Wash. U. Professor Criticized For Anti-Gay Writings On School Website

[kweerwolf]

Many universities encourage an open exchange of ideas by their professors. But some wonder if the line between free speech and discriminatory thoughts has been crossed at Washington University.

When you visit the Washington University Physics Department Website, you can access Professor Jonathan Katz's articles on gamma ray bursts. There's also a link to Katz's personal Website.

Katz's ideas are available in several articles on his Website, including "In Defense Of Homophobia", an essay outlining Katz's opinions on homosexuality.

Katz wrote, referring to recipients of HIV contaminated transfusions, "Guilt for their deaths is on the hands of the homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers who poisoned the blood supply. These people died so the sodomites could feel good about themselves."

http://www.ksdk.com/news/education_article.aspx?storyid=85334

And here's a link to his "essay" on homophobia:

http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/defense.html

He's also written on such topics as "Diversity is the Last Refuge of Scondrels" (http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/diversity.html); "What is Political Correctness" (http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/pc.html); and "Anyone Who Bombs Baghdad Gets My Vote" (http://wuphys.wustl.edu/~katz/baghdad.html).

[skooooo]

1. there go those librul professors again

[kweerwolf]

2. Yep ... and ya know those conservatives ...

... are sooooooo adept at playing 'victim'

[ikojo]

4. Believe it or not this guy goes to an orthodox synagogue I used

to attend on a regular basis. He's none too friendly (as if his writings didn't already convey that).

The photo of him on his website is several years old.

[ikojo]

3. I live in St Louis and this is the first I have heard of this...

Interesting.

Washington Univ likes to bill itself as the Harvard of the Midwest. It's a conservative campus with a small radical student population. Last year a group of students staged a sit in to support a living wage for contracted employees such as those who clean their dorms and classrooms.

Wash U is also home to the Weidenbaum Center.

Here is some info on Murray Weidenbaum...

http://wc.wustl.edu/murrayweidenbaum.html

Professor Murray Weidenbaum is Honorary Chairman of the Center and Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor at Washington University. He is known for his research on economic policy, taxes, government spending, and regulation. Weidenbaum created the Center for the Study of American Business in 1975, served as its director during most of the 1975-2000 period, and retired from the directorship at the end of 2000, when the Center was renamed the Weidenbaum Center.
In 1981 and 1982, Professor Weidenbaum was President Reagan's first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. In that capacity, he helped formulate the economic policy of the Reagan administration and was a key spokesman for the administration on economic and financial issues. During the years 1982-1989, he was a member of the President's Economic Policy Advisory Board.

Earlier, Professor Weidenbaum was the first Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy in the Nixon administration. He also served as Fiscal Economist in the U.S. Bureau of the Budget and as the Corporate Economist at the Boeing Company. He is a member of the boards of directors of Harbour Group, Macroeconomic Advisers, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He is a member of advisory boards of the Center for Strategic Tax Reform, the American Council for Capital Formation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

[liberalpragmatist]

6. Actually - liberal campus overall

I have friends who attend the school. It's very much a liberal campus - overwhelmingly democratic in the last election, etc. But it's not very activist, except for a small subset.

[kbm8795]

5. Gee. . .I can just imagine how well a gay physics student

would do in his class. . .wingnut professors are probably the WORST at using their own political "correctness" ideology to sabotage and abuse students.

[davidinalameda]

7. my favorite quote

"I'm not a bigot. I come to a moral judgment. My moral judgment is that certain behavior is evil and immoral. It's immoral because it kills people," said Katz.

he's a bigot--he lumps all GLBT people in the same group

he hides behind whatever source for your morality and justify it as some great truth

now, let me ask a question--we all know that homophobes are out there every day killing and beating up gays--in his words of an act is immoral because it kills people, doesn't that make homophobia evil and immoral?