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Today’s blacklisted American: Professor suspended by university for having opinions

Today's modern witch hunt
Burn witches: What St. Joseph’s University really wants to do.

They’re coming for you next: St. Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania last month suspended math professor Gregory Manco from teaching for the vile crime of simply expressing opinions opposing the payment of reparations to blacks for something (slavery) that hasn’t existed in the U.S. for more than 150 years.

The university’s only statement upon taking this action:

“We thank our students for bringing to our attention a possible violation of our values. The University launched an investigation into a report of bias. The faculty member will not be in the classroom or in a coaching role while the investigation is conducted,” Director of Public Relations and Media Gail Benner wrote in an email to The College Fix. [emphasis mine]

In other words, the values of this university are that no one can express any opinion its leaders do not like. With such values, this university would feel right at home in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

Moreover, the university’s actions are a direct violation of its own policies [pdf], which state:

Saint Joseph’s strongly supports and protects the principle of academic freedom. All members of the University community have a right to use the academic forum, provided by the University, to discuss controversial subjects and to express ideas that some or most of the members of the community strongly oppose.

No matter. Free speech is only allowed for those who agree with the Marxist identity policies of the left. Everyone else must be crushed, forthwith, without mercy.

A month has passed since Manco’s suspension and the university’s “investigation” goes on, with no sign of progress, even though you can find out everything about this story in less than ten seconds of searching on line.

What must be emphasized again is that the opinions expressed by Manco against reparations were entirely reasonable, and in any sane and tolerant society would be read with interest. In one tweet for example he tried to show the utter injustice of reparations by this analogy:

Suppose your great-great-grandfather murdered someone. The victim’s great-great-grandson knocks on your door, shows you the newspaper from 1905, and demands compensation from you. Your response?”

To put it more bluntly, reparations are a bigoted fraud, aimed at taking wealth from whites (and other minorities) and giving it to blacks, merely because of the skin color of each. Moreover, everyone in America today is four to five generations removed from the crime of slavery, with a large majority likely not even descended from either slaves or slave-owners. My ancestors for example came to American around 1900, after having been oppressed for their religion in Russia. Why should I then have to be pay reparations for something neither I nor any of my ancestors had anything to do with?

St. Joseph’s is a private Catholic university, but I am sure it is receiving numerous state and federal grants. What do Pennsylvania state legislators think about this? And what about the church? Does it think it fine to punish professors merely for expressing wholly reasonable opinions?

And finally, what about the students and parents? Would you want to have your children attend such a close-minded and totalitarian institution? Would you as a high school student find this appealing?

I wouldn’t. But then I am an outlier in today’s intolerant and increasingly repressive culture. Nowadays, persecution like this is now cool, and is apparently supported by many.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

  • Cotour

    Think of it this way:

    Just like Joe Biden explains when asked: Will you support ending the filibuster?

    Joe Biden: He basically explains that he wants agreement between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue so they can get past it. But if the Democrats can not get agreement from the Republicans then he will just force what he and the Democrats want.

    In other words the president is not interested in any compromise with the Republicans, or to do no harm and leave 75 years of agreed upon limits in place so as not to do harm. And if they will not agree to do what he and the Democrat leadership wants they will just mow them over and do as they please.

    That is what the president and the Democrats mean by the word, “Agreement”.

    Do as I say = Agreement.

  • Andi

    Small edit (I think) in fourth-from-last paragraph: “take from whites and giving it to blacks”

    Loved the great-grandfather quote!

  • Andi

    Sorry, meant “taking” not “take”

  • Andi: Took me a few minutes to realize the issue. It is fixed. Thank you.

  • Sayomara

    Sadly most Catholic Universities are, Catholic in name only having little to do with the faith and less to do with the long held believes of the Church. Not that you could tell by the terrible leadership of US Catholic Bishops. Its little wonder the few people who are staying in the Church are going into Traditional Latin mass Parishes where ‘social justice’ doesn’t come before our Lord

  • wayne

    Monty Python-
    ‘witch scene’
    https://youtu.be/yp_l5ntikaU
    4:55

  • It didn’t take them long to try him in their court of law
    He was guilty then of thinking a crime much worse than all
    They sentenced him to die so his seed of thought can’t spread
    And infect the little children; that’s what the law had said

    Mason Proffit – “Two Hangmen”

    Such is the way of a society that places lock-step conformity with whatever those in power deem The One True Way, over individual liberty and personal initiative. That is the Progressive definition of “unity” … a self-righteous fundamentalist mindset that makes fire-and-brimstone Baptists look like loose-topped libertines out for beads at Mardi Gras.

    Fundamentalism that worships the most deceptive of gods … the god in one’s mirror.

  • David M. Cook

    Who should pay? How about the members of the only organization which supported slavery & is still in existence? That would be the members of the DEMOCRAT PARTY! All democrats should pony up! Jeff Bezos, George Soros & all those wealthy democrats should be stripped of their billions to give reparations to black people, just like the government gave money to the people it jailed during WWII, when the DEMOCRATS, who are the REAL racists, took people’s liberty without due process. THAT would be proper reparations!

  • ‘Suspended?’, “Sayonara!’

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