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Imagine the following scenario: The academic freedom of a gay professor on the East Coast is egregiously violated by a homophobic administration. Would Hoppe lift a finger for such a person? Sounds kind of unlikely to me.
Before I lift my dialing finger for Hoppe, I'd like to know his answer to that question up there--in writing, for public consumption, on the Internet. As every economist knows, there ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Same goes for a free phone call to Nevada.
The price of such a communication from Hoppe, publicly expressed, would amply compensate me for the price of my phone call to the Board of Regents. But to make the call pro bono for a gay-bashing economist who's being defended already by the ACLU? I think my response to that would have to be "Error: page not found."
David, do you konw if the site mentioned in Coda 2 here is a hoax? http://blog.mises.org/blog/archives/003107.asp I suspect it is. Stephan
I received two return phone calls from members of the Board of Regents. Both were very upset at the denial of Hoppe's academic freedom and promised to do something. One said he had been getting calls "from all around the world." I could be wrong but I sense that the administration is backing down. In the meantime, however, I would keep up the pressure.
Actually, I think he might well do so. When I was at UNLV, I had some trouble with the administration and Hoppe stood up for me. He did this despite the fact that I was allied with another (bitterly hostile) libertarian "faction" and had some very negative things about him and his scholarship. He was in an entirely different department, gained nothing, and owed me no favors....yet he took the initiative.
Leaving this aside, let me also say that I think that academics need to be willing to "lift their fingers" to defend the academic freedom of all sorts of people they don't like (and who could care less about the plight of others) and that includes Ward Churchill!
Here is a quote from the lead editorial in today's Las Vegas Review-Journal:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2005/Feb-08-Tue-2005/opinion/440078.html
At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 20-year professor Hans Hoppe, a world-renowned economist of the Austrian school, in March gave a stock lecture on planning for the future that he says has never resulted in complaints.
The lecture discussed different groups of people having different investment time horizons. The very young and the very old rarely concern themselves with the long-term economic future, Mr. Hoppe told his class, unlike married couples with children. Homosexuals, because they are less likely to have children and tend to live riskier lifestyles, also are less likely to plan for the long term, he said.
A student complained to university authorities, saying he had taken offense. The university then launched a months-long series of secret proceedings in which Mr. Hoppe's interrogators refused to consider signed letters from other students in the class as to the true nature of the discussion, but instead gave every appearance of presuming the tenured professor guilty. University authorities attempted to reprimand the professor and fine him.
Finally, the ACLU has stepped in. Coincidentally, the ACLU wrote UNLV's standards for teaching controversial matters. And local ACLU Executive Director Gary Peck says those guidelines, "which the university has blatantly violated in this case, don't merely allow professors to address controversial issues, they require them to address controversial matters."
"Academic freedom means nothing if it doesn't protect the right of professors to present scholarly ideas that are relevant to their curricula, even if they are controversial and rub people the wrong way," Mr. Peck says.
Indeed. The university should apologize to Mr. Hoppe and advise its students that the purpose of a university is to expose them to a wide range of new ideas --- even if some seem initially shocking or offensive.
Letters to the LV R-J can be sent here. http://www.reviewjournal.com/about/print/press/letterstoeditor.html
I don't know if it is a hoax. I think that the best approach is to ignore the president and phone the regents directly. My sense is that they are not getting many calls yet. Did you know there an editorial supporting Hoppe in today's Las Vegas Review Jouranl?