Conservative Critic of Academia Denied Advancement
by Jim Brown
September 21, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A campus watchdog group is questioning a decision by the University of North Carolina-Wilmington to deny a promotion to an award-winning conservative professor and author.Dr. Mike Adams was recently denied full professorship by the Sociology and Criminal Justice Department at UNC-Wilmington. Adams was given no explanation for the decision, except that his "record does not merit full professorship."
As a regular columnist for Townhall.com, Adams has been a vocal critic of academic freedom abuses on his campus and others across the country. He wrote the book Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor (released in 2004) and is soon to release another, titled Feminists Say the Darnedest Things.
Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), believes UNCW is punishing Adams because of his conservative beliefs.
"To my knowledge, UNCW hasn't admitted yet that Mike Adams' outspokenness has led to their decision not to promote him," Lukianoff says. "But given that he is a two-time Professor of the Year award winner, it seems pretty clear that this decision was made on the basis of his punditry rather than his academic achievements."
It is likely, says the FIRE spokesman, that Adams' outspokenness and his penchant for writing about hypocrisy and abuses of power within higher education brought about the denial. "It's one of those things that you see time and time again in free-speech cases," says Lukianoff, "that people in power do to like to be criticized -- and Mike Adams has had a field day with making fun of academia."
Consequently, it is not really a surprise that they would retaliate against Adams, he adds. "In that sense, this decision by UNC-Wilmington is quite predictable," says Lukianoff. But at the same time, he notes, UNCW has invited a lot of trouble by denying a promotion to an educator who has been awarded for his work.
Dr. Kimberly J. Cook, chair of the UNCW Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, did not respond to a request for an interview for this story.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
