Dear Colleagues,Reminder: you can see just how dishonest the Loesch/Breitbart videos are here and here.
We have finally completed viewing the videos originating at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) from the UMSL course Introduction to Labor Studies. The excerpts that were made public showing the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL) instructor Don Giljum and students as well as the UMKC instructor and students were definitely taken out of context, with their meaning highly distorted through splicing and editing from different times within a class period and across multiple class periods.
As stated previously, our campus supports academic freedom, civility, diversity, open discourse and the pursuit of knowledge. We support the academic freedom of faculty, staff and students at UMSL. Contrary to some reports, Don Giljum has not been fired from the campus faculty, and in fact, is completing the course; he remains eligible to teach at UMSL. We sincerely regret the distress to him and others that has been caused by the unauthorized copying, editing and distribution of the course videos.
During the past two weeks, we have received communications over a wide spectrum of viewpoints, and we appreciate people letting us know what they think. We have learned more about video and Internet technologies that can be beneficial or detrimental to positive, civil discourse, and security issues related to the use of such media. We shall explore ways to improve security in the use of electronic media for instruction, research and other activities.
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Sincerely,
Tom George
Chancellor
Professor of Chemistry and Physics
Glen Cope
Provost
Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Administration
Monday, May 9, 2011
New Statement from UMSL on Breitbart/Loesch Smears
Sounds like UMSL made the right decision:
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Awesome news. Thanks for sharing!!
ReplyDeleteNow THAT is how you deal with Breitbart. Bravo to Tom and Glen for not caving in to such vile actions.
ReplyDeleteHats off to Giljum for hanging tough.
ReplyDeleteOh gee. You mean Breitbarfbag is despicablescum on a campaign of lies and character assassination? Who knew?!
ReplyDeleteI received that e-mail, too, delightfully brief and vague as it is. However, they state that Giljum is completing the course. Sounds a bit like "too little, too late" to me since this week is final exam week; graduation is this coming weekend.
ReplyDeleteThey also do not mention about next semester. Earlier statements from the P-D said that Giljum will not be teaching the course again in the fall; they did not renew his contract. I wonder if that's still true?
Out of this fiasco, the impression I have received is that UMKC stuck by their professor whilst reviewing the footage, and UMSL is making a half-hearted attempt after the fact. Sad and disconcerting for UMSL's faculty.
Does this change anything? They'll just unstake the tents, take their sideshow to the next town, and pitch their highly edited snake oil to a new mob of gullible townfolk. All you have to do is take the plot of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" to see how this will play out.
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