‘Blue-Collar’ Prof at Center of Academic Freedom Case

Nobody would ever mistake Ken Hearlson--onetime steelworker, former farmhand and born-again Christian--for some kind of ivory tower icon.

Yet Hearlson, who 12 weeks ago was an obscure, self-described “blue-collar professor” at a laid-back Southern California community college, today finds himself the central figure in what one expert calls “the hottest academic freedom case in the nation.”

The controversy, which has made the Orange Coast College political science instructor a popular topic on talk shows from New York to Fresno, began in September, after four Muslim students charged that Hearlson had called them “Nazis,” “terrorists” and “murderers” during a heated classroom discussion on Islam and the Sept. 11 attacks.

At the Costa Mesa college, better known for its extensive sailing program than its political science curriculum, the incident has divided students and faculty, produced charges of evidence-tampering and threats of libel suits, and prompted the administration to hire an independent counsel to investigate.

More broadly, though, the Hearlson affair has tapped into what many see as simmering questions on campuses nationwide. When does a classroom discussion cross the line from intellectual provocation into interpersonal hostility? And where do politics of every stripe fit into academic correctness?

“The classroom is not a street corner where you can say anything you darn well please,” said Jonathan Knight, associate secretary of the American Assn. of University Professors in New York. “One expects professors to have a great deal of freedom, but [that] can be abused.”

A decision is expected as early as today on whether Hearlson will be allowed to resume teaching; he has been on paid leave since Sept. 20.

Students Point to Other Run-Ins

A student’s tape recording of the classroom exchange generally backs up Hearlson’s account that he was speaking about Arab nations in general, not his Muslim students. Still, the students stand by their claim and suggest the tape may have been tampered with.

They also note that they’re not the first students to take exception to Hearlson’s teaching. He has had run-ins with other Muslim students and angered students with remarks condemning homosexuality.

Perhaps the only thing everyone can agree on is that Hearlson, 57, brings a unique style and set of experiences to the classroom.

He said he was raised in the small farming town of Wellington, Kan., one of eight children. His father, who lost a hand in a wood-cutting accident, worked on road gangs. His mother was a dishwasher and cook.

Hearlson said that as a teenager he worked on wheat farms, plowing the fields, planting crops and driving a combine. He said his upbringing taught him Midwestern values such as hard work and discipline, but the poverty also left him with a “sizable chip” on his shoulder and “I was never quite comfortable with who I was.”

By his own account, he knocked around in professions ranging from carpentry to steelwork, getting his education on the GI Bill before he started teaching in 1984.

During his first half-dozen years teaching, Hearlson said he stood in the middle of the academic road, giving both sides of an issue along with his own then-moderate-to-liberal views.

He became a born-again Christian in 1990, a decision he said brought him peace, changed his politics and opened up his classroom demeanor.

“I don’t proselytize in the classroom, but I don’t hesitate to say Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior,” he said. “I teach traditional values. The liberal point of view is already in the book. I’m trying to put Christian values back in the classroom, which has been so secular for so long.”

Hearlson said the results were encouraging.

“Once I opened up and became more passionate, students opened up,” he said.

But some were offended at Hearlson’s teaching methods, turned off by both the content and passion of his lectures.

“I’m not easily offended at all, but the class felt exactly like a ‘Donahue’ show,” said sophomore Marshall Moncrief. “The person who gets most red in the face and yells the most wins. It was no surprise to me at all when those Muslim students complained.”

Moncrief remembers one class when Hearlson said that if he ever caught a homosexual teaching sex education to his child, he would want to “string him up by his toes and shoot him in the face with a .357 magnum.”

Hearlson said his words were taken out of context, saying the class discussion was about how even fringe groups--such as those promoting man-boy relationships--lobby politicians. And he said he made the remark not about sex education, but about how he would feel if a pedophile attacked his grandchild.

Hearlson, who has divorced and remarried, has four children from his first marriage and four grandchildren.

In 1998, a lesbian student of Hearlson’s made allegations that his anti-homosexual views created a hostile classroom atmosphere. A grievance officer with the college cleared Hearlson of wrongdoing under the banner of academic freedom, but then added, “I feel that an injustice has been done, but based on all the information provided, I can see no alternative but to deny this grievance.”

Last year, after some Muslim students passed out “Anti-Zionist Week” fliers that featured a swastika and barbed wire superimposed on the Star of David, Hearlson brought up the issue in class. After a heated exchange with some Muslim students, campus security was called.

But it wasn’t until his comments on Sept. 18 that Hearlson became a catalyst for debate about academic freedom in America. He has had lots of company.

At Duke University, officials forced one academic to post a disclaimer on his Web site stating that the university doesn’t endorse the papers he posted about terrorism and appeasement. The president of the University of New Mexico chastised a professor who told his class, “Anyone who can blow up the Pentagon has my vote.” On Monday, the professor was banned from teaching freshmen.

Experts Say Academic Debates Are Common

Many in academic life say such flaps are common but were less visible until the high emotions of the terrorist attacks brought Hearlson’s and other cases under closer scrutiny.

For instance, Linda McCarriston, a creative-writing professor and poet at the University of Alaska at Anchorage, said she found herself in a similar controversy when some of her Native Alaskan students complained about a poem she wrote called “Indian Girls.” Critics called the poem, which describes child sexual abuse, racist hate speech.

The investigation into McCarriston’s poem is pending, a year later.

Now in the classroom, the self-described feminist said she finds herself constantly censoring material and words.

“I have to constantly think ahead to figure out how someone might misinterpret it,” she said. “There is no oppression greater today than the intellectual oppression of the academy.”

Some Orange Coast faculty members have expressed disappointment in Hearlson’s behavior. Gary Hoffman, co-chairman of the English department, believes Hearlson crossed the line of academic freedom into abusive teaching.

“I think he should apologize and think about how he’s handling his class,” he said.

Hoffman submitted a new set of guidelines to the academic senate that he said will keep “provocative teaching from becoming abusive.”

“You can just start with temper tantrums,” he said. “You should not be allowed to have temper tantrums in class. It’s as simple as that.”

Supporters Express Disappointment

Susan Smith, a history professor and Hearlson’s friend, said she is disappointed that the faculty didn’t mobilize on his behalf.

“Four students with bees in their bonnets have managed to take a college of 26,000 and put it in the national spotlight,” Smith said. “There’s something so out of proportion about that.”

Hearlson originally agreed to take a short paid leave for his own safety. But he said college administrators then told him that he wouldn’t be allowed back in the classroom until the investigation was complete. Now he says he is considering filing libel actions against the students who accused him.

The swift removal from the classroom attracted attention from academic freedom advocates across the nation. That a handful of students can get a professor removed for a semester with no hearing “makes professors who speak their mind an endangered species on college campus,” said Thor L. Halvorssen, executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a Philadelphia-based watchdog group that’s giving legal advice to Hearlson.

Smith also thinks Hearlson has been penalized for conservative views.

“If he were a passionate liberal, this wouldn’t have gotten out of the gate,” she said. “In the academic community, they tend not to be welcomed.”