WorldNetDaily, OR
April 15 2006
Librarian attacked by profs for promoting ‘Marketing of Evil’
College employee accused of ‘sexual harassment’ for recommending
Kupelian’s best-selling book
Posted: April 15, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
In what is being called an “astonishing” and “shameful” case of
campus persecution, Ohio State University’s head librarian is being
formally accused of “sexual harassment.” His crime? Recommending that
the school’s freshman class be required to read WND Managing Editor
David Kupelian’s controversial best seller, “The Marketing of Evil.”
Scott Savage is head of Reference and Instructional Services at the
Bromfield Library on Ohio State University’s Mansfield campus.
The school’s Office of Human Resources put Savage under
“investigation” after three professors – Hannibal Hamlin, Norman
Jones and J.K. Buckley – filed a complaint of discrimination and
harassment, saying Kupelian’s book made them feel “unsafe.”
In his role as a member of OSU Mansfield’s First Year Reading
Experience Committee, Savage had suggested new students read “The
Marketing of Evil,” as well as three other books – “The Professors”
by David Horowitz, “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis” by Bat Ye’or, and
“It Takes a Family” by Sen. Rick Santorum. Savage made the
recommendations after other committee members had suggested a series
of books with a left-wing perspective, by authors such as Jimmy
Carter and Maria Shriver.
The attacks on Savage stem directly from faculty members’ reaction to
“The Marketing of Evil,” according to the Arizona-based
public-interest group Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending the
librarian.
“Universities are one of the most hostile places for Christians and
conservatives in America,” said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David
French, who heads the group’s Center for Academic Freedom. “It’s
shameful that OSU would investigate a Christian librarian for simply
recommending books that are at odds with the prevailing politics of
the university.”
ADF sent a “Cease and Desist” letter to OSU Mansfield officials [pdf
file] March 28 informing them of Savage’s constitutional rights. In
it, the legal group explained the attack on Savage:
After Mr. Savage suggested the four additional books, Professors
Hamlin and Jones took issue with “The Marketing of Evil.” They
e-mailed the Committee and labeled Mr. Savage “anti-gay” and called
his suggestions “homophobic tripe.”
Jones did not stop there; he sent a private email to Mr. Savage’s
supervisor, questioning the integrity of the library staff. He sent
another email to the Committee, arguing with Mr. Savage’s academic
opinions and quoting additional text from Amazon.com’s review of “The
Marketing of Evil.” After this e-mail exchange, a non-committee
faculty member, J.F. Buckley, emailed all faculty and staff at the
Mansfield campus criticizing the book Mr. Savage mentioned,
denigrating Mr. Savage’s professionalism, and claiming that he felt
threatened by Mr. Savage. …
On Monday, March 13, 2006, at the routine faculty meeting, several
faculty members accused Mr. Savage of sexual harassment and made a
motion to file formal charges against him. The faculty unanimously
passed the motion and appointed Professor Gary Kennedy to notify
OSU’s sexual harassment officer. Two days later the faculty met again
and rescinded the motion (due to confusion as to whether the faculty
had the authority to pass the origional motion), but instructed the
complaining professors to notify OSU’s sexual harassment officer
individually. On March 16, 2006, Buckley, Jones and Kennedy filed a
Discrimination & Harassment Complaint with OSU’s Office of Human
Resources.
To date, the university refuses to halt the investigation, saying in
response, it takes “any allegation of sexual harassment seriously.”
French is incredulous that faculty members are attempting to label a
librarian as a “sexual harasser” simply because they disagree with
his book suggestions: “It is astonishing that an entire faculty would
vote to launch a sexual harassment investigation because a librarian
offered book suggestions in a committee whose purpose was to solicit
such suggestions,” he said.
Note: Readers may read all the e-mail exchanges between the
professors attacking Savage and “The Marketing of Evil” here.
Here are a few of the OSU professors’ March 9 intra-faculty e-mail
comments:
Hamlin: “On the matter of homophobia, I think you should be rather
careful, Scott. OSU’s policy on discrimination is not simply a matter
of academic orthodoxy, but a matter of human rights. Re Kupelian’s
book, would you advocate a book that was racist or antisemitic [sic],
or are you arguing that homosexuals are not in the same category and
that homophobia is not therefore a matter of discrimination but of
rational argument? And what are we supposed to make of the fact that
Kupelian’s Armenian family died in the holocaust? Does this mean that
he then has the right to spout bigotry about other minorities with
impunity?
Jones: “The anti-gay book Scott Savage endorses (below) falsely
claims that ‘the widely revered father of the ‘sexual revolution’ has
been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who
encouraged pedophilia.” This is a factually untrue characterization
of Dr. Kinsey and his work on every point. … I am frankly
embarrassed for you, Scott, that you would endorse this kind of
homophobic tripe.
Buckley: “Rather than waste your time with the paucity of
intellectual rigor that Kupelian brings to the table, I encourage you
to visit his website, and see for yourself his unmitigated homophobia
and xenophobia. In short, he is a pontificating, phobic, cultural
atavism bemoaning the loss of an (Anglo) America that only existed on
such shows as “The Lone Ranger.” … As a gay man I have long ago
realized that the world is full of homophobic, hate-mongers who, of
course, say that they are not. So I am not shocked, only deeply
saddened – and THREATENED – that such mindless folks are on this
great campus. I am ending now, with the hope that I have seriously
challenged you Scott, and anyone who “thinks” as you purport to do.
You have made me fearful and uneasy being a gay man on this campus. I
am, in fact, notifying the OSU-M campus, and Ohio State University in
general, that I no longer feel safe doing my job. I am being
harassed.”
Commenting on the controversy surrounding his book, Kupelian said:
“It’s disgraceful that this university’s faculty members would
destroy an innocent man by calling him a ‘sexual harasser,’ just
because he recommended my book. What’s ironic is that my book simply
champions the traditional, Judeo-Christian values almost all
Americans took for granted 60 years ago. But today, many of us, at
least on our nation’s college campuses, are in mortal combat with
those same values.”
“The Marketing of Evil,” released in August, has become one of the
nation’s most talked-about books, widely praised by Dr. Laura, David
Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, D. James Kennedy and many others and
garnering over 100 five-star reader reviews on Amazon.com. Here’s a
sampling:
“Opening this book is like turning on the Sun. … Mr. David Kupelian
has written a remarkable book that reveals how the American public
has been taken down the slippery slope of moral relativism.”
“I finished “The Marketing of Evil” over a month ago. It absolutely
changed my life.”
“Prepare to see your world with new eyes!”
“Read this book and you will start seeing the lies more clearly and
you will then be on the path to truth. It will be very painful for
some to admit the truth. You will have to say to yourself, as I did,
“Oh my God. All those precious years wasted living by these lies.” …
In the long run you will feel a tremendous sense of gratitude for
having read this book.”
“This book has put a powerful voice to many things that truth-loving
people in America have felt in their spirits for a long, long time. …
I like my medicine straight and my truth even straighter, and this
book delivers, with no apologies or flinching. … I for one am forever
changed.”
“This was a great book!! So truthful. Should be required reading.
Shows what is behind much of the assault on traditional values, and
how we have morally slipped so far in America.”
“The way Kupelian writes is phenomenal, his footnotes are extensively
accurate, and his research superb. … Kupelian takes the reader,
sometimes by the hand, and shows them point by point why we need to
remember our heritage as Americans, and see what has happened since
traditional values have been thrown out the window, to further a
free-for-all society that has decayed from the inside out. … Give
this book to everyone you know, you’ll thank me.”
“Kupelian, with a calm, steady and patient hand, exposes the left as
master marketeers selling an agenda of ever-increasing licentiousness
and depravity as a designer substitute for classical American ordered
liberty. … Kupelian pulls back the curtain and exposes the wizards
pulling the levers of fraud and deceit that has masqueraded as news
for the last 40+ years.”
“The Marketing of Evil” irritates only those who hate the light of
day, goodness, family and the Truth. I recommend this book for anyone
who is looking for an explanation of the simple question: ‘How could
we (Western Civilization) have sunk to such depraved depths?'”
“A book whose time has come.”
“The socialists in this country no doubt cannot stand that this book
even exists, however, thinking people will find the book an eye
opener!”
“David Kupelian exposes like nobody before how key statistics related
to crime, divorce and everything negative is related directly to our
propensity to literally buy evil. Evil that was intentionally
marketed to the public! … This book really pulls back the veil on
evil. A must read for anyone that cares about the future of our
nation.”
“I will forever look at the media and liberalism even more cautiously
than I have in the past.”
“David Kupelian has authored a masterpiece that belongs in every home
in America next to the Family Bible.”
“This fast-paced survey book is one of the more eye-opening books you
will read this year. I got this book thinking there wasn’t much I’d
learn, but I was quite mistaken.”
“This book may offend those with a secular, humanistic, left-wing
outlook but I feel that it is required reading for our time. Indeed,
it is one of the best books that I have read for some time.”
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