Was UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp a bit heavy-handed in dismissing a retired faculty member who made a bit of an off-color comment related to a controversial student group he'd signed on to advise?
That's the topic N&O staffer Matthew Eisley is pondering today in a point/counterpoint. Offering up a different view this week is Domenic Powell, a columnist for the Daily Tar Heel.
The brief summary: the student group in question is Youth for Western Civilization, a right-wing organization at the center of controversy last semester when it attempted to bring former U.S. Congressman Tom Tancredo to campus.
Tancredo, a vocal opponent of illegal immigration, wasn't able to conclude his speech because it was interrupted by protesters. The YWC group subseqently lost its faculty advisor and Elliot Cramer, a retired professor, stepped in.
But then, in an e-mail, he made what seemed an off-hand remark about owning and using a gun, and Thorp promptly asked him to resign.
Here's the background.
Comments
Thorp had no choice ....
Mon, 10/05/2009 - 10:03 — AgentPierceWhen Cramer made his "tongue-in-cheek" e-mail about "I have a gun ...." public, Chanc Thorp had no choice but to dismiss him as sponsor for the group.
That decision had nothing to do with YWC or Tancredo or Right vs Left. In a post-VaTech world, any comment about "guns" has to be taken seriously by a college administrator. .... If Cramer had said the same comment boarding a plane at RDU he would have been arrested.
Thorp quickly reinstated the YWC under new advisors.