Two professors, one 9/11 conspiracy debate

Chelsea Conaboy

A university instructor talks to his students about a Sept. 11 conspiracy theory that says the Bush administration was involved in the attacks, and lawmakers call for him to be fired.

That’s the story that unfolded at the University of New Hampshire last week concerning psychology Professor William Woodward. It’s also the story of Kevin Barrett, an instructor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who became the center of controversy in July.

While the two cases are not identical, they are parallel. So is the debate in the two states between unhappy lawmakers and administrators supporting the professors in the name of academic freedom.

The two men are different in many ways. Woodward is a 61-year-old tenured professor who has been teaching at UNH for 31 years and is generally reserved about sharing his views on Sept. 11. Barrett, a 47-year-old instructor whose contract extends only to the end of this term, has led protests on campus and participated in radio and video talk shows about the conspiracy theory.

Woodward is a member of the Dover Society of Friends, a Quaker group. Barrett is Muslim. While Barrett participated in the media storm that ensued in the weeks that followed the first stories about him, Woodward has been mostly quiet. He said he’s been looking for guidance from colleagues and friends and has been reading up on Quaker teachings.

But there are similarities, too. Both belong to a national group called Scholars for 9/11 Truth, and believe that evidence shows the government either facilitated the attacks or allowed them to happen. Both have been defended by the universities in their right to share their views in class. And both hope that the stir will increase the public’s awareness of what they see as still-unanswered questions about what happened nearly five years ago.
Opponents of the two say the only positive outcome would be for the teachers to be removed from class.

Controversy in Wisconsin

Barrett has been teaching at the University of Wisconsin either as a teacher assistant or as a lecturer since 1996. For the last two years, he has held teach-ins on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and has brought guests to campus to speak about the attacks.

In class, he said, his mention of the conspiracy theory has been limited. In a folklore class, he brought it up during a section that covered rumors and conspiracies in folklore. It was, he said, more to discuss the cultural meaning of storytelling and less to discuss whether the theories were empirically true.

In late June, Barrett was asked to come on a local radio show shortly after the founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth was interviewed on Fox News’Hannity and Colmes. In the days that followed he made newspaper headlines as a Republican legislator, Rep. Steve Nass, publicly called for him to be fired.

Columnists lined up on either side to defend Barrett’s rights in the classroom or to dismiss him as a crazy professor who stepped over boundaries.

University officials conducted a 10-day review of his teaching and of the syllabus for his fall course, called “Islam: Culture and Religion.”

Provost Patrick Farrell ann-ounced that Barrett would stay on at least through the end of his contract. He also warned the instructor not to feed the media and to refrain from associating himself with the university when he spoke publicly about his ideas.

“It is in cases like this - difficult cases involving unconventional ideas - that we define our principles and determine our future,” Farrell said in a statement. He went on to say, “Instructors do not hand over knowledge wrapped up in neat packages. Knowledge grows from challenging ideas in a setting that encourages dialogue and disagreement. That’s what builds the kind of sophisticated, critical thinking we expect from our graduates.”

Barrett said he understood why the administration wanted to review his work.

“It’s true that in my activism I tend to use fairly over-the-top forms of satire and polemic,”he said. “That style of talking and writing would indeed be inappropriate in the classroom.”

Nass wasn’t satisfied with the review. On July 24, he submitted a petition signed by 61 of 131 Wisconsin legislators calling for Barrett to be fired. In a letter, he told the university Board of Regents that the situation “is an embarrassment to the institution and the people of Wisconsin.”

“It will only get worse, unless the Board of Regents joins with the majority of legislators who believe decisive action on the Barrett matter is necessary,” he wrote.

Of course, the events of Sept. 11 are not the only topic discussed at the university for which the facts are disputed. Take any heated issue - abortion or global warming, for example - and the facts change depending on who is speaking them. The legislature has not stepped in to guide the teaching on any such topic. But, Nass said, Barrett’s teaching is “just so far off course and goofy” that the legislature has no choice.

Plus, he said, he thinks Barrett has an agenda.

“I think if he were to teach a class on ceramics, he would somehow work in 9/11,” he said.

Barrett said his ideas would sound crazy to those who are not students of history. But he said states have long taken action against their own people to facilitate military action. He believes conspiracies motivated the sinkings of the RMS Lusitania and the USS Maine and the attack at the Gulf of Tonkin, all of which precipitated U.S. involvement in wars.

If the conspiracy theory were true, Nass said, it would have been reported in mainstream media.

“There is a reporter that could get worldwide attention if they were able to connect the dots, as Barrett would like to see happen, if they were out there to be connected,” he said. “That hasn’t happened.”

‘Crazy and offensive’

Woodward can easily run down a list of why he’s suspicious that the U.S. government was involvement in the attacks: The unusual way in which the towers in New York collapse within 10 seconds of each other, the administration’s immediate use of war rhetoric instead of a call for a criminal investigation, and the “coincidental” occurrence of a military hijacking simulation exercise that morning, which he says contributed to confusion over the real hijackings and delayed interception of the airliners bound for New York and Washington, D.C.

But, he said, he never said anything so specific to his students. “We’ve never gotten into the details of 9/11,” he said.

Instead, during a political psychology course, Woodward used a 10-minute section of a film called The Great Conspiracy to discuss how people have distinct world views. In a separate course on psychology and race, he used readings that discuss the conspiracy theory at the end of a semester during a week-long section titled “State terrorism? Who are the victims?”

Woodward said he was interviewed recently by a Union Leader reporter about a documentary on the conspiracy theory that was released this summer. He didn’t know the newspaper was pursuing a story about him, he said. Last Sunday, the newspaper printed a story quoting politicians reacting to his teachings.

Gov. John Lynch has called them “completely crazy and offensive.” Sen. Judd Gregg has said they nearly equate to hate speech.

Sen. Jack Barnes, a Raymond Republican, said he was embarrassed that Woodward was teaching at his alma mater and called his teaching practice an attention-getting stunt.

“He must be writing a book,” he said. He went on to say, “He’s doing it for himself. He’s doing it for nobody else.”

Woodward said he has never been contacted by any of his critics. But he feels bad about their claims.

“I think if they were to come to my class, they would form a different judgment,” he said. “My classes are very calm. The students learn to read and express their opinions in every single class, and they learn to listen to one another’s opinions. In that context, I occasionally disclose my opinions.”

Woodward said he tries to relate coursework to current affairs and to students’ lives, so students “learn to be more aware of their identities and how their life experience informs their value judgments.”

On Thursday, Provost Bruce Mallory sent a letter to Stephen Reno, chancellor of the university system, saying he had gone over Woodward’s syllabuses and talked with his supervisors and found his work to be satisfactory.

Although some might find Woodward’s ideas objectionable, Mallory said, “I am assured that he has exercised appropriate restraint and adhered to professional standards in the classroom.”

Mallory also noted that Woodward has not sought out opportunities to speak about Sept. 11 in public. Woodward often participates in protests, but those focus primarily on calls for peace. This spring, he was arrested during a sit-in at Rep. Jeb Bradley’s office protesting Bradley’s support of the Iraq war.

Woodward said colleagues have proposed that he introduce a Sept. 11 inquiry course, looking at how people in the West and the East may view that day from different historical perspectives. The course would also cover the history of false flags, or covert government operations. Woodward is considering it, but he has not written a formal course proposal.

“If it’s taught in a responsible way, I think it could be ultimately reassuring to create the space to listen to many, many viewpoints, pro and con, and to honor them,” he said. “I think it could be a healing process in which New Hampshire faculty and students would have the honor of taking the lead.”

Critics of Woodward and Barrett haven’t let the issue go.

Nass said if Barrett is not out of the classroom at the end of the fall semester, when his contract expires, he will encourage the legislature to cut positions from the university budget. “The university here in Wisconsin is top-heavy with administrators,” he said.

Barnes was displeased with the University of New Hampshire’s response. “They protect him like he was the pope of the Roman Catholic Church,” he said. Barnes said if nothing is done - and if he is re-elected to the Legislature - he plans to scrutinize the university budget more closely next session. And he’ll have “plenty to say” when university officials visit the State House.

(Chelsea Conaboy can be reached at 224-5301, ext. 309, or by e-mail at cconaboy@cmonitor.com.)