UNM values image over its principals

A day or two after the Sigma Chi fraternity's swastika affair last December, the Daily Lobo published a letter from the president of the Black Student Union, who, in barely comprehensible English, blamed me and my columns for the incident and demanded that I be reprimanded by the administration.

I do not normally respond to such nonsense, but I am sick of people who are so anxious to limit the free speech of others, especially in the name of their own civil rights. So I e-mailed this person and called him an idiot.

And as expected, I promptly received nasty letters, constituting informal reprimands, from President Bill Gordon and Provost Brian Foster, to whom (among others) this offended party ran with copies of my e-mail. Both informed me that while my speech was protected by the first amendment - they aren't completely stupid in Scholes Hall - it was inappropriate and unprofessional.

Now, in almost 30 years of teaching, I have never called one of my students an idiot or stupid or used any other specific derogatory term, though I have been mightily tempted upon occasion. This character, however, was not one of my students, but some apparently poorly educated person making wild and insulting accusations about me and demanding that I be muzzled. It seemed to me completely appropriate and even professional to call him an idiot.

The letter from the president was personal, but copies of the provost's memorandum were sent to various administrators, thus making his memorandum a public statement from his office. He not only accused me of unprofessional conduct, but made the utterly ludicrous suggestion that my actions came close to "professional misconduct," an actionable offense.

Professional misconduct involves things such as plagiarism, assaulting colleagues, misusing funds and discriminating in grading. I find it chilling that the University of New Mexico now apparently considers saying things that someone finds offensive to be included in that list. I also find it incredibly silly: will the provost's office be supplying us with an official list of inappropriate words and expressions?

I would have hoped that the administration would have reacted to this student by explaining to him what free speech means and pointing out that when you say something negative about someone in the newspaper, you can expect to have it come back at you - as I know very well. But our administrators appear to be cut from the same cowardly cloth as those at other institutions, ready to sacrifice any principle and any faculty member to preserve the University's image - at least as they see it.

And this only encourages more silly demands from sundry campus groups, especially from hypersensitive activists who see vast racist and sexist conspiracies behind every foolish and stupid thing that happens on Fraternity Row.

Of course, none of this would have happened if the student in question had been white - I'm assuming the president of the Black Student Union is black; his color is utterly irrelevant to me. The president lectured me about adding to the tension during a campus crisis - a crisis which no one else seemed to notice was going on - but the real issue here is clearly racial politics and the administration's utter fear of being labeled racist and facing more troubles.

So instead of defending their faculty and the principle of free expression, our leaders will give in immediately to a single black student bearing an almost laughable complaint. One should note, however, that this is precisely the sort of cowardice typically engaged in by Ivy League administrations, so perhaps this should be seen as a mark of UNM's growing stature, already reflected in our soaring administrative salaries.

I have asked for an official apology from the provost's office for making such wild and unfounded accusations against me and then circulating them to others. I certainly do not expect to receive one, any more than I would expect Brian Foster to understand what a University actually is.