The point of his post is obvious to anyone but a mindless liberal.

As I suspected, Engler was an adjunct professor. Paid virtually nothing, adjuncts have about the status that work-release inmates trimming the campus shrubbery would have. And being a conservative at any level on a university faculty, unless you're tenured or famous or both (although still unwelcome), is regarded as using the academic punch bowl for an unseemly purpose. Universities are the Left's isolation tanks where the work of the public schools gets baked in before shipping.

Objection, your honor. Assuming facts not in evidence.

Having read the full article, the most solid conclusion I can reach is that this is a he-said/they-said case.

The story from the University and the union is that Engler told an offensive (assume 'racist' by the time it reaches MSNBC) joke in class. A student complained. The University began an investigation into the matter, and Engler refused to cooperate or participate. Due to his refusal, the University had no choice but to terminate his employment.

The story from Engler is that, yes, he told a bad joke in class. Two months later, he was notified that he was being fired. He was not informed of the student's complaint, nor of the investigation into the complaint. When he finally got an explanation as to why he was being fired, 'bad joke' had become 'offensive harassment' and 'refusal to cooperate'. When he turned to his union for assistance in resolving the matter, they began distancing themselves from him to side with the University.

Now. Is it possible that both stories being presented are entirely true? Can the University demonstrate good-faith efforts to involve Mr. Engler in the investigation? Did the dean of his department sit down to discuss the situation with Engler? Or was the meeting in May the only face-to-face conversation the University had with Engler on the issue? (Also note, May is the end of the school year, and it is hardly unusual for college professors to get complaints from "one or more students" around finals.) Is Engler full of crap, and lying about his side of the story? Is the University a massive, bloated bureaucracy that might, just might, make errors in paperwork and process from time to time?

We don't know. And we won't know unless and until the lawsuit moves forward.

That was a stupid joke

I think anyone offended by that joke has spectacularly thin skin. I am a member of several groups which get mocked from time to time, but I'd like to think it would take a lot more than that for me to file an official complaint...

Peterson,

I clicked through and read the article, there was no investigation to cooperate with. As for your contention that the joke is offensive, I would say that, at best, it was in the eye of the beholder. If that same joke had been uttered by Jay Leno would it still be offensive? I doubt more than a small percentage of people would say it was.

Colleges and universities all across this country are pockets of concentrated liberalism, far more than the country as a whole. A couple of friends of mine were professors (both are now retired) at a small, very liberal women's college, one is somewhat conservative but has become more vocal since his retirement. While he was still working he said he didn't dare reveal much about his views.

Place: A public college (now university) within 30 miles of New York City.
Time: Fall 1967.
Class: World History, mandatory for all freshmen. Not a big lecture, but individual classes containing maybe 30 students each.

Due to the baby boom, no excess seats were available in various sections. Students were assigned to sections automatically, not by choice. It was not possible to withdraw from a course after the first two weeks; males who withdrew would be reported to the local draft board for revocation of student deferment, if applicable.

The instructor as a graduate student at Temple University, completing his Ph.D. there and teaching at the public college in question. Recall that the 6-day war had just occurred. This instructor, and American, was a radical Zionist. He'd been to Israel and married an Israeli woman, who did not speak English and brought her to the USA; she was the one who graded essay questions on her husband's tests, as a way to learn English, he said. Students observed that, oddly enough, students with Jewish names systematically got higher scores.

In lectures, pertaining to ancient history, the instructor did not hesitate to inform students that the history of the world revolves around the Jewish people. All that Biblical stuff was myth, except for the part about Jews being chosen. On class time, he would insult individual students who happened to have a German surname, declaring them to be enemies. He went down to the registrar (privacy was less in those days) and looked up which students had graduated from Catholic schools, and also insult them individually on class time, on the grounds that the Holocaust was part of a larger Papal conspiracy. Again, the topic was ancient history. He also mentioned what I already noted, about students being unable to withdraw without getting an F, and the draft for males. Take him or leave him. At one point, having worked himself into a frenzy about evil Germans and Catholics, he stopped screaming in English and switch to screaming in what was probably Hebrew.

There were numerous student complaints, of course. All ignored.

The following year, one of his lectures was scheduled in the math building. He would run his lectures overtime, and lock the door from the inside, so that the following math class could not get in (and had no other room), because his views were just so much more important than anything else. This drew complaints from students (who would be insulted if they attempted to leave on time, having other classes) AND from math faculty, who were locked out.

So, was he fired? No! He got onto the tenure track, got his tenure, and some years ago retired as an emeritus professor!

I took the trouble to look up the title of his publications, via the nearby university library. Sure enough, they were generally the standard leftist drivel, leading edge for his era: Except for a few enlightened persons such as himself (and no doubt his colleagues on the tenure committee) everyone else had the intellect of the back woods. But Zionism wasn't mentioned as far as I could tell.