Apparently, the anonymous comment in my blog is true: President Harter has removed the “non-disciplinary” letter from Prof. Hoppe’s file. Las Vegas Review columnist K.C. Howard wrote about it in Controversy generates online war of words and REMARKS ABOUT GAYS: Professor rejects gestures. Prof. Hoppe would still like an apology and compensation (a sabbatical) for this incident. I sincerely hope that he gets this, as he greatly deserves it. It would allow him to make up lost time in his work on libertarianism and Austrian economics.
Mr. Knight posted about this in his journal. Apparently, they don’t teach logic at the UNLV. The fact that the study Prof. Hoppe cited comes from Dr. Cameron (a member of the Family Research Institute (FRI)) doesn’t invalidate the study. Mr. Knights suggestion that it does is nothing but a fallacy, specifically an ad hominem. Apparently with him, no evidence counts unless it’s evidence he agrees with, from his pre-approved sources.
I suspect that if some pro-gay organization came to similar conclusions, Mr. Knight would accuse them of being sell-outs. He seems to have a very poor understanding of science. All science is funded by and done by specific people or organizations. These organizations tend to have agendas, one way or another. That doesn’t invalidate the studies. The same argument could be used to say that a study confirming global warming, because it was funded by an environmentalist organization, is false and untrustworthy. Of course, the hidden statement here is that scientists are nothing more than stooges for political agendas. My point here is not to say that we shouldn’t question the study from the FRI, nor even that I necessarily agree with all of the FRI’s conclusions about homosexuals (I haven’t read much literature on the subject, thus cannot form a well-informed opinion).
Honestly, I can’t blame the UNLV for Mr. Knight’s lack of education. After all, what can be done with someone who is too lazy to reach for a dictionary to look up the word “discrimination”? Discrimination does not mean making correct generalizations — based on empirical fact and praxeological analysis — about groups of people. It means treating specific groups differently from others; that is, not treating individuals on the basis of their merit. Prof. Hoppe did not grade Mr. Knight differently than anyone else in the class. There was no discrimination. Mr. Knight’s reference of a “protected class” is disgusting. If a professor did grade someone differently, it would not be any better to do such to a person who wasn’t a member of a “protected class” than to someone who was. Of course, Prof. Hoppe did not do this.
Mr. Knight said that this is a “sad day” for the homosexual community. That’s an interesting generalization coming from someone who thinks we shouldn’t be generalizing about homosexuals. Who is he to speak for all homosexuals on the matter? Who is he to say that all homosexuals are as hyper-sensitive as he is? Certainly, they aren’t. Most of them are very reasonable. I posted Prof. Hoppe’s lecture to numerous homosexual communities, and almost everyone responding indicated that they found nothing offensive about Prof. Hoppe’s comments. A few people disagreed with him, several people pointed out that he could have refined his comments, and some people simply said they tended to agree with him. However, accross that entire spectrum, those who responded did not find the statement offensive. If this is a “sad day” for the homosexual community, it is because Mr. Knight personifies many of the negative stereotypes about homosexuals that have come to exist.
Furthermore, Mr. Knight accused Prof. Hoppe’s supporters of complaining until they got what they wanted. This is a ridiculous charge, as we were merely defending a man from overzealous political correctness. Unlike complaining about statements you don’t like, defending Prof. Hoppe’s contractual rights and freedom of academic speech is completely justifiable.
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Notice that the impertinent brat punk refers to his former professor, Dr. Hoppe, as “Hans.” A sign of the times.
What does this event say about the economy of justice? Here we have a learned scholar, who holds the distinguished position as professor at a major university. He was humbled by one person screaming “gay discrimination” loud enough for the bureaucrats to hear. It then took legal posturing and letters from countless supporters of the professor to make the members of the system to behave sensibly. Diagnosis: weak institutional framework.
Is it really a match to put the entire austrian-libertarian community up against one whiney social deviant? The lesson here is a hard one. Without the tremendous support that Dr. Hoppe has earned from a life spent engaging in academics, he would have been swept away by the tide of P.C. alarmists at UNLV.
As someone who believes in freedom this serves as an important lesson.
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