Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web

[timosman]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html


May 8, 2018

Here are some things that you will hear when you sit down to dinner with the vanguard of the Intellectual Dark Web: There are fundamental biological differences between men and women. Free speech is under siege. Identity politics is a toxic ideology that is tearing American society apart. And we’re in a dangerous place if these ideas are considered “dark.”

I was meeting with Sam Harris, a neuroscientist; Eric Weinstein, a mathematician and managing director of Thiel Capital; the commentator and comedian Dave Rubin; and their spouses in a Los Angeles restaurant to talk about how they were turned into heretics. A decade ago, they argued, when Donald Trump was still hosting “The Apprentice,” none of these observations would have been considered taboo.

Today, people like them who dare venture into this “There Be Dragons” territory on the intellectual map have met with outrage and derision — even, or perhaps especially, from people who pride themselves on openness.

It’s a pattern that has become common in our new era of That Which Cannot Be Said. And it is the reason the Intellectual Dark Web, a term coined half-jokingly by Mr. Weinstein, came to exist.

What is the I.D.W. and who is a member of it? It’s hard to explain, which is both its beauty and its danger.

Most simply, it is a collection of iconoclastic thinkers, academic renegades and media personalities who are having a rolling conversation — on podcasts, YouTube and Twitter, and in sold-out auditoriums — that sound unlike anything else happening, at least publicly, in the culture right now. Feeling largely locked out of legacy outlets, they are rapidly building their own mass media channels.

The closest thing to a phone book for the I.D.W. is a sleek website (http://intellectualdark.website/) that lists the dramatis personae of the network, including Mr. Harris; Mr. Weinstein and his brother and sister-in-law, the evolutionary biologists Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying; Jordan Peterson, the psychologist and best-selling author; the conservative commentators Ben Shapiro and Douglas Murray; Maajid Nawaz, the former Islamist turned anti-extremist activist; and the feminists Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christina Hoff Sommers. But in typical dark web fashion, no one knows who put the website up.

...

[dannno]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ochu8W9ZBpE

[Brian4Liberty]

"Renegades of the Dark Web" that publish articles on The Weekly Standard? OK. Nice astroturf there.

[dannno]

Ok, I think this Shermer guy is the Zippy kind of "skeptic" (aka, not really a skeptic at all, at least when it comes to anything important..) but this is pretty entertaining..

From the article:


“I’ve been at this for 25 years now, having done all the MSM shows, including Oprah, Charlie Rose, ‘The Colbert Report,’ Larry King — you name it,” Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, told me. “The last couple of years I’ve shifted to doing shows hosted by Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Sam Harris and others. The I.D.W. is as powerful a media as any I’ve encountered.”Mr. Shermer, a middle-aged science writer, now gets recognized on the street. On a recent bike ride in Santa Barbara, Calif., he passed a work crew and “the flag man stopped me and says: ‘Hey, you’re that skeptic guy, Shermer! I saw you on Dave Rubin and Joe Rogan!’” When he can’t watch the shows on YouTube, he listens to them as podcasts on the job. On breaks, he told Mr. Shermer, he takes notes.


This article came out today about a speaking appearance scheduled for Shermer at a local college campus:

https://www.independent.com/news/2018/may/10/santa-barbara-city-college-has-its-metoo-moment/
Santa Barbara City College Has Its #MeToo Moment


Professor Faces Backlash After Raising Concerns About Guest Lecturer

Thursday, May 10, 2018


by TYLER HAYDEN (https://www.independent.com/staff/tyler-hayden/) (CONTACT (https://www.independent.com/staff/tyler-hayden/contact/))


In the midst of the national #MeToo movement, Santa Barbara City College is grappling with its own crisis of conduct and disclosure after a tenured chemistry professor publicly aired sexual assault allegations against an acclaimed science writer ahead of his scheduled guest lecture on campus. The disclosure triggered legal threats against staff and students and prompted continuing debate around free-speech protections and the rights of the accused.

On the morning of March 19, Professor Raeanne Napoleon sent a campus-wide email that described the evening’s Faculty Colloquium speaker — Dr. Michael Shermer (https://michaelshermer.com/), a monthly columnist for Scientific American and adjunct professor at Chapman University — as “someone who has been accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault (rape) by multiple women.” She linked to a 2014 Buzzfeed article (https://www.buzzfeed.com/markoppenheimer/will-misogyny-bring-down-the-atheist-movement?utm_term=.relMBQoW2a#.dwbKvk8R60) that names and quotes three women who claim to have been victimized by Shermer. “I think it’s important that we understand who tonight’s speaker is,” Napoleon wrote, “so that you can choose whether or not you will support this event.”

The email prompted an immediate flurry of response from faculty and staff. “People with a known history of predatory behavior should absolutely not be invited to speak on college campuses,” wrote student advisor Chelsea Lancaster. “What happened to the principal [sic] of presumption of innocence?” asked Professor Peter Naylor. “[D]on’t contribute to the deluge of misinformation and hate-speech that is destroying our public discourse.” SBCC’s student newspaper, The Channels, published an article (https://www.thechannels.org/news/2018/03/19/michael-shermer-to-speak-despite-harassment-allegations/) that afternoon describing the email exchanges and a decision by event organizers to allow Shermer’s talk on metaphysics and the afterlife to proceed.

The following day, March 20, Shermer issued his own all-campus email through colloquium organizer Professor Mark McIntire. In 10 blistering paragraphs of rebuttal, Shermer called the allegations against him “disgusting, repulsive” lies, and he accused Napoleon of libel and defamation for perpetuating them. “Dr. Napoleon doesn’t know me and doesn’t know anything about me,” he wrote. “And yet she feels no compunction whatsoever to publicly hurl such calumnies against me in an act of wonton irresponsibility.” (Shermer’s full response to the Buzzfeed feature is posted here (https://michaelshermer.com/downloads/Shermer-statement.pdf). In it, he states one of the three reported encounters was consensual and the other two were misconstrued.)

https://independent.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/img/photos/2018/05/09/20180508_Raeanne_Napoleon_04.jpg
By Paul Wellman
Dr. Raeanne Napoleon

Shermer said it was only last fall that “a moral crusader of Dr. Napoleon’s ilk” notified Chapman University of the Buzzfeedarticle, and that the college “dismissed” the accusations against him as “unwarranted.” So, too, have his other employers, he said. Shermer admonished the student writer of The Channels article, Daniel Wallace, for not contacting him so he could personally refute the charges. “Any journalist worthy of the name would have called or emailed to ask for a response before publishing a hit piece like this,” he said.

Shermer claimed he could prove damages in lost book sales the night of his lecture. He promised Napoleon and Wallace: “You will pay for it.” Shermer demanded a retraction from Wallace and a public apology from Napoleon by 6 p.m. the next day or he would take personal legal action against them. His demands were echoed by Professor McIntire, who said while Napoleon had tried to cancel the colloquium, “She succeeded only in fingering herself as a calumniator of the very worst stamp.” Shermer concluded his message with a “final warning” to Napoleon that he would file a restraining order against her if she continued “her defamatory actions going forward by following me around this small community where I live and work and play with my young son.”

The 6 p.m. deadline came and went without Napoleon apologizing or The Channels capitulating. On March 26, in the middle of SBCC’s spring break, Napoleon and The Channels received cease-and-desist letters from Shermer’s Los Angeles attorney. They got a second round of letters on April 4. Napoleon retained her own lawyer after her teachers’ union declined to represent her, and a number of colleagues rallied to her side, creating a GoFundMe page to cover her legal fees. It raised more than $8,000 in a matter of days. Wallace and The Channels consulted with SBCCattorney Joe Sholder, who assured them the article wasn’t libelous. But even if it was, Sholder said, the paper and Wallace were on their own — The Channels’ content is the legal liability of the student education board, not the college.

A week later, Shermer announced he was dropping his lawsuit (https://www.thechannels.org/news/2018/04/20/michael-shermer-retracts-legal-threats-after-ongoing-controversy/). “Although we have an excellent case that I was defamed, it isnot worth the time and cost pursuing legal recourse for what is (hopefully) an inconsequential incident,” he wrote in another campus-wide email. Napoleon’s attorney, Melissa Fassett, said Shermer never had a case. For him to prove defamation, he’d have to show that Napoleon’s statements about him were known to be untrue or were made with intentional malice. “Dr. Napoleon had simply voiced concerns about reports accusing Dr. Shermer of misconduct, which had been covered by the press,” Fassett said. “It should be remembered that the First Amendment right to free speech is protected, even if one disagrees with what is said.” Patricia Stark, faculty advisor to The Channels, called the episode a hard-learned lesson for 18- and 19-year-old journalism students. “They stuck to their convictions throughout the ordeal,” she said. “I’m immensely proud of them.”

The author of the Buzzfeed article — Mark Oppenheimer, a regular contributor to the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times — remains fully confident in the accuracy of his reporting. Before it was published, Oppenheimer said, the piece was closely fact-checked, then read and approved by the company attorney. “As you know, we had several women on the record talking about Shermer’s behavior,” he said. “Given women’s understandable reluctance to be named in stories like this, it’s unusual to have multiple on-the-record sources, and yet we did.” Oppenheimer said Shermer sent him a long email after the story was published that described the pain it had caused him. They spoke on the phone as well. “He insisted that the women lied, and I insisted that I stood by my story,” said Oppenheimer. “I still do.”

In an email exchange with the Santa Barbara Independent, Shermer said the entire SBCC issue hinged on a statement made in Napoleon’s email and repeated in Wallace’s article that claimed “police did not bring formal charges against him.” Shermer said law enforcement never investigated the purported incidents. “What police? Where? When?” he asked. “Never in my life have I been investigated by the police — or any law enforcement agency — for anything anytime anywhere.”

Shermer said because Napoleon and Wallace refused repeated requests to retract the statement, his only recourse was through the courts. “The reason I had to draw a line in the sand about this falsehood,” he said, “is because over the many years I have seen these claims grow in falsehoods; e.g., ‘alleged rapist’ became ‘known rapist’ became ‘convicted rapist.’ Convicted!”

Though the ordeal left Napoleon badly shaken, with lingering concerns that she was not adequately supported by SBCCadministration, she doesn’t regret sending that March 19 email. “In my mind, in 2018, you call this stuff out,” she said. “I don’t think what I did was that brave or out of the ordinary.” If nothing else, she went on, “I just want people to know how this guy operates.” Napoleon recently filed a workplace harassment complaint against McIntire after he continued to criticize her on his public Facebook page and in conversations with students. A student group calling itself STAND formed in response to what it views as the college’s failure to protect Napoleon and The Channels and its enabling silence around the Shermer allegations. Multiple faculty members have voiced similar concerns in departmental and Board of Trustee meetings.

When asked about the Shermer affair and Napoleon’s pending complaint against McIntire, SBCC spokesperson Luz Reyes-Martin said the campus is committed to maintaining a climate free of harassment and has a process in place for investigating any grievances. But “[d]ue to confidentiality standards and ongoing investigations,” she said, “SBCC cannot comment on the specifics of any individual report. However, we can assert that we take these reports very seriously and are diligently following our processes and evaluating all options available to address them.” The college is also now reevaluating the rules around its all-campus email system.

[Raginfridus]

"Renegades of the Dark Web" that publish articles on The Weekly Standard? OK. Nice astroturf there.Written to scare mothers and "inform" the elderly.

[dannno]

(Shermer’s full response to the Buzzfeed feature is posted here (https://michaelshermer.com/downloads/Shermer-statement.pdf). In it, he states one of the three reported encounters was consensual and the other two were misconstrued.)


Hah, wow, have to admit these do all really look like they are total BS

https://michaelshermer.com/downloads/Shermer-statement.pdf

[Brian4Liberty]

Hah, wow, have to admit these do all really look like they are total BS

https://michaelshermer.com/downloads/Shermer-statement.pdf

Probably. The feminist Marxist totalitarian left is in the process of redefining language and reality.

Everything is a form of rape, especially ex post facto. Regret? Rape. Didn't work out? Rape. Her girlfriends give him a thumbs down? Rape.

[dannno]

More fallout from the SBCC scandal, professor who defended Shermer in campus emails fired!! (GOFUNDME) (https://www.gofundme.com/professor-mark-mcintire-legal-fund)


https://www.independent.com/news/2018/may/30/sbcc-philosophy-professor-let-go-amid-metoo-fallou/

SBCC Philosophy Professor Let Go Amid #MeToo Fallout

Mark McIntire Says Controversial Comments Are Protected Free Speech 

Wednesday, May 30, 2018




The teaching career of longtime Santa Barbara City College professor Mark McIntire came to an abrupt end last week in the midst of the campus’s recent #MeToo controversy (https://www.independent.com/news/2018/may/10/santa-barbara-city-college-has-its-metoo-moment/).

On March 19, the college was alerted to sexual assault allegations against a scheduled guest lecturer, science historian Michael Shermer. The disclosure triggered volleys of legal threats from Shermer, who argued libel and defamation, as well as accusations of harassment against his most vocal defender. Shermer was invited to speak by McIntire, a faculty member in the college’s philosophy department since 1996. In public and private messages, McIntire denounced those who aired the allegations against Shermer as “calumniators” who “secreted” the “venom” of social justice warriors and launched a “Pearl Harbor sneak-attack” against an innocent man.

Though McIntire privately emailed at least four female employees who’d voiced anxiety over Shermer’s appearance, he also singled out chemistry professor Raeanne Napoleon for sending a campus-wide email that cited a news report on Shermer’s alleged assaults. In mid-April, Napoleon filed a Title IX complaint against McIntire that accused him of harassment. Since then, three more faculty members have filed Title IX complaints against McIntire.

City College administration declined to comment on its decision to not rehire McIntire as an adjunct instructor. In public statements, however, McIntire claimed he was told by the philosophy department chair during his teaching evaluation that the topics he chose for his course term papers and exams were too “politically charged,” his Facebook postings were inappropriate, and he failed to grasp “basic philosophical concepts.”

The real reason he was let go, McIntire declared on a new GoFundMe page collecting donations for his legal fund, “is that I was the sole faculty voice expressing the cause of marginalized religious, conservatives, libertarians, homeschoolers, and/or Trump voters on staff, faculty, and student population.” McIntire said “every word in any and all emails” he sent was protected free speech under the 1st and 14th amendments, and he vowed to press his case through City College’s internal appeals channels and “at every level of the civil judicial system.”

At the school’s May 24 Board of Trustees meeting, McIntire also accused City College of trading a diversity of ideas in its hiring choices for “a diversity of superficialities, people who are members of categories, such as ethnicity, genital configurations, immigration status, incarceration …” Shermer himself implored City College to reinstate McIntire. “Please don’t go down this route,” he asked. [McIntire] is a good man who cares about facts, truth, and justice, and in a free society and college community that cherishes such values, he should not be punished for that.”

During the same May 24 meeting, history professor Danielle Swiontek discussed the publication of a zine by a student group (https://independent.media.clients.ellingtoncms.com/news/documents/2018/05/30/sbcc_zine.pdf) ― STAND ― that formed in response to the Shermer incident and what is described as the college’s inadequate protection of Napoleon and other female faculty members from his and McIntire’s reported bullying. The zine contains stories of rape, discrimination, and alleged solicitation by male SBCC staff. Swiontek called it a “powerful and horrifying” depiction of issues the college has failed to acknowledge.

Patricia Stark, a journalism professor and president of the college’s Academic Senate, told the trustees that Napoleon didn’t act alone when she sent her March 19 all-campus email. Many others shared her concerns. “There was definitely a group of tenured faculty involved in this before the email went out,” Stark explained. “I could have easily been the one who sent the email.”

Napoleon again asked for the college’s legal and financial support to defend her from what she described as the incident’s continuing fallout. “The administration is still distressingly silent in protecting us from ongoing harassment,” she said. “It should not be so hard to get the college to do what is legally and morally right.”

[dannno]

bump

[dannno]

Thanks to you...I've been vindicated on the fake Title IX accusations by 4 female faculty. Here's a page one article from today's Santa Barbara News Press. This is not, as Churchill quipped, "...the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning:

Report clears SBCC instructor of Title IX charges
By JOSH GREGA, NEW-PRESS STAFF WRITER
June 26, 2018 6:01 AM

A former Santa Barbara City College adjunct philosophy professor has been cleared of Title IX charges from four female faculty members alleging that he engaged in bullying and sexual harassment via email.

The case's investigation report from June 15 determined that the emails sent from Mark McIntire to his colleagues, though rude and disrespectful, did not rise to the level of harassment or violate the school's computer use policies.

The emails in question were sent following a controversy surrounding guest speaker Michael Shermer's appearance at the college on March 19, 2018.

As the report recounts, Mr. McIntire coordinated the school's Faculty Colloquium lecture series that took place on March 19. Dr. Shermer, a renowned atheist writer and Chapman University professor, was invited to talk about his most recent book "Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search For the Afterlife, Immortality and Utiopia."

At 9:04 a.m. the morning of the event, SBCC chemistry department chair Raeanne Napoleon used the school's all-campus email to disseminate three 2014 online articles from Buzzfeed, patheos.com, and the-orbit.net alleging that Dr. Shermer had sexually harassed and abused women. However, she did not include Dr. Shermer's personal statement on his website defending himself from these allegations.

The accusations against Dr. Shermer were reiterated further when the school's student newspaper The Channels published an article on the allegations hours before the colloquium was to begin. In one of his responses to City College through Mr. McIntire two days later, Dr. Shermer complained that The Channels did not contact him for comment before publishing.

According to the Title IX report, after a disappointing turnout at Dr. Shermer's lecture, Mr. McIntire told Dr. Shermer about the all-campus email over dinner.

Furious at what had happened, Dr. Shermer sent an email on March 22, 2018 to Dr. Napoleon and SBCC President Anthony Beebe threatening to take legal action if The Channels article was not retracted and removed.

The following day, March 21, Mr. McIntire used SBCC's all-campus email to send two responses on behalf of Dr. Shermer, asserting that he should be able to respond to the allegations.

"In our American justice system those accused of criminal acts have the right to defend themselves against their accuser(s) in the very forum of the accusation," Mr. McIntire wrote.

This was then followed by a link to Dr. Shermer's 2014 response to the allegations and then a direct response to the campus-wide email sent by Dr. Napoleon. In the latter, Dr. Shermer repeated his threats to take legal action. He ended the threats on April 14 through a letter to the SBCC community, again sent through Mr. McIntire via the all-campus email.

Mr. McIntire's dissemination of Dr. Shermer's responses triggered a flurry of emails from several faculty members, many who supported Dr. Napoleon sending the all-campus email. Among them were associate professor of history Daniele Swiontek, professor of English Cynthia Davis, and librarian Ellen Carey.

After they, along with Dr. Napoleon, spent a few weeks exchanging emails with Mr. McIntire defending their respective stances on the Shermer issue, Dr. Napoleon and Dr. Swiontek filed the first Title IX complaints on April 16.

As listed in the report, Dr. Napoleon's complaint cited reasons that included Mr. McIntire harassing her via email, being threatened by a meritless lawsuit from Dr. Shermer, being publicly defamed by Mr. McIntire and Dr. Shermer, Dr. Shermer sending defamatory all-campus emails through Mr. McIntire, and SBCC not preventing Mr. McIntire from retaliating against her after the March 19 incident.

Dr. Swiontek's Title IX complaint alleged "sexual harassment of an employee," which she specified as Mr. McIntire sending her vaguely threatening emails for her support of Dr. Napoleon and that his sending similar emails to other female faculty members revealed a "pattern of sexual harassment against female faculty."

On April 17, Ms. Carey filed her Title IX complaint 17 alleging that an email Mr. McIntire sent her was aggressive, bullying, and " 'personalize(d)' the issue, and criticized her as a librarian."

Ms. Davis filed the final Title IX complaint on May 1, claiming that an email Mr. McIntire sent her on April 30 was unprofessional, unjustifiably accusatory, and "debased" her. Calling it "verbal (written) harassment," she said the email insulted her ability to think and teach critically.

In April, SBCC approached retired Judge Elinor Reiner to conduct an impartial investigation and mediate the matter. The author of the investigation report, Judge Reiner wrote that establishing a Title IX sexual harassment violation requires a complaint demonstrating that the unwanted conduct is so "severe" and "pervasive" that it objectively creates an "abusive" and "hostile" work environment.

Determining whether or not Mr. McIntire violated SBCC policies that reflect Title IX values, Judge Reiner found that he did not breach the school's policies prohibiting harassment, AP 3430 and BP 3430.

Though she called some of Mr. McIntire's emails to female faculty "rude, harsh, sarcastic, and unprofessional in nature," Judge Reiner ruled that they were not severe or pervasive enough to create an abusive and hostile work environment.

She also ruled that Mr. McIntire did not violate the school's computer and network use policy, BP 3720, and its administrative procedure AP 3720 by disseminating Dr. Shermer's responses to the allegations against him via the all-campus email, as the messages were reasonably work-related and their content did not qualify as "harassment."

However, Judge Reiner decided that Mr. McIntire did violate BP 3050, demanding faculty "adhere to the principles of ... mutual respect" and be "open to the opinions of others and judicious in what they say and do."

She said that even though Mr. McIntire said he was attempting to "'set the record straight,'" some of his sarcastic and accusatory comments "flew directly in the face of the SBCC Professional Code of Ethics requirement of 'mutual respect.' " According to the report, there are no sanctions provided for violations of BP 3050.

Speaking to the News-Press, Mr. McIntire said he was pleased with the results of the investigation.

"I'm delighted to be exonerated from the fake Title IX accusations by the four female faculty members and as far as 3050 is concerned, Mother Theresa could be found guilty of that. It's vague, ambiguous, and toothless," he said.

Dr. Napoleon and Ms. Carey refused to comment and Ms. Davis and Dr. Swiontek didn't respond to requests for comment.

https://www.gofundme.com/professor-mark-mcintire-legal-fund?viewupdates=1&rcid=r01-153002856151-cc8702791da44d38

[dannno]

In case you missed it behind the pay-wall....Today's SB News Press Editorial by Andy Caldwell:
Editorials : Guest Opinion: The progressive decline of SBCC
By Andy Caldwell June 28, 2018

Santa Barbara City College has three things going for it — namely, location, location, location. Other than that, it has become an official wasteland, an intellectual ghetto devoid of constructive dialogue and meaningful debate. That is, the college has finally rid itself of its one token conservative professor, making the transition to an ideologically uniform-social-justice-warrior boot camp complete. To wit, the college has bid adieu and good riddance to one Professor Mark McIntire.

Mr. McIntire initially figured something was amiss when, after having taught at the college for over 20 years, he got a call from the administration. They couldn't find his teaching credential. Of course, they didn't bother to inform him why they were looking for it in the first place, since he had to initially provide it to be hired. Nonetheless, they informed him he could no longer teach without it. As it turns out, Mr. McIntire was able to reproduce the credential in short order.

The second attempt to rid the college of his services came in the form of a negative evaluation of his performance by his new department head. Despite the fact that Mr. McIntire was teaching critical thinking skills, his new boss didn't like the fact that his students were having to think critically about "highly charged" subjects, such as gun control. God forbid the snowflake generation would have to consider both sides of a debate, on a college campus no less. Whereas Mr. McIntire may have been able to survive this ideological ambush, what came next served to provide the fatal head shot. To wit, the Shermer Incident.

Mr. McIntire invited a well-known and highly respected academic, Dr. Michael Shermer, to take part in a colloquium. Unbeknownst to these two professionals, a college chemistry professor, Raeanne Napoleon, decided to do a #MeToo search on Mr. Shermer. What she came up with was a four-year-old story about sexual harassment allegations that she decided to run with, by way of sabotaging attendance at the colloquium and defaming Mr. Shermer. She blasted out an email indicating that all the women on campus should be cautious about being alone with the visiting scholar after dark, and well, that did the trick.

As it turns out, Mr. Shermer's college of employment had already conducted an investigation into the allegations and dismissed the same. Santa Barbara City College decided that the chemistry professor's email blast was of no concern. However, when Mr. McIntire went to the defense of Dr. Shermer, well, things took a nasty turn indeed.

The chemistry professor and a couple other #MeToo sorority sisters on campus filed sexual harassment charges against Mr. McIntire. For what? True to form, the sisters claim to be the victims in all this. Simply because it was Mr. McIntire who called them sorority sisters and made fun of them by way of his standard fare of colorful and clever language. Ergo, based on words alone, they filed charges of sexual harassment. Mr. McIntire has since been cleared of the charges, but regardless, City College has informed him they will not rehire him for the next semester.

Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m., on News-Press AM 1290.

https://www.gofundme.com/professor-mark-mcintire-legal-fund

[dannno]

Interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6j5nykaLEHo


1 hour forum:
https://www.gofundme.com/professor-mark-mcintire-legal-fund?viewupdates=1&rcid=r01-153134574151-7418035a194f458c

[dannno]

https://www.independent.com/news/2018/sep/20/sbcc-president-apologizes-handling-harassment-clai/


SBCC President Apologizes for Handling of Harassment Claims
Three Dozen Faculty Signed Letter Condemning College’s Inaction


Thursday, September 20, 2018
by TYLER HAYDEN (CONTACT)

After six months of sustained public outcry, and in response to a blisteringly critical letter signed by nearly three dozen faculty members, SBCC President Anthony Beebe publicly apologized last Wednesday for how the college responded to multiple harassment and hostile workplace claims filed by female employees against male colleagues. “My team and I made statements, took actions, and responded to difficult things over the last several months that have hurt members of our college community,” he said in his open letter. “I deeply regret that my actions caused harm.”

The saga began last March when chemistry professor Raeanne Napoleon sent an all-campus email outlining sexual assault allegations against Michael Shermer, a guest lecturer invited to speak at Santa Barbara City College by adjunct philosophy instructor Mark McIntire. In response, Shermer shot off strongly worded legal threats against Napoleon, while McIntire denounced her and her supporters as “hysterical victim posers” who “secreted” social justice “venom.” Mc*Intire’s continuing barrage of social media posts and private emails, which referred to the female professors as a “sorority,” prompted Napoleon and three other faculty members to file formal Title IX harassment claims against him.


As the Title IX investigations unfolded, SBCC fired McIntire, ostensibly for unacceptable teaching habits. McIntire claimed he was in fact let go for his comments and for being an outspoken Trump supporter on a mostly liberal campus. He said his statements were protected free speech, and he vowed to sue the school for wrongful termination. The two sides reached a $120,000 settlement agreement last month. At the time of his dismissal, McIntire, a member of the philosophy department for 13 years, was teaching a single online critical thinking course. Former SBCC president Lori Gaskin called the payout “a sad outcome for the college.”


The assigned Title IX judge ultimately ruled that while McIntire’s statements to his female colleagues were “gender-based in a purposefully disparaging fashion” and clearly violated SBCC’s Code of Ethics, they didn’t rise to the level of actionable harassment. McIntire said he felt vindicated by the settlement and the ruling, and he’s moving on from the controversy by launching a Santa Barbara News-Press–sponsored radio program called Freedom Matters. In online message boards he continues to defend himself. “You can only be bullied if you are weak and have no plausible defense,” he recently wrote. “Admitting you have been bullied is admitting you have been dominated.”


Throughout the ordeal, Beebe and City College administrators remained conspicuously silent. They voiced no public support for the four women and denied Napoleon’s requests for legal assistance, claiming she had acted as a private citizen in her protest of Shermer’s appearance. Instead, Beebe implored the school to not “get distracted” by the dispute, and he curtailed access to the all-campus email system. Media interviews were declined, and when Napoleon and others did speak with reporters, they were accused of “stirring the pot.”


Frustrated by what they viewed as purposeful inaction by SBCC leadership, a letter was composed by a group of 33 faculty members in the Sciences Division ​— ​Napoleon works there but emphasized she had no part in writing it ​— ​and sent to Beebe and the Board of Trustees on September 5. They condemned the administration’s lack of support and communication, and they voiced bewilderment it possessed little awareness of the many faculty- and student-initiated Title IX complaints that had been lodged with state authorities.

One of the complaints, the letter states, involved a male faculty member “engaging in sexual misconduct in plain view of students, staff, and faculty.” The economics professor, a close ally of McIntire’s, was observed by multiple people on multiple occasions viewing hardcore pornography on his office computer. When this was reported to former executive vice president Paul Jarrell, he responded SBCC didn’t have “any policy to prevent this,” but he was hopeful the school could find a legal way to stop the professor “other than us simply telling him not to,” perhaps with a “hostile work environment” complaint to the school’s human resources department. Human Resources, however, declined to take any action until a Title IX grievance was filed, the letter states. The professor was permitted to retire with full benefits soon after.

“The faculty involved in the above-described events are suffering,” the letter reads. “They feel discriminated against, gaslighted, alienated, and disposable to the institution.” SBCC’s reputation as a school sensitive to gender-equity issues has been jeopardized, the letter goes on to say, and it will continue to suffer poor PR as long as the administration stays silent, which “in a time of declining enrollment when we are trying to court members of the community and high school students” is “particularly dangerous.” The science faculty demanded that the administration issue an apology, become more transparent, and take reports of harassment and sexual misconduct more seriously.


In his September 12 mea culpa, Beebe committed to greater openness from his administration. He vowed to hire a full-time Title IX officer and make the number and status of all the college’s Title IX claims and investigations publicly available online. (SBCC did not respond to a request from the Independent this week for information on pending and recently closed Title IX cases.) Beebe also suggested the creation of a President’s Action Committee on Gender Equity, and he said $20,000 in funding would be given to the Academic Senate to develop best practices in balancing “academic integrity, free speech, academic freedom, and civility.”


With respect to the last six months, Beebe acknowledged the frustration and anger that roiled the campus. “Although attempting to give thoughtful consideration before making every decision, I recognize that some actions could be perceived as insensitive, uncaring, or simply wrong,” he said. “I will admit there were instances over the last several months where we could have moved faster as an institution. … I apologize for this. Period. No excuse.” Beebe said he hopes the college will move forward together “with some positive and significant actions.”


For her part, Napoleon was unmoved by the apology, calling it “a disingenuous attempt from Dr. Beebe to be the leader and superintendent-president that we need and have needed for some time.” She found it striking that as soon as Beebe received the science department letter, he forwarded it to SBCC’s Board of Trustees and complained, “None of this makes any sense … ”


“What doesn’t make sense,” Napoleon rebutted, “is that he would offer that sentiment after countless emails, meetings, and pleas from so many faculty members to address the resentment that was festering on campus.”


Napoleon is considering resigning her tenured teaching position, because at the end of the day, she said, McIntire “was allowed to harass me, and anyone associated with me, for months.” That’s unacceptable, she said, and “it’s just too bad his bad behavior got rewarded with such a payout.”





https://i.imgflip.com/2id1t2.jpg

[Brian4Liberty]

McIntire claimed he was in fact let go for his comments and for being an outspoken Trump supporter on a mostly liberal campus.

Three dozen hysterical faculty members prove that point...


blisteringly critical letter signed by nearly three dozen faculty members

[r3volution 3.0]

...Intellectual...

https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Inigo-Montoya.jpg

[kpitcher]

I don't think the author knows what 'dark web' actually is. Identified people, giving public speeches, on standard websites, does not count as a dark web.