Free Republic

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...

International Solidarity Movement, Electronic Intifada, Boycotting Israel Since I started my column here at Canada Free Press it seems the Palestinian propaganda movement, which also likes to call itself the International Solidarity Movement, is upset with me. After all, a movement that likes to tell the world it is a "peace and human rights" movement out for "social justice," but then works to steal foreign aid money and to aid terrorists to murder women and children can get very upset when it is exposed to the light of day. They are so upset with me that no less than five...

Thomas Klocek was, until September 2004, a popular adjunct professor in the School of New Learning at DePaul University in Chicago. A private university linked to the Vincentians, DePaul may not be prestigious, but it is one of America's fastest-growing universities. Many readers will recognize it as the home of the notorious anti-Zionist, Norman Finkelstein. Klocek taught at DePaul for fourteen years until his dismissal on what I can only describe, not merely as the flimsiest, but as the most prejudicial of grounds. During a Student Activities Fair, a group of eight students representing Students for Justice in Palestine and...

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...

So what happened? On September 15, 2004, I attended a student activities fair at the Loop Campus of DePaul University. I noticed a group there called Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), and I saw they had some literature. On the front of one of the brochures was a picture of Rachel Corey, the American who had been accidentally killed by an Israeli bulldozer. The literature, however, had her murdered by the Israelis; it also included many other incendiary and anti-Israeli remarks. As I was reading the pamphlet, I asked the students, “Did you know that in addition to the...

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...

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...

Back in September of last year, Thomas Klocek did what you'd think is perfectly OK for a professor to do — mandatory, even, for one who is intellectually honest and believes it his mission to challenge students to think clearly and know what they are talking about. It may have wrecked his life, however, when he stopped at a table at a student-activities fair to debate for maybe 20 minutes with students maintaining that Israel was murderous in its treatment of Palestinians. He argued back. Israel, he said, tries to avoid civilian casualties in warring against terrorists, but Palestinian suicide-bombers...

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...

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...

Sit-in Sentences Soon for UC TrioBy JAKOB SCHILLER (10-31-03) Following a heated five-hour sentencing hearing Tuesday, three UC Berkeley students—Michael Smith, Snehal Shingavi and Rachel Odes—are waiting to learn what, if any, punishments the university will mandate for their actions during a March 23 campus anti-war protest. After hearing proposed punishments from campus Judicial Officer Neal Rajmaira and a spirited defense from the students, a panel of professors, staff and students has one week to draw up a letter spelling out its own recommendations to Dean of Students Karen Kenney. Once the recommendations are submitted, the students will be able...

Activists Convicted of Campus Code ViolationsStudent Protesters Declare Hearing ‘Witch Hunt,’ Storm Out By SHAUNA SWEENEYContributing WriterWednesday, October 15, 2003 After abruptly walking out of their own hearing yesterday, three prominent student activists arrested in an anti-war protest last spring were found guilty of violating university code by a campus committee. Michael Smith, Rachel Odes and Snehal Shingavi, all active members of the Berkeley Stop the War Coalition, were found guilty of disturbing the peace and failing to comply with an official. Smith was also convicted for restricting and resisting a university official. However, the three students were cleared of two...