Gettin’ Schooled

The City of Bellingham plays host to Western Washington University, a moderately sized member state run uni-system. This university, like so many others, hosts a pseudo school where single class subjects are taught, called The Academy for Life Long Learning (aka: Extended Education and Summer Programs, or EESP).

Bellingham is also the largest metro area along the US-Canadian border and has seen patrols by the Washington Minutemen Detachment.

Co-founder of said detachment, Tom Williams, was actually able to get WWU’s EESP Program to let him teach a course titled “Citizens on the Border”. A surprising feat, seeing as how WWU is no stranger to the left-wing mindset that prevails throughout the vast majority of universtities in this country.

Here is the course description:

This course is a history of Americans protesting what they believe is the failure of the government to fulfill its Constitutional responsibilities. What is the purpose of the Minutemen? Who are they? Where do they come from? Why are they needed? Are their methods controversial? Are they a threat to anyone?”

Sounds innocuous enough. Some leftard board probably thought that it would be presented by a pro-illegal immigration clone and would build sentiment against the Minutemen and let it onto the course listing pamphlet.

Unfortunately for the course and those who signed up, someone Googled Williams’ name and spread the word that their shiny-happy little world had been invaded by a “Nativist Bigot” and cried bloody murder until it was taken off the list.

I found out about this class from a few friends and fellow WWU alumni, but within a few days, emails from professors, alumni, and concerned citizens were flying all over the state. The Life Long Learning Academy, a service of Western’s Extended Education and Summer Programs (EESP) office – “A curious mind never retires!” – began receiving calls left and right that the Minutemen were holding what most people, myself included, considered to be a recruiting drive sponsored by the Academy. By early this week, the class had been canceled and the catalog amended.

Barbara Audley, executive director of the EESP, would not comment on why the class was cancelled, saying only that it was an “academic decision.” But a number of people who spoke with her told me that it seems no one at the EESP actually questioned Mr. Williams’ fitness to teach a balanced academic course on an extremist organization he himself was part of, or even asked what the course content would be. After a week of phone calls, Ms. Audley apparently contacted Mr. Williams for more information on the proposed course and found his explanation unsatisfactory.

How odd that they thought Mr. Williams might not be able to present a “balanced” academic course, when the majority of the economics courses presented at our state universities are based on the Keynesian idea of an economy where the government tells people what would be best for them to buy.

Here are Tom Williams’ qualifications, listed after the original course description:

He holds a BA from the United States Naval Academy and a PhD from the University of Denver. He practiced in trauma psychology, a field in which he lectured and published. He was an adjunct professor at the University of Denver and an instructor at the Naval Academy. Tom served as a consultant to the Attorney General of the United States.”

I do believe that he probably outqualifies the vast majority of the WWU Faculty, if not the Administration staff members. Could this be a little bit of projectionism on their part, hmmm?