Tuesday, April 04, 2006

There's a piece on the Guardian's website that should concern all of us who believe in tolerance and respect for others. University professors in the US who have espoused views that are considered 'left-wing' or 'radical' are alleged to have been targeted, not just by organisations who might be considered sympathetic to the US neo-conservative cause, but by their students as well.

There are many examples but just one involved the chair of African-American studies at Yale who questioned the morality of the Iraq war and implied that the interests of Israel were not unrelated. He wouldn't be the first to have done that but a critic wrote the Wall Street Journal comparing him to Adolf Hitler of all people and the professor then found himself named on a website 'exposing' radical academics and the e-mail threats came flooding in.

Who would have thought McCarthyism was still alive and well? If it's true, it would appear that the land of the free is only free if you hold the same views as the authorities....

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