Academic Freedom and 1st Amendment Rights

Re “Ominous Academic Silence,” editorial, Dec. 13:

As an Orange Coast College faculty member, I am trying to figure out what will make me “dampen discussion.” It will not be the administration at Orange Coast. Literally millions of hours of student instruction have taken place with the college administration fully in support of the highest levels of academic freedom. The lapse of due process in the current situation is regrettable but it is also unique. It is difficult for me to conceive creating a situation so remarkably hostile in a classroom climate that I would request the college temporarily remove me.

Certainly, it will not be a fear of my students. Over a long career I have found them to be earnest, responsive seekers of knowledge who are motivated to discuss serious, controversial topics in an exciting, meaningful and civil manner.

It would also not be a fear of The Times or other media. The Times, by questioning the “quality of instruction, standards for teachers at the community colleges and appropriate classroom conduct” has provided my students with a good starting point for a discussion of hasty generalization by making claims that are not supported by typical or numerous examples.

To say “something instructive should and could have come out” of the process belies the truth that our students, faculty, and administration were exposed to and became participants in the realities of an academic freedom debate at a national level. This is not a reality that can “dampen discussion.” It can only encourage it.

Norman C. Fricker

Professor of Speech and Debate

Orange Coast College

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The violation of professor Kenneth Hearlson’s right to due process is an example of a tragic tendency to limit freedom of speech for the sake of that policy of mush known as political correctness. It seems that the weak spines of some school administrators are bent at the mere mention that someone might have his fragile ego “offended.” This misguided “dare-not-offend” standard is terribly pervasive now. It must be fought. Absolutely no person or group is so sacred as to be exempted from being “offended.” What is sacred in our country is the right to freedom of speech.

Milt Rouse

English Teacher

Dana Hills High School

Dana Point

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All of this was quite well written with a great point, but you had to slide into innuendo at the end, when everything else was based on fact. Here: “Some other students who have studied under Hearlson have voiced complaints about previous remarks he allegedly made to students about gays and Muslims.”

How can you bring this up? The investigating attorney said she looked into everything and all the accusations were essentially bull. At the end you wrote the article in a way that made it seem Hearlson was a bigot, but that he just didn’t get caught and he should have had a due process. The real punishment is that the left-leaning college instructors are now going to have to curtail their leftist speech in classes for fear of getting in trouble and not getting due process.

The editorial should have just said this guy got railroaded and was reprimanded after being cleared. Those are the facts and that is worth a good story any day. Instead you threw in innuendo so you could propagate your editorial board’s leftist beliefs.

Jerry O’Brien

Mission Viejo

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Re: “OCC Professor Reinstated, but Issue Remains,” Dec 11:

This news story said, “Hearlson, who describes himself as a born-again Christian conservative, admits making provocative statements about Muslims ... which he says are to stimulate classroom debate.” Later Hearlson states, “It’s all part of healthy academic debate.”

I am a teacher of political science retired after 36 years in a local community college; I would like to say unequivocally, that the obvious reality of Hearlson’s plight is that he is in the wrong profession. He is probably fit for the church pulpit, not the classroom lectern.

Hearlson, as well as some of the OCC administrators and the president of the OCC teachers union, do not perceive the difference between academic freedom and religious freedom. They are related terms, but not synonymous. Does anyone at OCC think Hearlson’s political science class would have any political science merit for the semester, or even one day, if the professor continued to debate Christian values versus Muslim values? Hearlson should be thankful that he received only a reprimand, and at best he should be transferred to teach philosophy courses. To keep him in political science deeply diminishes the educational quality of OCC.

David N. Hartman

Santa Ana

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Either all citizens are free to speak their minds or none are free to do so. When the controversial professor offended Muslim students, he was suspended. But when he not only presented his opinion but allegedly made overt threats toward homosexuals, he was cleared on grounds of First Amendment freedoms. Although the legislative, judiciary and the educational system in our “democracy” has failed gays and lesbians, academic freedom must be preserved. From one student’s recollection reported in The Times, “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.’ ” So where does it end? Either there is total academic freedom or there is none! Although I am gay and I abhor Hearlson’s comments regarding gays, I stand up for his First Amendment right. If the students in his class are too frightened to challenge him, they should drop the class or ask to be moved to another section. Otherwise, stand up and state your position.

B. Dean Riner

Laguna Beach