Let’s be honest–nobody is mad at Karega because of any of that–they are mad at her because of her viewpoint and her expression of it. It has little to do with her ability to teach rhetoric. If she had posted her opinion that the pyramids were built by space aliens, that fluoridation of water saps our vital bodily essences, and there really are fairies and elves in the back garden, nobody would be calling for her to be fired (even if they thought she was a nut).
Is there any evidence that her offensive views were communicated in the classroom, or that she taught anything that was not factual in the classroom? If there isn’t, she’s no different from the electrical engineering prof with horrible beliefs who doesn’t address them in the classroom.
Let me just repeat that Oberlin, as a private institution, can fire her for her views. But a public university would have a much harder time overcoming her First Amendment protections.
If students have serious cause for concern about their grades if they fail to enthuse about elves in the back garden, the instructor will be fired very very quickly. Remember, there is no tenure issue, purely and simply a competence issue.
I am not so sure Hunt. If she had posted things supportive of Palestinians or had disputed the that Isis was jihadist, but did NOT go on to say it was set up by the CIA and Mossad, she might not have been fired. The issue is one of academic honesty and integrity, not of her personal views. I am not sure academic freedom extends to statements with literally no basis in fact. I would not want a professor on my faculty (if I had one) that posted ideas that are clearly not true, regardless of politics. Also, her academic interests (according to WaPo) include social justice writing and black political protest rhetoric. Seems these lies may well have leaked into the classroom. Oberlin seemed to really consider this carefully, but we have no knowledge of the specific evidence they used to make this decision.
@ucbalumnus Many people I’ve talked to are definitely aware of it, and they all seem to say the same thing: both were in the wrong, but the professor should have handled himself better than to call a student out by name. But for me, I don’t necessarily think that Adams was in the wrong considering that the student in question was thoughtless enough to have herself investigated by the Secret Service, put her own name to an article on a website, attacked our vice chancellor by saying she had white privilege, then cried foul when she got some heat for it. I used to think both were in the wrong equally, but after digging deeper into the issue, I think Nada Merghani is worse off.
The Wilmington case is an interesting one–I think it’s obvious that the professor is a creep, but that his statement about the student is protected speech, which means that a public university can’t punish him for publishing it. But you can see, once again, the clever efforts to find some argument for punishing him. It is sad to see a person using the First Amendment as a shield for such jerky behavior, but that’s part of the price we pay for freedom of speech.