Students Accuse Professor of Racism, Professor Sues [updated 11/18]
It’s a story that sounds like it could’ve come from the University of Oregon: a law professor got on the wrong side of a group of minority students and found himself on the receiving end of a bunch of bogus racism charges intended to smear his reputation and drag his name through the dirt.
What did the professor, one Richard Peltz, do to provoke these accusations of racism? According to Inside Higher Education:
The complaints started after Peltz participated in a campus debate on affirmative action — at the invitation of the black law students’ group — and argued against it.
Additionally
… he used an article on the death of Rosa Parks from The Onion to prompt class discussion. The black students’ memo called The Onion “a conservative based medium that uses satire” [Huh?? -ed] and said that the article “poked fun at the contribution Rosa Parks made” to the civil rights movement.
[…]
Another accusation against him was that — in the same time frame when he had criticized affirmative action — he was insensitive in passing out “a basic grammar worksheet” to the class and telling students to focus more on their writing. There was no accusation that he focused on the black students, only that he raised this issue shortly after he has been critical of affirmative action. [emphasis mine]
Because of these (frankly insane) charges, and others, he was barred from teaching.
Peltz’s response? He filed a lawsuit against the students who’d accused him of racism. Now, if there’s one thing that universities all over the country strive to avoid at all costs, it’s a lawsuit involving their institution. In return for Peltz dropping his suit, the University of Arkansas School of Law the Bowen School of Law at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock promised a full investigation of the accusations against him.
Unsurprisingly, they found that he’d done nothing wrong whatsoever:
The statement from the university that Peltz said made him comfortable dropping the suit reviewed the various charges and said that there was no basis for calling Peltz racist. “With reference to any charge of racism levied against you, there is no evidence that you are or have been a racist or acted in a racist fashion during your employment at the law school” …
In addition to reviewing the charges brought by students, the university’s letter also cleared Peltz of a charge brought by a faculty member. At a 2005 faculty meeting, Peltz argued for hiring as faculty members only candidates who already have published scholarship. One of his colleagues accused him of racism because one of the job applicants for a position at the time was an African American with no published scholarship. [emphasis added]
Of course, Peltz “said he will be careful about any discussions of race from now on, fearful of being wrongly accused again… ” He added:
“When I started teaching 10 years ago, I thought universities were the quintessential market place of ideas. I was so naïve, and so, so wrong… It’s not an open market place of ideas — I hope we can get back to that notion because our society desperately needs places where we can have truly free discussion. I just can’t say I see that in the American university today.”
People often ask what’s really so wrong with the obsession with “diversity” on campus. I think that Richard Peltz’s case is a perfect illustration of what fostering a racially-obsessed campus environment can lead to: baseless and scurrilous accusations of “racism” by individuals bent on silencing people with ideas they disagree with.
Such incidents aren’t entirely foreign to the U of O campus, either. Economics professor Bill Harbaugh, for instance, notable for his efforts toward helping increase the numbers of economically disadvantaged students from all racial backgrounds in higher education, has felt it necessary to publically defend himself from accusations of racism because of his criticisms of the University’s Diversity Plan. According to Harbaugh:
These accusations are professionally damaging, personally insulting, and false. Unfortunately they are symptomatic of the dishonesty that has prevailed during UO’s diversity plan debates.
Clearly there are certain parties on campus who have reaped vast dividends, in money and power, from the “diversity” scam and they’ve spared no effort to silence and defame their critics. Given the chilling effect “diversity” seems to have on free speech on campus and what we’re beginning to learn about the benefits (or lack thereof) of a “diverse” campus environment (at least as it’s currently concieved) one must ask: What benefit, again, is the campus at large supposed to be deriving from the University’s mania for “diversity”?
[updated]
To clarify, this is the mentality of the race hucksters here at the U of O. It has little do do with “diversity” and less to do with actual racism. If racism is indeed “a combination of prejudice and power” (a troublesome formulation, to say the least), then what are we to make of the “diversity” gang’s reckless wielding of the “racism” stick (and its concomitant power) against its critics and the so-called “culture of whiteness” on campus?
