Witch discovered at the University of Kentucky

Back in 2007, The Family Foundation of Kentucky brought public attention the lack of political diversity at the University of Kentucky. UK now has whole departments devoted to left-wing political and social activism with no balance in sight. So-called "Women's Studies" and "Queer Theory" now grace the supposedly "Diverse" curriculum of a university that wants the public to take it seriously--and the legislature to continue to give it taxpayer money.

Anyway, the Foundation published several publications that featured members of the UK staff. They recounted the university's own website rhetoric about their staff's involvement in Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and their cutting edge scholarship in faux academic disciplines. The publications were characterized in a Lexington Herald-Leader editorial as an "academic witch hunt."

Well, we are happy to report that a witch has been uncovered.

More precisely, one of the professor's featured as examples of left-wing political activists disguised as teachers was a man by the name of Robert S. Tannenbaum, director of the undergraduate research office in the University of Kentucky's undergraduate education office. At the time, Tannenbaum was a board member of the Kentucky ACLU and was teaching a course called "I Know My Rights," which was a course about civil rights law taught by a guy who apparently specialized in computer IT services and who holds an Ed.D.

What a gig.

Well, Tannenbaum may know his rights, but he apparently doesn't know his wrongs. He was charged last Tuesday with four counts of incest with an 8th grader.

No word yet from Lee Todd about whether incest too is covered under academic freedom.

How to avoid the real issue in an argument and talk about things that really don't matter instead

Well I never got to respond to several letters to the editor of the Lexington Herald-Leader in response to my column about the lack of ideological diversity at the University of Kentucky. Now let me just say that I love debates like this: ones in which the left has to literally abandon their own principles to defend their own principles.

On the one hand, they say they're in favor of diversity. On the other hand, they want to impose their own ideology, which is anything but diverse. And the latter always trumps the former.

On August 2, Jeff Sharp of Lexington and Robert Pohowsky used the usual litany of nonarguments that social liberals employ when they don't have real ones in their response to my opinion piece in the Herald-Leader last Monday about the lack of ideological diversity at the University of Kentucky.

Both of the articles attacked calls for ideological diversity at UK in the name of ideological diversity. In fact, he attacked my piece calling for ideological diversity and defended Penneybacker's piece where he came out against it and for UK's current policy of ideological uniformity.

Memo to Jeff Sharp: the best way to defend a position is not to attack the very position you are defending. Trust me on this.

Sharp even ends his letter in defense of ideological diversity (in which he attacks ideological diversity) with a little cheer for "progressive programs." And we all know what "progressive" means, don't we?

In the rest of the letter, Sharp does what social liberals commonly do when they don't have actual arguments to defend their positions: he changes the subject. The common way to change the subject is to charge your opponent with being concerned only with one issue--even when he may be involved in all kinds of issues. Of course there were several issues mentioned in my article, and The Family Foundation, which he apparently considers "unprogressive," deals with all kinds of issues, including economic issues affecting families, education, health care, and fiscal responsibility--or the lack thereof, if we're talking about bringing casinos into the state.

He also brings up the issue of the $11 million that was earmarked for Cumberland College and asks why The Family Foundation wasn't concerned about fiscal responsibility in that case. The answer for which, of course, was that the $11 million was going for a school of pharmacy, that would produce pharmacists. What does Sharp have against training pharmacists?

He apparently prefers training political ideologues--the specialty of the UK Gender and Women's Studies program.

But Sharp should have compared notes with the other letter writer, Robert Pohowsky. Pohowsky is apparently under the impression that I have taken a position on Intelligent Design:

Educated people see through the pseudo-scientific ploy of intelligent design, which is, fundamentally, another name for creationism. Likewise, taxpayers should see what lies behind the foundation's demand for what it calls diversity in academia.

What this has to do with UK's ideological uniformity I don't know, but the relevant question is how it is possible that I could have a position on Intelligent Design at all if I'm a "one-issue gadfly," which he accuses me of being elsewhere in the piece?

Oops.

Pohowsky then proceeds to employ another diversionary technique: he argues against something I never actually said:

Diversifying UK's faculty by adding people approved by the foundation makes almost as much sense as diversifying the staff of Central Baptist Hospital by adding a team of tree surgeons.

Uh, where did I say that the UK should add faculty we approve of? We asked for the university to start focusing on academics not politics. In fact, we are against the kind of political litmus tests that the Gender and Women's Studies program employs.

There shouldn't be any political or ideological litmus tests other than academic competence. That's the whole point.

Why am I not surprised they missed it?

Tolerance Police reprimanded by court on speech codes

The champions of tolerance and diversity at our university campuses took another hit from a federal appeals court which ruled yesterday that they actually have to be tolerant and allow for diversity. The third circuit court of appeals ruled that Temple University's speech code was unconstitutional.

From the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education's press release:

"The Third Circuit's ruling today is a clear and crucial victory for freedom of speech at our nation's public colleges and universities," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "The court's decision serves as unequivocal notice to university administrators across the country that the First Amendment still applies on campus. Today's victory demonstrates, yet again, that public universities maintain unconstitutional speech codes at their peril."

Even the ACLU was on the side of the angels on this one.

The Saudi's aren't the only ones who hate the West. Take a look at your local public university

A new Hudson Institute study claims that the Saudi Ministry of Education is still promoting hate against the West. Why are we so upset about this? Our own universities have been doing it for a long time.

Some responses to "Lack of Ideological Diversity at UK"

A couple of letters in the Lexington Herald-Leader in response to my piece on the lack of ideological diversity at the University of Kentucky.

Pennybacker's sermon against sermonizing

Albert Pennybacker's editorial appeared in Monday's Lexington Herald-Leader right below my piece calling on the University of Kentucky to practice what it preaches about diversity.

The headline for his piece was, "Foundation using religion to divide, not to embrace." The "Foundation," of course, is a reference to The Family Foundation, which is the organization that has been spearheading the attempt to bring attention to the taxpayer-funded political activism at the state's universities.

Trouble is, the Family Foundation did not use religion in its effort to expose the hypocrisy at UK. Nowhere is religion even mentioned in any of its comments on the issue. In fact, as far as I know, Pennybacker is the first one to invoke religion in this debate. Ironically, he invokes it in order to condemn people who invoke it, which is just slightly self-defeating.

In fact, this is hardly the first time that The Family Foundation has been charged with bringing religion into a public debate by people who can't seem to stop talking about it. I'm thinking here of State Rep. Kathy Stein (D-Lexington), another public figure who is so opposed to the inclusion of religion in public life that she can't stop talking about religion--especially in debates in which no one else is talking about it.

In fact, Pennybacker is not only the first one who has mentioned religion in this debate, but he is a minister--Rev. Albert Pennybacker. Does anyone find it strange that the very person bringing religion into the debate is himself not only the only person who is discussing religion, but is himself employed in a religious vocation?

Sheez.

Now to be fair, Rev. Pennybacker didn't write the headline, but the content of the piece says basically the same thing and includes other charges that are both untrue and unfounded.

The basic problem with Rev. Pennybacker's piece is that he clearly doesn't understand what he is talking about. In fact, I don't think he even read the publications that discussed the six UK professors that he spends so much time decrying since the only copies available were given to legislators and the press.

We didn't distribute them to ministers like Rev. Pennybacker.

If he had read them, he couldn't have written that the Foundation "attacked respected professors at the very best of our Kentucky universities and sought to manipulate state funding against them."

How does reprinting what the University of Kentucky website itself said about the professors constitute an "attack"? Nothing was even said about them except what the university itself said about them, and none of it had anything to do with whether they were good or bad people. All they did was to discuss the groups they were involved in and what their studies focused on.

"And this action," he says, "... is taken on the basis of the foundation's ideological agenda." Well, if we have an "ideological agenda," at least we are furthering it with private money, not the public money that liberals at UK are furthering theirs with. Why is Rev. Pennybacker upset at ideological agendas that are privately funded and not those that are funded with tax and tuition money? Could it possibly be because he shares the latter and not the former?

"Second," he said, "the foundation is an integral part of a larger network of exclusivist religion -- 'my way or the highway' -- which is always suspect." There he goes talking about religion again.

This is an indication that Rev. Pennybacker just simply doesn't understand the issue. In fact, his argument is exactly what we have been saying about UK. Has Rev. Pennybacker read the "Commitment" on the Gender and Women's Studies website? The whole point is that there is only one way department staff can approach gender and women's issues. It's their way or the highway.

"Good religion," he argues, "affirms an open mind, advocates honest inquiry and applauds sound intellectual contributions to understanding the complexities in the life we share." Well, once again, it's nice to hear Rev. Pennybacker in his sermonic mode, but if he's so concerned about open minds, why doesn't he go talk to the ideological gatekeepers at UK who brook no dissent in their own departments?

Of course, as far as "complexities" go, Rev. Pennybacker is not going to find any at places like the Gender and Women's Studies Department at UK, where only one perspective is welcome.

Rev. Pennybacker then goes off and talks about sex, another topic which he has inserted into the discussion and then wants to blame on someone else.

My past associations with Rev. Pennybacker have always been pleasant and I consider him a gentleman, but I think he should at least understand the issues he is discussing before he makes intemperate public statements about them.

UK Gender & Women's Studies in its own words

A comment on a previous post points out an interesting thing: the mission statement for the University of Kentucky's Gender and Women's Studies program states explicitly that it is coming from a "feminist/womanist"perspective.

Here is the department's mission statement:

The Gender and Women's Studies Program at the University of Kentucky investigates gender broadly conceived and the cultures and contributions of women worldwide from feminist/womanist perspectives. The purpose of the program is to develop and coordinate an interdisciplinary curriculum in Gender and Women's Studies at the undergraduate and graduate levels; support critical research, teaching and public programming in Gender and Women's Studies that take into account various beliefs about gender, race, class, and sexuality; and foster interdisciplinary collaboration. The Gender and Women's Studies Program aims to serve the University and the Commonwealth through promotion of equity and commitment to excellence.

Now there is a recipe for academic objectivity and integrity if I've ever heard one.

Oh, and here is their "Committment":

The Gender and Women's Studies Program of the University of Kentucky is a feminist/womanist academic enterprise. Faculty share a commitment to research and teaching about the lives, cultures, perspectives, and activities of women worldwide; this commitment includes increasing understandings that what are commonly referred to as "women's issues" are societal issues that effect all individuals, regardless of gender.

...We are concerned to analyze gendered cultural constructions and the effects of patriarchy; but we recognize that women's activities and gender relations occur simultaneously with other hierarchical and unjust social relations and inequalities of power including, but not limited to those based on ability, age, class, ethnicity, family composition, gender identity, race, region, religion, sex, sexual orientation, and the inequitable distribution of resources in and among countries and groups globally.

Gender and Women's Studies is more than a body of knowledge about these subjects: it is a set of approaches and critical frameworks through which to critique, produce, and act upon knowledge. For all our diversity, Gender and Women's Studies faculty at the University of Kentucky are committed to and reflect these commitments in our research, service, and teaching. [Emphasis added]

Diversity? Let's see, under these guidelines we're bound to find a department whose faculty ranges from the far left to the extreme left--and all the great variety of political perspectives in between.

Can you imagine a political science department in a public university that would have, in its mission statement, a stricture that it was coming at political science solely from the perspective of the Democratic Party--or an economics department that limited itself only to "socialist perspectives"?

And has anyone noticed that all of the staff and administration of this department are women? Can we men have our own little ideological fiefdom on campus at public expense that excludes females from its administration and staff in order to promote patriarchy?

This is utterly absurd, but I have the sense that someone is going to try to justify it anyway.

Herald-Leader on record in support of ideological uniformity

In its July 2 editorial, "Academic Witchhunt,"the Lexington Herald-Leader charged The Family Foundation of Kentucky with engaging in a "witchhunt" in its efforts to shed light on taxpayer-supported political and social activism at the University of Kentucky, and on the university's hypocritical rhetoric about "diversity" when, in fact, there seems to be little diversity in the ideological makeup of its own faculty.

In its frenzied attempt to burn The Family Foundation at the rhetorical stake for doing little more than reprinting several UK web pages, Herald editors didn't bother to address why it is that amidst the tiresome propaganda about diversity, left-wing professors get to occupy comfortable offices at our state universities while conservatives seem nowhere to be found.

There are entire departments at UK where there is not a conservative in sight. One of them is the "Gender and Women's Studies" department, a little bastion of state supported left-wing activism where conservatives don't even get to be the object of witchhunts--since there aren't any to hunt.

We have challenged the ideological mullahs in the department to produce just one faculty member on its staff who supported the Marriage Amendment of 2004, which was approved by over 70 percent of voters--the very people whom the Herald-Leader expects to stand placidly by like good little taxpayers while their public universities use their tax money to undermine their beliefs.

In the Herald-Leader's news story, former director of the Gender and Women's Studies Dept. Joan Callahan defends the program by saying that "there is no longer a single, traditional view" on the family. You can say that again. Not only is there no longer a single traditional view in her former departent, there isn't any traditional view at all: there is now a single liberal view.

"The days of exclusion are coming to an end," she said. Oh really? If the "days of exclusion are over" in this little political fiefdom, then Callahan ought to be able to point to at least one faculty member in the Gender and Women's Studies program who has a traditional view on the matter.

We're not holding our breath.

Instead of the diversity people like Callahan like to talk about, there is none in this particular program. UK’s website lists faculty affiliations with groups like the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and The Fairness Alliance, along with hyperlinks to those organizations.

Professors are listed as teaching “family planning and abortion” and also “involving students in activism” as part of the course descriptions.

One professor teaches a course for UK’s Discovery Seminar Program called “I know my Rights” that focuses on civil liberties law. Problem is, he's not even an attorney. His sole qualifaction for teaching about constitutional law appears to be that he is a Board member of an ACLU pro-abortion program.

Another professor even has UK funding her research on the negative impact of The Marriage Amendment on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender couples and paying them $100.00 to be interviewed about their “challenges.”

It would make an interesting thought experiment to imagine what the Herald-Leader's response would be if, instead of the left, the right had control of a whole department at one of our public universities. How would the Herald respond if UK's website proudly touted the fact that it had a whole department filled with professors who were members of prominent right-wing organizations?

Would it call those who pointed it out "witchhunters"? Not likely. In fact, it would be spearheading the attempt to draw attention to it--and naming names as it did so.

Would Lee Todd take time out from his empty rhetoric about diversity and join his pals at the ACLU to issue a statement about "academic freedom" to defend such a department, as he has done for the "Gender and Women's Studies" program? We doubt it.

But the Herald's editorial serves at least one useful purpose: it puts it on record in opposition to real diversity in our public universities.

Thanks for the clarification.

CJ's David Hawpe defends UK and UofL's Ideological Uniformity Initiative

In yesterday's Louisville Courier-Journal, editorials editor David Hawpe condemns The Family Foundation for drawing attention to the lack of ideological diversity at our state universities and for questioning why, in a time of tight state budgets and rising tuitions, our public universities are spending public money to fund scholars and campus organizations who promote left-wing special interest political and social causes on campus.

Hawpe says that the best thing to do with The Family Foundation is to ignore it, and he spends almost a thousand words in the state's largest newspaper explaining why.

Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

I'm trying to remember how many times The Family Foundation has been condemned in Courier-Journal editorials. It's become sort of a ritual. Now it is going to pretend the organization isn't there--by talking about it.

It's nice to be ignored: you get so much attention that way.

Hawpe first observes that, although it tried, The Family Foundation "failed to start much trouble" with an op-ed piece in the CJ on UofL's use of "Bucks for Brains" money on a scholar whose specialty was studying the cultural influence of "black, male-bodied drag queens."

Really? Failed to start much trouble? I now count six UofL faculty or officials who have written in to the CJ indignant that anyone would question the funding of special interest political and social activism on its campus. That doesn't count the letters and internet comments on the CJ website--on both sides of the issue. Add to that an editorial by one of the opinion editors. What's his name? ... Oh yeah: David Hawpe!

If it didn't start much trouble, then why is Hawpe writing about it?

The self-defeating response by Hawpe was rivaled only by UofL's response to the charge of a lack of diversity on its campus, which, strangely, was to roll out a parade of left-wing professors to deny it. UofL isn't lacking in diversity and they've got a whole faculty full of liberal professors willing to say so. If you think you have fallen down the rabbit hole, you have.

No wonder Hawpe identifies with these people.

Six different UofL professors and faculty published in the CJ in defense of the university's Ideological Uniformity Initiative and not a single, solitary conservative from the university on the other side willing to identify himself.

I wonder why.

Hawpe then comments on similar criticisms The Family Foundation made of UK, where the "gender and women's studies" program enjoys a publicly subsidized ideological monopoly, saying, "UK president Lee Todd and state American Civil Liberties Union director Michael Aldridge have issued appropriate statements defending academic freedom." Gee, Lee Todd--and the ACLU. No liberals there!

Then Hawpe, his eyes and ears covered, desparately trying to ignore The Family Foundation (you remember, the group that didn't start the trouble Hawpe is not concerned about), tries to paint a scary picture of what could happen if The Family Foundation gets its way. He recounts events in Florida in the early 1960s in which a number of faculty were dismissed at the behest of the Johns Committee on grounds of homosexuality.

Of course, homosexuals are no longer fired, but recruited. Conservatives, on the other hand, are not fired. They don't have to be, since they don't get hired in the first place. We have challenged UK's "gender and women's studies" department to produce a single, solitary conservative on its diverse staff.

So far, no response.

UK and UofL don't need a John's Committee to rid themselves of conservatives who might challenge the liberal ideas that now enjoy protected status at their ideologically uniform campuses: they've got people like Hawpe to hold them at bay.

We wonder what Hawpe's reaction would be if, instead of left-wing causes, right wing causes were getting taxpayer and tuitions subsidies from our public universities. What would be Hawpe's reaction if, instead of Queer Theory and the study of "black, male-bodied drag queens" the university had a scholarly enclave of white supremacists which the university proudly boasted about on its website. Let's call it the "Aryan Studies Center."

Would Hawpe be writing editorials defending its publicly supported status? Would Lee Todd and his pals at the ACLU be talking about academic freedom?

Not a chance.

A question for supporters of UK's Ideological Uniformity Initiative

Commenters on a previous post about the University of Kentucky's Ideological Uniformity Initiative, centered in the Gender and Women's Studies Department, seem still not to be able to address the two issues that The Family Foundation has raised about the university:

1. Despite all the tiresome rhetoric from the University of Kentucky about being "diverse," the Gender and Women's Studies Department is as far from being diverse as it is possible for an academic department to be; and
2. At a time of rising student tuitions and a strained state budget (in fact, at any time), there is no good reason to be funding programs that amount to little more than the promotion of left-wing political and social activism.

Instead of addressing himself to these questions, one commenter, Art, tries to argue that when I point to particular professors as an examples of faculty members who are liberal political or social activists in a department that contains no conservative political or social activists I am somehow logically committed to opposing everything in which that faculty member is involved, which, of course, is nonsense.

He points to Robert Tannenbaum, one of the professors in question, listing his qualifications, which are largely impressive, but which include the ACLU, and Art asks what the problem is. Of course, there is no problem with a professor whatever his qualifications being involved in the ACLU. But if Tannenbaum had listed, not the ACLU, but the ACLJ, and it turned out that one of the departments in which Tannenbaum taught was filled exclusively with others whose views on civil rights were as far to the right as other professors teaching in the Gender and Women's Studies Department were to the left, he would be screaming bloody murder.

If Art stayed on point, of course, he would have to say that either UK is not being hypocritical in talking about diversity but not practicing it, or that it is okay for public institutions to promote political and social activism at public expense, or both.

So, in order to try to bring him back to the points I made, which were the only reasons for pointing to the professors in question, let's ask Art a question:

If there was a department at the University of Kentucky--let's call it the Family Studies Department--which recruited and accepting only professors with religious right qualifications, and which, on their website, boasted of their professor's past and present involvement with groups like Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, and the Family Research Council in glowing terms on their website and someone from, say, the ACLU objected, what would be his reaction?

Looking for conservatives in all the wrong places

Ellen Riggle, associate director of the "Gender and Women's Studies Program," has responded to The Family Foundation's call for diversity in her department with the following in the Kentucky Kernel, the University of Kentucky student newspaper:

The faculty members whose profiles were published in the handouts had varying reactions to the complaint. Ellen Riggle, associate director of the Gender and Women's Studies Program, said she did not think the handouts were personal attacks on either herself or her colleagues, but an attack on the university community at large.

"This is an attack on education in general, all professors contributing to
the academic mission, and the students at UK," she said.

Riggle said she has faith that students are able to evaluate the ideas presented to them, and her mission, and mission of her colleagues, is to facilitate the learning of those critical skills. And, Riggle said, she believes that their mission is to conduct research, which addresses problems facing the Commonwealth, the nation and the world.

"The Gender and Women's Studies Program and its faculty contribute critically to the study of these problems and the mission of the university," Riggle said.

An "attack on education in general"? This from someone who heads a department in which education seems to take a back seat to left-wing political ideology. But Riggle says nothing about why her department, although it claims to be diverse, has no conservatives in it.

Then there is this:

Melanie Otis, an assistant professor in the College of Social Work, said the handouts are indictments targeting all faculties engaged in the scholarship that contributes to the elimination of social injustice.

Gee, I wonder what she means by "social injustice". Oh, but wait. There is Lucinda Ramberg. Maybe she is the conservative we were looking for in this diverse department:

Lucinda Ramberg, assistant professor in the women's studies program, said as a scholar of kinship, she shares an interest in the Family Foundation's definition of "family."

Looks promising. She's "interested" in the Family Foundation's definition of "family" (note how that word is put in quotes). But, alas, it is for naught. Turns out she spouts the same erroneous figures about traditional families favored by those who don't seem to like traditional families very much:

But, with less than 25 percent of U.S. households comprised of nuclear families, according to the 2000 census, Ramberg said that the form of the family has varied through culture and time.

I wonder what her definition of a nuclear family is. In fact, that figure comes from counting only families with a mother and a father with one or more children younger than 18 still at home--and no one else. That wouldn't even include Ozzie and Harriet--once the kids moved out. As David Blankenhorn has pointed out, it doesn't include married couples who can't have children, or married couples who don't have children yet, or married couples with children, but with grandparents also in the home, or boarders, or foster children.

But that erroneous 25 percent figure does seem to bolster the liberal view of families, doesn't it?
I wonder if there is any professor in the diverse "gender and women's studies department" to dispute this figure.

Not likely.

Hunting the witchhunters

In a post yesterday I discussed the recent Lexington Herald-Leader article about the University of Kentucky supporting left-wing political and social activism on it supposedly diverse campus.

Art posted a comment as follows:

Is the following quote from the H-L article accurate?

"The Family Foundation of Kentucky issued the fliers, which question the
need to spend state funds supporting the six individuals, to state lawmakers who
were in Frankfort last week for a special session on pension reform."

The answer, of course, is that it is misleading at best. The quote implies that the Foundation was concerned primarily with particular staff members. What it is concerned about is two things:

1. That there is public money being spent to support political and social activism (in this case left-wing, but right-wing activism would be equally objectionable)
2. That UK claims to promote diversity when, in fact, it has whole academic departments in which there is no ideological diversity whatsoever.

The individuals were random examples from UK's website. Who they were or what they do is only relevant to the extent that they prove one of these two points.

No Leftists Here: UK "women and genders studies" makes excuses for itself

Dontcha love those headline writers? In Monday's Lexington Herald-Leader, a story about the build up of left-wing activism in the University of Kentucky's "women and gender studies" department was titled, "Group targets 6 on UK staff." I bet the editors were high fiving after they cooked that one up. The story itself is not that bad.

The Family Foundation of Kentucky published several issues of its "Insight" publication to legislators featuring several members of the UK staff. The university's website waxed eloquent about their involvement in Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and their cutting edge scholarship in faux academic disciplines like "Queer Theory." That was the origin of the "group targets 6" headline. The Foundation never said anything bad about these individuals, didn't call for them to be fired. All it did was republish what was on UK's website. The story quoted both myself and Family Foundation executive director Kent Ostrander.

And do you think the university was appreciative of our assistance in drawing attention to the qualifications of their faculty? Apparently not. Here is a little example of the Orwellian Newspeak produced by one of its professors in response to the Family Foundation:

But Ostrander's assertions drew direct crossfire from one of UK's
best-known faculty, Joan Callahan, a philosophy professor and former director of
gender and women's studies.

Callahan likened the foundation's effort to U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy's
controversial ”witch-hunting“ for alleged Communists in the early 1950s.”

"It's an attempt to stigmatize and undermine these particular faculty members," Callahan said of the foundation. "It's an attempt to play on fear in the community and the state."

That's right: "witch-hunting." Now this is news to me. I was actually unaware that there were witches on the UK staff, but, hey, given all the other exotic things their faculty are into, why should I be surprised?

But the charge of McCarthyism is truly ironic. Here is a department on which there is not a single, solitary conservative, and it is accusing other people of engaging in intolerance. It seems like the only "fear" going on here is a fear that the public might find out about the hypocrisy at UK.

This is a university that blathers on about "diversity" and yet can't seem to bring itself to practice real diversity on its staff.

More ideological uniformity from the champions of diversity at U of L: Provost defends dragqueenology

Never has diversity been articulated in such a uniform fashion as is now being done by the James Ramsey's University of Louisville. The university's homogeneous version of heterogeneity is on display once again in today's Courier-Journal. It is now the school's provost defending the outlay of public money on Drag Queen Studies at U of L at a time of increasing tuitions.

That brings the pro-dragqueenology count to six U of L officials and professors.

Now give me a minute to calculate the number of U of L professors or staff who have a diverse opinion on this subject ... Hang on, I'm still adding up the figures ... Let's see, that comes to--oh, wait, let me check this column ... Okay, I've got it now.

Well, darn. I'm getting the same figure I got earlier this week.

It appears that the sum total of all U of L professors and staff who have registered an opinion different from the one and only opinion that seems to be acceptable at the University of Louisville on whether public money should be spent on the study of "black male-bodied drag queens" and whether the University has any business publicly funding gay and lesbian political and social activism on campus is still a whopping...

Zero.

According to U of L Provost Shirley Willinghganz:

Alert: U of L faculty study drag queens. We also study cancer cells, pollution in our rivers and air, child abuse, the history of the underground railroad, movement disorders, the old and new testament, the mysteries of the heart, how to make manufacturing in Kentucky more competitive, how to build a logistics cluster in our community, and many other topics. This is the essence of a university and the core value of academic freedom. Universities must be unafraid to look at anything and everything that could make our world a better place. We can't shirk from asking those questions simply because some folks might not like them.

And we all know how the study of drag queens makes our world a better place.

So where are the conservatives in U of L with a differing opinion to fill out this alleged diversity again? Maybe we should offer a reward for information leading to the capture and tagging of any conservative faculty members at U of L. It might also be good to bring them into captivity, breed them in order to increase their numbers, and reintroduce them back into U of L's increasingly unfriendly environment.

More evidence that U of L is the place to be for drag queen studies

Tuitions are rising at U of L and so is the number of U of L professors on our list of proponents of dragqueenology at James Ramsey's University of Louisville. There are now five! They just keep popping up, those diverse U of L scholars who all believe the same thing.

When it comes to dragqueenology, U of L is apparently the place to be. As a commenter on a previous post points out, the Amazon.com page for the book The Drag Queen Anthology: The Absolutely Fabulous but Flawless Customary World of Female Impersonators, ed. Steven P. Schacht and Lisa Underwood has, prominently displayed, a plug for the book by another U of L professor:

"Truly cutting-edge... A must-read for scholars and students of the social construction of gender and gendered deviance."

--Richard Tewksbury, PhD, Professor of Justice Administration, University of Louisville.

It is beginning to look like U of L may be a world center for Drag Queen studies. Let's see, we've got U of L's Dr. Nancy Theriot defending it, U of L's Dr. Kaila Story studying it, giving lectures and writing on it, Dr. Sam Marcosson, a U of L professor and--you guessed it--"Fairness" Campaign spokesman, attacking The Family Foundation's David Edmunds for mentioning it, and U of L's Dr. Richard Tewksbury celebrating it. Maybe we will soon see a new major in dragqueenology at U of L.

What a diverse bunch of scholars the university has, all of whom seem to be of one very politically correct mind on the subject.

Yes, sadly, at Ramsey's Temple of Diversity there are still no professors on public record saying that using public money to study drag queens is, well, sort of silly, not to mention preposterous. The count is a very sorry zero. Maybe Ramsey could come up with special health benefits for scholars who have their heads screwed on straight. It would give him an opportunity to go before a legislative panel and lie about it, like he did last year.

Where is the diversity on Dragqueenomics at U of L?

What diversity there must be at U of L! We now have two: Count 'em, two U of L professors bravely defending Dragqueenomics at U of L against criticisms by The Family Foundation's David Edmunds, and ..., let's see, how many U of L professors defending Edmunds?

Let me check my figures here, let's see ... Hmm. That's strange. I can't find any U of L professors taking the opposite position!

Yesterday it was Nancy Theriot, the chairperson of the "Department of Women's and Gender Studies at U of L," defending Draqqueenomics. Today, it is Sam Marcosson, a law professor at U of L's law school who is standing up for this important field of study.

But there is something very interesting about Marcosson's reponse: he doesn't identify himself with U of L. He just signs his letter, "Sam Marcosson, Coordinating Committee, Fairness Campaign." Was there some reason Marcosson doesn't identify himself with U of L? Could it be that it might look suspiciously like U of L isn't so diverse after all?

Where are the anti-dragqeenomics faculty? Where are the faculty who don't think it is good policy to use public money to fund left-wing political and social activism on campus?

Let's see if James Ramsey can find any over at his diverse campus.

Courier-Journal bending the rules for the gender benders at U of L

If you want to respond to an article in the Louisville Courier-Journal, the newspaper's policy is to allow you 250 words, no more. [See clarification on this below] But apparently this policy does not apply to those promoting public funding for research on drag queens at public expense. In today's CJ, Nancy Theriot, the chairperson of the "Department of Women's and Gender Studies at U of L," gets 685 words to respond to Family Foundation spokesman David Edmund's analysis of how U of L is using public money to advance special interest politics at the university--at a time when it is increasing tuitions.

And what is Theriot's defense of U of L spending public money on a scholar whose recent work involves "specifically investigating how the black male-bodied Drag Queen's presence within queer 'subcultures' disrupts mainstream notions of what is considered natural and fixed signifiers of black femininity and/or womanhood"?

Obviously, Edmunds has no idea of what the scholarship is all about (if he did, he would at least attempt to comment on it). What he doesn't realize is that Dr. Story is doing cutting-edge research in an area that is one of the fastest-growing fields of humanities/social science research. Since coming to U of L last August, Dr. Story has already brought distinction to the university by being invited to give lectures at one regional meeting and one national scholarly meeting.

Well, that explains everything. No doubt U of L students who get their bills for tuition next year with the 9 percent increase will be comforted knowing that the drag queen research of their faculty is "cutting edge" drag queen research, and that she is being invited to give lectures about such topics and that she goes to scholarly meetings with other scholars who presumably also think this is a good use of their time and the public's money.

The paper is not allowing Edmunds to respond to Theriot's piece, however, even though they cut Theriot a break that they don't give to others. [See clarification below] So here's my suggestion for Edmunds: Dress up in a campy outfit with a black leather skirt and high heels, apply plenty of make-up, and get yourself a new name--something like "Bootsy," or maybe "Peaches"--and deliver your response to the editors in person.

"Hey big boy, I've got an editorial response, how about it?"

It's bound to work.

UPDATE: We have been given to understand that the CJ does not have a written policy on word limits and that such things are determined on a case by case basis, and that, since there was so much response on this, a little more leeway was given. These comments were based on our own experience trying to get more than 250 words in different circumstance, and I should also say that the CJ has always treated me with great forbearance.

Dare to be Stupid: What those tuition increases at U of L may be going for

Well, the folks over at the Love Shack..., er, I mean the University of Louisville are up in arms over Family Foundation spokesman David Edmund's recent op-ed on how the university, which is raising student tuitions, is spending public money. Here are a few choice excerpts from Edmund's article:

Recently U of L was criticized for paying a consultant $200,000 to change its slogan from "Dare to be great" to "It's great to be here."

And it isn't just the slogans that are over-priced. It turns out that special interest politics carry a high price tag too.

At the same time U of L was raising tuition and pressuring lawmakers for more Kentucky tax dollars, it announced the brand new Office for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) Services, complete with full-time director, Brian Buford, whose services command a cool $67,207 annually.

And there's this little gem:

U of L's questionable expenditures are not limited to domestic partner insurance and the LGBT Office. In 2005, activist Carla Wallace donated $1 million to be matched by the state for funding U of L's Audre Lorde Chair in Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. U of L President James Ramsey boasted at the time, "Carla Wallace's generous gift and the state's 'Bucks for Brains' program will enable the University of Louisville to attract top researchers in these areas of scholarship."

So in 2008, what "areas of scholarship" is the state funding with a million dollars of taxpayer-matching money from Bucks for Brains?

According to U of L's Web site, Kaila Story occupies the Audre Lorde Chair and details her areas of research: "Recently, I have been specifically investigating how the black male-bodied Drag Queen's presence within queer 'subcultures' disrupts mainstream notions of what is considered natural and fixed signifiers of black femininity and/or womanhood." (http://louisville.edu/a-s/ws/kaila.htm)

Maybe President Ramsey can explain exactly how studying "black male bodied drag queens" moves Kentucky forward.

Your tax dollars at work.