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Lynnux's avatar

Dear Dr. Klein: Your case is less that of your academic freedom and more, I think, about your ethical duty as a professor to treat all students fairly, that is, in accordance with the principle of equal protection, which means, not showing favoritism to anyone. But perhaps I'm just less focused on your relationship with an increasingly authoritarian university entity seeking to micromanage your teaching and more on your duty to your students.

A related story. In the sixties, my father was chairman of the Dep't of Electrical Engineering of Howard University in Washington D.C. He was once held at knifepoint by one of his students, during one of the campus riots that went on then, who was demanding that the "F" that he had received from my father be raised to a "B." (These days of course the demand would be that the "F" be changed to an "A," and perhaps no "F" would ever have been given at all, regardless of the student's failure to perform.) My father refused. I believe that the police were informed, and appropriate action taken. But that was then, and sadly, this is now.

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Len's avatar

Nothing will change... no accountability exists. When powerful people can ignore Congressional subpoenas in plain sight and parts of national media backs them up, thinking that a University will be held accountable is just naivete'. I am so glad that Bari found a way to be able to publically say what those who focus on the truth of the matter and not the politics have always know to be the facts. She went through a tough time and came out the other side, and she found her voice without sensor or politics.

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