Provost review clears Barrett to teach class on Islam

University of Wisconsin announced Following a thorough review, University of Wisconsin-Madison Provost Patrick Farrell today announced that lecturer Kevin Barrett will teach, as scheduled, a class titled "Islam: Religion and Culture."

Another stupid decision on the part of University Administrators

Barrett's remarks regarding his theories on the events of Sept. 11 recently drew widespread attention and criticism.

And now the University of Wisconsin-Madison is going to let him teach them to students.

As a result, Farrell, along with Gary Sandefur, dean of the College of Letters and Science, and Ellen Rafferty, chair of the department of languages and cultures of Asia, met with Barrett. They reviewed his course syllabus and reading materials and examined his past teaching evaluations.

How could you keep from laughing?

"There is no question that Mr. Barrett holds personal opinions that many people find unconventional," Farrell says. "These views are expected to take a small, but significant, role in the class. To the extent that his views are discussed, Mr. Barrett has assured me that students will be free - and encouraged - to challenge his viewpoint."

It is nice that the students will be free to challenge his viewpoint, but realize he is the one that will be giving them a grade for the class, and they need a good grade to graduate.

Farrell says that Barrett told him that the semester-long course will spend a week examining current issues, including a brief discussion of various views on the war on terror. Barrett told Farrell that he plans to base the discussion on readings from authors representing a variety of viewpoints.

Blue Crab blogged The University of Wisconsin, Madison, has completed it's review of the , er, unusual theories of Kevin Barrett, an instructor who teaches that the collapse of the Twin Towers on 9/11 was done by controlled demolition. Because, you see, no jet fuel fire could melt steel. Mr. Barrett will be allowed to teach his courses. Now, all these years that the NFPA has required the fireproofing of structural steel can be seen to be a long-simmering Bushitlerian plot. Going back almost to the dawn of the NFPA, in fact! All the fines the government collected from various power plants for having insufficient fireproofing on their structural steel can now be refunded! I, of course, will immediately apply to the UW-M to teach a course about the flat earth, since this spherical nonsense has gone on much to long. (Please, do not try to tell an engineer jet fuel fires cannot "melt" steel. It is not, and never has been necessary to melt steel to cause a structural failure. One only needs to soften it and remove it's ability to bear load.)

Sister Toldjah blogged I guess the U of W-Madison is ok with people teaching false history in the name of ‘freedom of speech.’ Come to think of it, I wonder how many elite university history classes do the same thing, just with other aspects of our history?

PostWatch blogged "Unconventional" is a Toyota Prius. Unconventional is, I don't know, out-and-proud gay Muslims. Advocating a theory that the terror attacks are a hoax orchestrated by the American government is an intellectual felony. The University perfumes this nonsense with statements about "freedom of speech," but that freedom doesn't actually require taxpayer-funded institutions to promote unsupportable fantasies.