{"id":6779,"date":"2006-08-01T10:10:51","date_gmt":"2006-08-01T14:10:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=6779"},"modified":"2006-08-01T10:15:44","modified_gmt":"2006-08-01T14:15:44","slug":"academic-freedom-at-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=6779","title":{"rendered":"Academic Freedom at the New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been waiting for the Times to do something that deserved a scolding… and today’s my lucky day. The “paper of record” headlines<\/a> lecturer Kevin Barrett as a “skeptic” on 9\/11. Dr. Barrett teaches one course at the University of Wisconsin<\/a>, but that one course has proved to be quite controversial. <\/p>\n

Anne Althouse, my favorite law-professor-blogger, is a full professor at U of W, and she’s blogged<\/a> about the issue. Here’s her take:<\/p>\n

But you don’t find the truth by “sifting and winnowing” in a pile of obviously worthless ideas. And you don’t learn to exercise critical thinking by reading a lot of material that is clearly wrong. And could the Capital Times learn the difference between “controversial views” and crackpot conspiracy theories? Focusing on the statements of some Republican legislator is a very easy route for the Madison newspaper. How about paying some attention to the interests of students who would like to be able to take a creditable introductory course on Islam? How about some consideration for Muslims who may not appreciate having their religion connected with ridiculous, unscientific, politically motivated bilge? How about a little less attention to the inflammatory question of whether a teacher should be fired and a little more attention to how he got the job in the first place?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Prof. Althouse is committed to teaching the truth, not “reporting both sides of the issue.” She’s an academic, not a journalist. She’s all for “reality-based teaching” and she thinks Barrett is an embarassment to the good name of a fine university.<\/p>\n

If Dr. Barrett used his tax-funded teaching position to promote Intelligent Design, I think I could predict Daryl’s reality-based reaction. But I can’t predict his take on this one. <\/p>\n

What’s the word, Mr. Cobranchi?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been waiting for the Times to do something that deserved a scolding… and today’s my lucky day. The “paper of record” headlines lecturer Kevin Barrett as a “skeptic” on 9\/11. Dr. Barrett teaches one course at the University of Wisconsin, but that one course has proved to be quite controversial. Anne Althouse, my favorite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6779\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}