I have not tried to analyze the reasoning flaws of 9/11 Denier Kevin Barrett, because there is no point to lending any attention to a delusional attention starved individual. Living in Madison I have been aware of him for a couple of years. Barrett declared himself a Muslim in 1992 and now, with the certainty of the convert, he is proclaiming Osama bin Laden a liar for taking credit for 9/11. Until recently, he was only one more local extremist head case.
When the University of Wisconsin Madison hired him to teach and then dug in to defend their decision, however, the focus shifts from the lack of sound judgment in an individual to the lack of sound judgment by our premier university. Barrett is a product of the College of Letters & Science, and more specifically the Department of African Languages and Literature. UW-Madison awarded Barrett his Ph.D. so they are not hiring an unknown who subsequently reveals unexpected reasoning flaws. They know he is a man who has fallen in love with a story.
I am encouraged there continues to be pressure on the UW-Madison to face the reality that Kevin Barrett is unfit to teach at a publicly funded institution.
Althouse on Barrett: I wish I could link to the article on Barrett in the Isthmus (a local paper), which ends with his expressing complete certitude that anyone reading the evidence would have to believe that the U.S. government carried out the 9/11 attacks. Where is the educational experience in learning from someone who is teaching completely outside of his field of expertise and expressing certitude in an obviously wrong theory? Ironically, Farrell's scholarly expertise is engineering.
Our premier Law Prof Blogger writes in response to increasingly lame justifications by the University Administration for paying Barrett to interact with students.
UW Madison Provost Patrick Farrell: "I still have every expectation this will be a very positive educational experience for our students" "Some are upset about Mr. Barrett's viewpoints on 9/11 and don't want to pay much attention to what makes for a quality educational experience."
A quality educational EXPERIENCE! Binge drinking on State Street to the point of “fall down and throw up” is an experience, but it is not a physics lesson. Every moment of life is an experience but it is only educational when it leads toward mastery of useful skills and verifiable knowledge. Experience for experience sake is not formal education and certainly not worth the price of tuition dollars.
There is a pervasive belief in academia that emotional exploration is an essential aspect of education. In many disciplines, however, if you can not eventually do the math or master the experimental technique, then the educational career disappears. The UW Madison gave Barrett their highest degree and I suppose they are now taking the position there are no meaningful scholarship guidelines in the professional study of fiction. That may be true, but the UW absolutely needs to demand employees actually understand the difference between fiction and reality.
