Columnist Steve Chapman says that even at private colleges, alumni, donors and other interested parties are inclined to question the value of academic freedom when it leads to lunacy.
The tension erupted into open hostilities recently at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which discovered that one of its instructors has an unorthodox view of recent history. Kevin Barrett, who teaches a course on Islam, thinks the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were “an inside job” masterminded by the Bush administration to justify U.S. aggression in the Middle East.