Thanks go out to the many readers of Liberal News and Commentary who wrote with messages of support regarding the efforts of myself and others to get the (Finding Fault with) Significant Atheists class canceled.
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The instructor for the Finding Fault with Atheists class, Kanan Rosenstein, is reputed to be a Messianic Jew (a Jewish person who thinks that Jesus was the messiah). When you put together the description of the anti-atheist course (see February 11th Liberal News and Commentary) and the background of the instructor (somebody who obviously would have a negative opinion of atheism), it was highly doubtful that Rosenstein would have brought any sort of academic fairness or scholarly impartiality to a course about people he despises: atheists.
Now, there is an additional controversy at the College of DuPage.
This same guy who was going to teach the Finding Fault with Atheists class is also scheduled to teach a second class during the Spring, 2001, semester. That class is called, "Final Solution," with Registration Code 36071. If a man of Rosenstein's background has a negative bias against atheists, he surely would have a virulent hatred for Germans.
What business would a guy like him have in making a presentation about the German perspective of World War II? What type of impartiality do you think he would bring to this subject? Why have a class taught by a guy who hates the people he's teaching about?
I certainly have no love for Nazis. They murdered most members of my Jewish family who hadn't come to America or escaped to Palestine, now Israel. Screw 'em. However, I can't think of another person who would be less likely to treat the subject fairly than a Hebrew Christian. Just look at the title that Rosenstein selected for the course: Final Solution. Does that sound like the kind of title that would be selected by someone who was looking to treat the subject with intellectual honesty?
On Thursday morning, February 15th, I re-contacted Associated Dean of Liberal Arts Ed Storke and asked that he take a serious look at the academic merits of having this Rosenstein guy teaching a course called Final Solution. I said that I have no real standing to be making a formal objection to that course, since I don't live in DuPage County and since the course doesn't defame me directly like the anti-atheist course did, but, for the sake of the preserving the college's reputation for having academic and scholarly legitimacy, would he please look into the matter of academic fairness and scholarly impartiality in a course with a name like Final Solution being taught by a guy like Rosenstein.
Dean Storke thanked me for bringing the matter to his attention. He said that he would look into the matter and get back to me within two weeks.
I'll let you know what he says when he says it. Hopefully, his final solution will be to do the same thing to this class that he did to the anti-atheist class: Kill it.
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