen computers taken out of dorm rooms, free prints removed and tuition and fees increased. That is until recently. DePaul University, more specifically Dean Dumbleton from the School for New Learning and Vice-President Doyle from the office of student affairs made a very difficult decision to protect the students. During this year’s fall quarter at the Loop Campus Student Involvement Fair, representatives...

To: DePaul University Whereas we the undersigned believe that academic institutions have an obligation to promote and encourage the free exchange of diverse ideas and opinions on controversial matters; And whereas, after examining various accounts regarding the circumstances surrounding the unpaid suspension of DePaul Professor Thomas Klocek, we believe that he was punished primarily because of the content of opinions he expressed on a controversial subject; And whereas we believe that his due process rights, including his right to an open, comprehensive hearing on the charges against him, his right to confront his accusers, and his right to academic freedom...

Another word for ‘politically correct’ is ‘intolerant’By JAY AMBROSE Guest Commentary MY ONLINE dictionary has a politically correct definition of “politically correct,” saying that the phrase refers to support for “broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.” It gives a hint at the real meaning when it says the phrase can point to someone who is perceived as being “overconcerned with such change, often to the exclusion of other matters,” and that PC behavior “involves changing or avoiding language that might offend anyone.” But the definition...

DePaul’s Jihad against academic freedomApril 18th, 2005 DePaul University in Chicago is one of the fastest growing universities in the country. It has become the largest Catholic-affiliated university in America. Muslim and Arab students are one of the segments of DePaul's student population that has seen the greatest increase in numbers in recent years. Although no figures are available, these students are an important source of revenue for the University, and many may well pay full tuition, making their attendance particularly lucrative. Perhaps in recognition of this market segment, the University hired Norman Finkelstein to teach in its Political Science...

Facts are stubborn things - except when you create your own. When I was asked about the "Jenin Massacre" by a Muslim student during an event at Norfolk's Old Dominion this week, it became clear we were coming from two very different perspectives: reality vs. mythology. There was no "Jenin Massacre." Period. The only "massacre" that took place at Jenin was that of the truth. Palestinians, long masters of media manipulation, went by the hundreds to foreign media - whom Israel kept outside of the armed conflict - to claim that over 500 innocents had been slaughtered. The man at...

Chicago’s DePaul University, which has taken a couple of hits for its grotesque squashing of a professor’s free-speech rights, is hitting back, adding defamatory insult to career-ending injury – and a question comes to mind. It’s a question that was asked by the counsel for the Army in 1954 when Sen. Joseph McCarthy was seeking out Communists in the government. He threw his charges around with little or no evidence; others in Congress did the same, and sometimes reputations were recklessly ruined. In the hearing, McCarthy got tangled with the counsel, Joseph Welch, in suggesting that a young associate of...

Catholic universities in the United States have in recent years shown a weakness for cultivating far-leftist anti-Semites and haters of America. Perhaps the best known has been Notre Dame, home of the extremist Kroc Institute, which attempted to sponsor Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss Arab with ties to Al Qaeda, for a three-year professorship. But in many ways, DePaul University is even worse. DePaul is a large, if not particularly academically renowned, Catholic college in Chicago, nominally associated with “Congregation of the Mission,” more popularly known as the Vincentians. Until recently, the main cause of controversy surrounding DePaul was its insistence...

After the University of Colorado's Ward Churchill scandal, you might think it's nearly impossible for U.S. universities to get rid of faculty members. It's not so. While it's true that faculty members can embrace terrorists, demean their victims, plagiarize the work of others, lie about their ethnic backgrounds for better positions and generally hold America and Americans in contempt, there is something they can say on the college campus that will get them fired. In fact, I can tell you very easily and succinctly what a college professor can do to get the ax on nearly any university campus across...

Columbia Unbecoming is on the whole just a series of complaints having to do mainly with manner or etiquette in the classroom, but the real issue has to do with the meager and politicized content that professors choose to teach. As Efraim Karsh, head of the Mediterranean Studies department at King’s College, University of London, implied on March 6 in Uris Hall, Massad’s classroom hysterics are not the real problem. The real problem is a polite and affable man like Professor Khalidi, who nevertheless peddles political propaganda in class, propaganda masquerading as real scholarship.Two articles in the March 23, 2005...

Liberals need to watch their mouths. After the build-up to war and the presidential election, it's as if they got drunk and said some things they shouldn't have. On www.sorryeverybody.com, liberals have posted messages such as, "We're sorry half our country is a bunch of morons." That translates from drunk-speak to English as "Hey, I'm not going down without a fight!" It's as if now, instead of sobering up and apologizing for their indignation, they're just getting drunker in their bitterness. It's gotten so out of hand, columnist Jay Ambrose recently wrote that liberals' lack of tolerance for conservative or...

Thomas Klocek showed up at DePaul University one day this month to stage a news conference. He taped his mouth shut and used rope and more tape to bind his arms and torso. His point was that the university had gagged him, denying the long-time adjunct the opportunity to teach because of views on the Middle East that he expressed one day in September. That’s one view of the case — and a view that is spreading widely online, where Klocek is being embraced by various groups as a victim of political correctness. Because Klocek was accused of intimidating pro-Palestinian...

A part-time adjunct professor at DePaul University has been suspended over an argument he had last September with Muslim and Palestinian students concerning the Middle East situation and Israel's role in it. The case has raised troubling questions both on campus-where many students and professors were not aware of it until several months after the fact-and off. Did 58-year-old Professor Thomas Klocek "verbally attack" the students for their "religious beliefs and ethnicity," "demean their ideas," "dishonor their perspective" and "press erroneous assertions," as the school has charged? Or is it a case of "political correctness run amuck" at the nation's...

As the just-resigned president of the University of Colorado said, there’s a “new McCarthyism” alive in America. But it’s hardly what was gnawing at her. Her expressed fear was that critics of Ward Churchill, a professor of sorts at her institution, now feel “empowered.” Wow. Churchill, in case you forgot, is the guy who as much as said that all of those killed in the Pentagon and most of those killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 had it coming. He hates America. He advocates violence or whatever it takes to change things. He seems to have received tenure...

Adjunct professor Thomas Klocek of the School of New Learning staged a press conference Tuesday, March 1 to protest his suspension from his teaching position. The suspension stemmed from an incident last academic quarter involving two cultural student groups. According to those present, Klocek was involved in heated arguments in which school officials later said was "threatening and disrespectful to students." In a formal letter to the board of trustees sent out by his attorney, Klocek listed several demands from DePaul: “A public apology by the President to be published in the DePaulia stating that DePaul violated its own policies...

March 1, 2005 — A dispute over censorship inspired a DePaul University professor to show up at his own press conference bound and gagged. Last fall, DePaul University professor Thomas Klocek was suspended without a hearing for challenging the viewpoints of certain Muslim students on campus at a student activities fair. He is now demanding a public apology from the university president in order to avoid litigation. Klocek showed up to the news conference bound and gagged, illustrating what he believes the university did to him by censoring his views on the Middle East. Klocek says he was unfairly suspended...