Fellow blogger Rocky Mountain Neo-Con broke a major story at my alma mater. It seems that the Metro State Political Science Department will be inviting a former Iranian "Revolutionary" (read, "Murderer/Terrorist") to speak to my former school. The full story can be found here and here.
Metro is a great school. The professors care deeply that the students learn the material. Further, the school has a philosophy that the professors need to have real-world as well as academic credentials. But it appears that the Political Science Department is determined to undermine the school's credibility.
I remember Dr. Oneida Meranto (the PhD is suspect: it is in "Native American Studies" and the only school that offers a doctorate in that field is UC Berkley) and her diatribes against "white Christian males." Indeed, she was so radical that even very liberal friends of mine found it difficult to sit through her lectures. Once, when on tour through the American Indian History Museum, one of these liberal students expressed their boredom and lingering doubt that all of the Christians were "that bad." He received an "F" in that course. For his privacy's sake, I do not fully disclose who this person is, but I can personally vouch that he was a solid B student and in now way deserved the F. Indeed, he was a socialist and we rarely agreed on anything. The problem was that he dared to question, even in the slightest, Meranto's philosophy. You can imagine the issues I had when I took her course.
Yet, there are good people in the Political Science Department too. Dr. Norman Provizer taught me more about Constitutional Law than I learned in the course with the same name in law school. He is also an nationally-renowned expert on jazz. Dr. Robert Hazan, the chair of the department, is a kind and generous man who actually gives a fair reading of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, he was born in Turkey and gives an insider's view to politics for the entire middle east.
Perhaps poli-sci simply attracts extremists and weirdos. I cannot explain why my alma mater has so disgraced its name to allow a terrorist to speak to the school. It makes me ashamed to say I went there. Perhaps the school will wake up one day.
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