At Democracy Project, Phil Orenstein bitingly takes up the cause of Sharad Karkhanis, a professor emeritus at Kingsborough Community College, who (as I’ve noted) has recently been sued for libel by a longtime union leader.

In his online newsletter, The Patriot Returns (TPR), Karkhanis has ceaselessly written of alleged malfeasance and incompetence on the part of the faculty union of the City University of New York, the Professional Staff Congress (PSC). Orenstein claims the litigant, Professor Susan O’Malley, has “determined to forever silence all criticism … to shut down the one remaining gadfly.”

Felicitations to Orenstein for drawing scrutiny to the PSC’s execrable record. He traces its record of “pursuing revolution,” “aiding and abetting terrorists,” and “supporting political causes with the member’s dues … instead of winning better contracts for the members.” Specifically:

TPR has carefully documented … PSC … campaigns to devote more time and resources to future global crusades. This includes such activities as mobilizing the membership to protest the Republican Party at the Republican National Convention in New York … PSC has passed a resolution sympathizing with Hugo Chavez, sponsored a conference called Educators to Stop the War, calling for teachers to develop an anti-war curriculum … [It] has organized and funded New York City Labor Against the War and Labor for Palestine, donated $5000 to support the legal defense of Lori Berenson, in prison for helping Peruvian Marxist terrorists, and donated thousands to the defense of Sami Al-Arian convicted of conspiracy to aid terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad … PSC hosts an “International Committee” replete with a foreign policy spokesperson, who has issued public statements against economic and military aid to Israel and a statement condemning the war in Afghanistan, “joining in solidarity with the victims of U.S. military power,” namely the Taliban … The New York Sun, reported that while the leaders of the PSC have been running amok in politics, their union failed to deliver a new contract and in the past five years the member’s health and welfare fund reserves fell by 97% “with only a trickle of money remaining for faculty members’ prescription drug, dental, and medical insurance plans.”

To be continued.