Columbia U. Student Veteran Is Heckled at Forum on ROTC

More of the post-Tuscon civility. Why must people who know they are correct be so angry about it?

It appears something is missing in the education of those attending Columbia University.

Such opposition to individuals involved in the bombing and occupation of Iraq, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, is simply un-American!

I have no reason to doubt that this incident didn’t take place…but I’m also a historian and know that the stories about Vietnam vets returning to jeers and spit from “peace” activists were largely made up and became part of an urban legend which continues to “inform” debate about the left today. The fact that the NY Post is reporting this leads me to wonder not whether there were “jeers” but whether it represented most voices there.

You are a historian? Just make stuff up as you go along, huh?

You may disagree with our presence in Iraq (as do I), but this gentleman was simply a man who put his life on the line for his country, and nearly paid the ultimate price in the process. To not pay this man the respect he deserves is un-American. You should reserve your disapproval for those who put this man there, not the man who served.

The fundamental questioning of ROTC in the 1960′s over issue of whether university’s wanted a military presence on campus. At that time, ROTC instructors, who were largely graduates of public universities, raised an interesting and important question – if we are going to have a military presence in our society, do we want its leaders to come from institutions that are specifically geared to creating military leaders or from ones that educate citizens who choose to serve in the military?

The assumption that having ROTC somehow poisons the education process discounts the power of educators to have influence on the military. It also undercuts the importance of producing officers who are trained in being able to question and understand the significance of military actions in a way that values compliance to the Nuremberg Doctrine. The My Lai massacre pointed out the significance of that some years ago.

One of the important points noted at the time of the massacre was that the captain who ordered it was a young man who had been in trained in OCS (Officer Candidate School) rather than a college or one of the military academies. His training had largely focused quickly preparing him and others from the ranks to command combat units. The sense at the time was that his lack of solid training in broader values and responsibilities contributed to his failure in command.

The military leadership failed to quickly acknowledge and deal with the massacre, but it ultimately did so, because it acknowledge the importance of the rule of law and of civilian control of the military.Those leaders were by-and-large graduates of the military academies and ROTC programs. One can criticize them for their slowness in responding, but one also has to stop and wonder, how would they have responded if they had simply been trained in weapons use, tactics and strategy with only a small smattering of exposure to training in values and critical thinking?

The challenge that faces educators, particularly those at self defined elite institutions, are the questions of whether they are able to confront their responsibility to insure that the military leadership of this country is trained in the best possible way to serve society as responsible citizen soldiers, or whether they want to continue to abdicate that responsibility and force the military to have to rely on purely technical experts in warfare.

The heavy reliance on mercenaries and extra-legal operatives in this era of the “professional military” is something that grows directly out of the refusal to educate people who are willing to serve the needs and values of the country. If the academic community really wants to shift the military away from its reliance on such agencies, it has to engage the military in meaningful dialogues and that is best done collegially on campus where the academy can have a role in shaping the values of military leaders.

Driving the military off campus does not drive it out of society, instead it only reinforces an artificial polarity between the “educated elites” and a military that will come to despise them. Despite the best efforts of their critics, the military remains open to recruiting critical thinkers from elite institutions. Yet the elite institutions are afraid that the military will have some profound effect on the values of their institutions. Are they so lacking in self-confidence that they think the military can have more impact on them than they can have on it?

My father served in Vietnam, and he can personally attest to the truth of this “urban myth.” Maybe it’s time to do some more research before you try to discredit the lived experiences of others.

In reply to ssaulvolk. I am appalled at the comment “…but I’m also a historian and know that the stories about Vietnam vets returning to jeers and spit from “peace” activists were largely made up”. How this comment can be made in the face of so much data to the contrary indicates to me that this historian prefers to write his own history according to what he thinks should have happened rather than make a cogent analysis of the data before him.

Columbia has about 23,000 students. Even if we assume that all of the hecklers actually were students (a reasonable assumption, but not necessarily a correct one), it does not follow that the university itself is at fault.

The editorial board of the student newspaper has urged Columbia to bring ROTC back (http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/02/21/vote-yes), but I don’t see anybody drawing positive inferences about the university from the editors’ actions.

Of course, when the actions of one small group reinforce the reader’s prejudices, the reader often won’t care that other groups behave differently.

Ah, the age old silliness of our liberals – you may think and do whatever you want as long as you agree with my views. It is a consistent, constant demonstration of the hypocrisy of their “beliefs”. An Ivy league no less; if this is what our best look like, what does the future hold?

You must also agree with Iran that the death camps of WWII did not take place? This is just scary.

This is shameful. Mr. Marek did not decide where and whom to fight. Instead, he went where his government ordered him to go and risked his life while Columbia protesters and I slept comfortably in our beds. I wonder how he feels about taking 11 bullets for people who are so ungrateful.

Dodge Johnson
Independent Educational Consultant, Philadelphia

That excuse was found lacking at Nuremberg, was it not?

At what point do we hold individuals accountable for their moral choices?

(I’m seriously asking, because I have complicated and difficult opinions and feelings about this myself.)

[golf clap]

I don’t understand your point. Are you saying the person deserved to be heckled because his comments were ridiculous? Every person who speaks at a forum should be given courtesy to be heard without interruption or derision.

Well said sir. I heartily agree with most of what you have cogently outlined above. Much of what you have written echos a young Marine officer who was attending Dartmouth and has since published his sentiments as part of a memoir of his experiences.

I can assure you, from the point of view of someone who had friends and coaches in the ROTC program at Princeton in the 1980′s, that not all of the “self defined elite institutions” have the same myopic attitude towards those who answer their Nation’s call. While there were those on the far left who had serious misgivings about the presence of the military on campus, by and large they had at least a tolerant attitude toward their fellow Tigers, as they understood, at least on some level, the very crucial points you have made regarding the importance of having our military leadership trained in critical thinking and ethics.

The article neglects to describe the reaction of their fellow Columbians toward the rude manners displayed by what I hope was a few and I am curious as to whether there was any attempt to call them to task or indicate disgust with their behavior. I salute the “young man” who was willing to literally take multiple bullets to defend his ability to act in such a boorish and thankless way.

One of the sad things about this is that this young soldier was trying to let the students at Columbia know about the real threats we face in this country and they heckled him and acted like he was a wacko. They heckled instead of hearing the facts about what is actually happening in this country under our very noses. They didn’t want to hear it. Some years back PBS did a special on Islamic terrorist cells that are present in the US. Now we find that Hizbullah groups are working with drug dealers south of the border. All the evidence is there to prove this. These supposedly intelligent college students seem void of critical thinking skills and so they would rather laugh than think critically and ask questions that might enlighten them to what is actually going on in America.
There will be those who take this seriously and those who would rather laugh no matter how it is presented.

I do not think this particular soldier (or a similar enlisted man or woman serving in Iraq) is morally equivalent to a senior Nazi official, no. But the precedent set (culturally moreso than legally) by the Nuremberg proceedings gives me pause amid the jingoistic cheering the members of our military generally receive. Our armed services are the violent enforcers of our economic imperialism, are they not? And they are volunteers, are they not?

Jeering would have been just as wrong from ROTC supporters as it was from opponents. Even if no supporters jeered the opponents — which we really can’t tell from the audiotape — that proves only that no ill-mannered supporters were present, not that there were no supporters at all. Besides, the moderator told the audience to quiet down; there was no reason for anyone else in the room to chime in against those who had interrupted.

If you listen to the recording, you will hear that Mr. Maschek received cheers and applause at the end of his remarks. Mr. Maschek himself says that the catcalls came from “a very small minority of the town hall participants” and that Columbia has provided a “supportive” atmosphere. (http://spectrum.columbiaspectator.com/spectrum/wounded-veteran-comments-on-audience-jeers-in-second-hearing.) These facts paint a very different picture of the place from the one you want us to see.

Most Columbians are liberal, as you say. Most Columbians are also civil, which seems to go against your preconceived notions about liberals generally and Columbians in particular. The facts do not back you up.

The hecklers called him a racist. This was not mentioned in the article.

Why on earth would they do that? Did he espouse racism of any kind? Even if he did, is it ever appropriate to publicly make an accusation like that? What kind of college would tolerate students who make such a base, vile accusation, against a disabled veteran, nonetheless? Were the hecklers disciplined for their outrageously inappropriate remarks? Were they suspended?

If students are able to get away with this kind of vile, heckling behavior, they simply have no business attending college. Are they being taught anything at all? They are certainly not being taught civility, open debate, or logical analysis. Has Columbia taken any steps to discipline these students, or if that is not possible, to expel or suspend them? Has the president of Columbia taken any responsibility for this incident, or apologized for the student’s behavior?

I have so very little faith in our institutions of higher learning these days. Institutions like Columbia, if they produce students like this, should not receive any tax money (federal, state or local) or any tax breaks whatsoever. It is sickening on so many levels.

Georgia state officials are, among other things, trying to absolve themselves of any responsibility by pinning all blame for any infringing activity on faculty members. They already abandoned the previous policy, which is what the publishers sued about, because it was simply indefensible, and they knew it. In its place, they substituted a policy developed by Kenneth Crews first for Indiana University and then for Columbia. They also hired Crews as an expert witness. Whatever the merits of the arguments about “fair use,” their tactics have hardly been anything worthy of emulation.—Sandy Thatcher

Swish, you should only be grateful to the extent that you can be angry, respectful, sympathetic, and appreciative only because you have a military that has fought and died to give you the rights to enjoy those sentiments

If the student suffers from exam anxiety, however did he manage to make it to the doctoral level?  How was this “disability” accommodated in all the other courses he took?  Surely he wasn’t just given a pass on all exams throughout his academic studies.  

     The teaching demo does give students and a search committee a sense of the candidate’s logic, organizational ability, pace, in-class responsiveness, and “presence.”  However, in isolation, it can be unfair–at least for candidates little familiarity with an institution and its students. 
      However, when paired with teaching evaluations (including student evaluations) from places where the candidate has taught before–especially if these are contexts similar to the hiring institution (small liberal arts college, large state institution, etc.), they can provide one more important piece of information for the search committee.  In addition, we always review syllabi.  And I always pose post-teaching demo questions to each candidate:  Given that teaching in an unfamiliar context is an artificial situation, how did your “class” compare to what you usually do when you teach? Why did you make the decisions you did for this “class”?  and Now that your “class” is over, what (if anything) might you have done differently, knowing what you now know about our students? 
     Answers to questions like these usually allow a candidate to repair the possible damage of a naive choice for the “class”, and can give the committee a sense of how thoughtful he or she is about teaching.  After all, good teachers–even the veterans–are always thoughtfully adjusting to make learning experiences better.

http://chronicle.com/article/Demonstration-or-Demolition-/44842/

David – I am not going to approach your question specifically — my guess is that the demonstration class is mostly okay — but I appreciate so much your generosity in sharing your experience, misgivings and vulnerability for us to approve, attack and ambivolate.  (If that’s not a word, maybe it should be; especially, when one works for “a” words in a series.)

One solution would be for interviewer(s) to travel to the candidate’s institution and watch them teach their own class midsemester. Of course, this costs more travel money, and is not applicable if the applicant is not currently teaching.

Another solution is to allow the applicant to submit a digital video of a class session with their other application materials. A creative individual will find ways for filming to capture other activity besides lecture. Then the video submission can be considered along side the on campus teaching demo.

Perhaps a good start is to merely circulate this idea among readers/applicants so that they can prepare in advance and suggest it to their interviewers. If you, as an employer, received a note from an applicant that said, “I am happy to give a teaching demonstration, but may I also submit a digital video of a previously recorded class session?” would you decline?