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Yahoo!According to the experts in academic freedom, the dividing line between "the relevant and irrelevant" invocation by a professor of his personal political opinion turns "on pedagogical purpose and effect, on the manner and spirit of a professor's classroom speech." (From For the Common Good, by Finkin and Post, Yale U Press, 2009.)
Professor William Robinson is an avowed anti-Israel activist, he recently delivered an address to the annual convention of an extreme anti-Israel organization (Al-Awda: The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition), and he told a student that his "Israelis are Nazis" email was only for her interest (this student is Jewish and identifies with Israel). I am unaware of his showing anything to prove that he provided pedagogic context for the email or encouragement of discussion of its contents. The email's scholarship is sophomoric at best. He teaches in a 60-person sociology faculty where one would likely be hard pressed to come up with a pro-Israel professor, and we are asked to believe his libelous anti-Israel diatribe was his way of teaching students how to "search for truth." It certainly does not strike me as unreasonable that the university investigated his actions. [“Robinson Cleared by UCSB Academic Senate,” 6/26/09] — Howard Waldow, Los Angeles
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