The Dennis Lennox One Man Crusade Against Liberal Academics.
By Erick Posted in Culture — Comments (2) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Some of you have probably heard of Dennis Lennox. He's a conservative activist up at Central Michigan University doing what a lot of us should be doing more of. He's got a professor on campus running for Congress as a Democrat, and Dennis is filming the guy around campus, getting every dumb thing the man says on camera.
A few weeks ago, Dennis filed an FOIA request for the professor's emails. Not only did the Dean of Humanities, Pamela Gates, refuse to acknowledge the FOIA request (a legal violation), but she tried to knock Dennis's video camera out of his hands when he confronted her.
And now we have this. The faculty have been caught red-handed expressing their views on Dennis and conservative activists on campus. It'd be humorous if it weren't so pathetic.
The exchange begins with an English professor posting a reply to another e-mail we have not yet obtained on the "English Faculty Discussion Forum" listserv. Listservs are a common form of internet e-mail "group communication" that actually pre-date the World Wide Web (www) and have been a mainstay of academic communications for a considerable period of time. Posting to a listserv would enjoy a diminished expectation of privacy, and in this case could arguably be considered careless.
The first e-mail proceeds to discuss a conversation a temporary faculty member claims to have had with a CMU staff "neuro-psychologist" "about the escalation of Mr. Lennox's activities, along with with his allegedly rather strange physical transformation (his hair-style changes!) and his increasing alleged fixation on Gary Peters ...". The e-mail goes on to assert that Lennox has not only "noxious political and social beliefs" but has "mental health issues," and it relays advice the psychologist allegedly prescribed in dealing with Mr. Lennox including the university's use of a mediator and coercion to force Lennox to "back off or face scholastic or legal consequences". The initial e-mail wraps up by making a rather odd and surprising speculation that Lennox and well-known national conservative student academic rights advocate David Horowitz are linked with the Christian Right, YAF, and their "shared hatred for Muslims." These "vast right wing conspiracy" linkages seem rather unlikely and paranoid.
We shouldn't be surprised, but we should be cheering Dennis on.
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The Dennis Lennox One Man Crusade Against Liberal Academics. 2 Comments (0 topical, 2 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Typical liberals responding in typical fashion - he doesn't conform to their beliefs, therefore he must be mentally unsound.
But I'm not sure Mr. Lennox is a role-model we should all emulate. I extremely dislike the sort of in-your-face activism that seems to be in vogue right now. Is he really a strong believer in conservatism, or is he merely a "don't taze me, bro" kind of college boor that just wants some attention?
Cheers,
Scott in Indy
but then American liberals smack of the Soviet Union, ah the Mother Country. And why would anyone want to hate muslims, American conservatives I can understand, tax cuts, school choice, a watchful eye on Federal growth, a veritable witches brew. But muslims, or more accurately put, some muslims? Incomprehensible! I mean a head here, a car bomb there, a plane occasionally flying into a tall building, scorched bodies, what's the big deal, where's the tolerance?
If Lennox wishes to protect himself he may drop an occasional statement about little Hitlers dying on 9/11, or Bush being amused by the death of American soldiers, something sensible and academically mainstream like that. He might even claim he learned his video cam techniques at the feet of Michael Moore. That could buy him some time before he's silenced, in that bastion of the free exchange of ideas, the American university.
And the professoriate might take Martin Heidegger as their role model.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville