It's Not To Much To Ask For: The Academic Librarian

An academic from Princeton came across the Chapman blog and wrote the following response on their Princeton blog entitled "Academic Librarian".

Read It.
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A lot of people have told me or suggested that the focus should be more on tearing down Chapman's argument than focusing on the other things. I generally agree, however I've yet to find anyone other than Chapman who will defend his argument on its merit (and he said he won't comment publicly about it anymore). This entry I believe is one of the best representations of the type of incredulity I think any educated person, or at least any academic or scholar ought to experience upon examining Chapman's argument.

As far as updates go we are now over 11 pages of signatures for the petition, and I can confirm the AP story made it to print in Indy and South Bend (and I'm pretty sure Muncie but not positive). There was no tabling/petitioning today due to my investigation of the various details regarding the University's harassment policy, a trip to Vice-Provost Taylor's office, and one on one meeting with Chapman. I have every intention to resume collecting petitions Wednesday although there is some degree of bureaucratic red tape involved in officially reserving space.

**Edit 1** For the sake of disclosure, I met with Chapman primarily because I kept being asked if I had and, while I didn't really have anything to say to him, I figured there was some benefit for both of us to put a face and person behind our words and I figured that he deserves a chance to be able to say anything he had to say to me. The meeting was civil but honest.

Chapman updates

**Edit** The AP picked this up and we got in the Chicago Tribune

Just wanted to let people know that a lot of momentum has been made on the Chapman issue. We collected over 5 dozen signatures of students who thought Chapman's comments were damaging and embarrassing in addition to the public letter by 8 librarians that ran in the Exponent. In addition to that, the Indianapolis Star and Journal and Courier ran pretty good articles today covering the situation.

I will be doing an on-air interview on theMichael Smerconish Program at 2pm EST to talk about the issue.

I should also point out that Chapman recently and without saying so edited his blog entry slightly and the google cache storing his original post expired. I will post the text of his original blog entry later this evening for those of you curious about the changes.

Also, I recently sent an application for a guest column into the Exponent re: Lydia Williams'editorial. This is the proposed column (** Update from Ms. Williams: she plans to run this as a guest column in Monday's paper**):

As the lead organizer for public demonstrations against Professor Chapman I can safely say that Lydia Williams’ recent column is representative of the most common mischaracterization of Chapman opponents.

I spent all day Wednesday collecting dozens of signatures from students who thought Chapman’s comments were damaging to Purdue. Everyone I spoke to knew perfectly well that Chapman has every right to say anything he wants. However, freedom of speech is a legal protection; it is naïve and factually erroneous to believe that freedom of speech means freedom from non-legal consequences to that speech.

Imagine Pepsi hired a marketing executive who later wrote in a personal blog that Coke is his favorite drink; it would be damaging to Pepsi’s image and he would justifiably be fired. He would still have every legal right to state his opinion, but doing so would have consequences.

In the case of Chapman, he was hired and given tenure with the expectation that he would contribute positively to the reputation of Purdue. If his colleagues and employers believe he is instead having a detrimental effect they have every right to say so.

The people who are speaking out publicly against Chapman, for the most part, are not asking that his comments be taken down or that he apologize for them, they are not trying to stop him from exercising his freedom of speech.

What we are trying to do is tell people who think that his hate speech and academic dishonesty are detrimental to the university that they can and should use their own freedom of speech to say so publicly.

The people I spoke with on Wednesday are also fully aware that Chapman can’t really be fired for what he said, and are not asking for his forced removal from the university. However, a large number of students and faculty, and possibly individual administrators, believe that Purdue would be better off if he voluntarily resigned. They have every right to say so publicly.

Finally, people are upset about Chapman’s comments for much more substantial reasons than they are being given credit for. People who hate gay people and say so publicly are a dime a dozen and getting riled up about just that would be futile and everybody knows it. The central argument of those speaking out against Chapman is that his comments are detrimental to Purdue and its reputation. Some might take this position because of the fact that his statements make it more difficult for Purdue to attract gay students or gay scholars (who would have to call this man a colleague). Others have a firm belief that calling someone who would make such an academically dishonest argument a scholar is embarrassing to the university and belittles the status of all Purdue faculty and the value of a Purdue education. Still more simply look to the fact that Purdue is clearly trying to foster diversity as illustrated by the creation of the office of Vice Provost for Diversity, and cannot help but see how Chapman’s comments impede this effort.

Personally I believe Chapman hurt Purdue for all of these reasons, and believe that anyone who feels the same way has the right and obligation to say so publicly.

I need to go prep for the radio interview. Look for more updates this afternoon.

Edit: Radio show finished. It went very well.

Below is the text version of Chapman's original post:

An Economic Case Against Homosexuality

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 7:44:26 PM

As a Christian, I agree with the biblical condemnation of the homosexual lifestyle. However, we are living in a nation and world that increasingly rejects biblical norms. To defend traditional sexual morality against the encroaching threat of homosexuality and other aberrant forms of sexual expression, we need to be able to do more than cite Bible verses. Fortunately, there are plenty of economic reasons for being against sodomite degeneracy and I think as conservatives we need to be able to articulate why our nation cannot afford the extremely high financial costs of this lifestyle at a time when we are confronting dangerously high budget deficits, national debt, and personal debt.

Let's start with AIDS. U.S. Government expenditures on this disease have risen from $200,000 in Fiscal Year 1980-1981 to $23.3 billion for Fiscal Year 2008. These figures have increased steadily over nearly three decades and probably exceed $100 billion. When you factor in what countries all over the world have spent on seeking to diminish this disease, without recognizing the morally aberrant sexual behavior causing its spread, we are probably looking at expenditures of over $1 trillion dollars. Think of how much constructively such money could have been spent on public health issues such as improved sanitation, immunizations, and other more worthwhile programs instead of promoting immoral and self-destructive behavior through needle exchanges and widespread condom distribution. The money wasted on AIDS research could be returned to taxpayers or transferred to more worthwhile areas of public health research such as cancer, heart disease, and combating pandemic conditions like H1N1 flu. Our ongoing U.S. political debate over health care reform also needs to factor in the economic costs of homosexual and other sexually deviant behaviors on our health care system in terms of pharmaceutical drugs, tainted blood supplies, and requiring doctors and nurses to treat sexually transmitted diseases which would not occur if people practiced chastity outside of heterosexual marriage and monogamy within such marriage.

Anyone who studies prison conditions knows that AIDS is a reality in many correctional facilities due to the occurrence of rape.
I'm not sure if the Justice Dept's Bureau of Justice Statistics keeps track of prison rape statistics or other instances of same sex sexual assault, but that also has economic implications not to mention the psychological trauma experienced by all rape victims.

The sad practice of so many companies and universities adopting domestic partner benefits in a misguided effort to attract employees drives up insurance costs for these companies and prevents them from providing additional coverage to those of us adhering to traditional sexual moral standards. It also requires these companies to pass on the costs of their goods and services beyond normal inflationary trends. Additionally, it also probably makes it more difficult for them to expand their businesses and create additional jobs in an economy coping with near double digit unemployment rates.

The homosexual lifestyle also affects areas such as life insurance, estate planning, real estate, and investments as firms providing these services have to factor in how to treat same sex domestic partner issues into their cost calculations. Guess who has to pay for these increased costs and potentially lower investment returns? We do, regardless of whether or not we approve of the homosexual lifestyle. The next time some one tells you how wonderful is the "progress" gays have made in recent decades ask them if they have ever thought about the multiple economic consequences of this "progress" as described in this posting. I welcome suggestions from readers as to other possible economic costs of the homosexual lifestyle which I have forgotten."

I'm An Advocate for Free Speech

My last entry about heterosexual supremacist Bert Chapman was largely dedicated to exposing his argument as the charade that it is. I stand by what I said and think that it was important and necessary. Since then several students including myself have written letters to The Exponent and will be holding demonstrations on campus calling for Purdue University administrators, faculty, staff, students and alumni to rebuke Chapman for his comments. In doing so, many reasonable (and one or two unreasonable) people have expressed concern that we are seeking to punish someone for exercising their freedom of speech.

As a long time owner of unpopular opinions I have a strong attachment to that freedom (In fact, in 5th grade I informed my principal, Mr. Miller, that he was violating my constitutional right to express myself by banning Magic:The Gathering during lunch/recess) and have a lot of respect for this concern. The following is an excerpt from a message I sent to a friend who expressed this concern:

I really respect your concern (which many share) and think you deserve a thoughtful reply.

The issue at hand is not just that what Chapman said is offensive; people hating queer people and letting everyone know about it is so common it would be futile to try to organize against it. The reason I think this is worth taking a stand against is that Chapman is easily identifiable as a tenured faculty person at Purdue (his blog is a link on his official Purdue page and a search for his name pulls up his Purdue page as the first result) and the disregard for academic integrity, professed professional incompetence, and unprofessional mistreatment of students and colleagues reflects poorly on the university and, by extension, devalues a Purdue education. Things like this also make it more difficult for the university to attract quality glbt students and faculty (would you want to have to call Chapman a colleague?).

It's not attacking Mr. Chapman's freedom of expression to use our own freedom of expression to say that his article was totally out of line and detrimental to the university. I'm not asking him to take down his post or his site, or even to apologize for his clear distaste for queer people; what I am doing is insisting that people who disagree with his assessment that gay people are worthless say so (so his voice isn't the only one people associate with the Purdue community).

I believe it's also important that scholars, academics, and educated people have fair and reasonable discourse. If Chapman had written an insightful argument with any kind of reasonable basis and a genuine interest in the truth we could have had respectful and meaningful discourse based on facts and intellect. Instead Chapman rather blatantly smeared an entire group of people without any regard to [whether] what he was saying was true or not. I think educated people have to insist that debate and discourse be fair and grounded in a respect for the truth. Chapman's charade of an argument is unacceptable for a scholar (especially one at this school) and I'm saying so.

The thought I want to leave you with is that I really do have a deep respect for freedom of expression, and what I am trying to do is not stop one person from using it; I'm encouraging thousands of people to start using it.

The first demonstration will be this Wednesday from 9am-5pm on the HSEE side of Stewart. I hope many of you will stop by and show your support. You can also follow the event on facebook.

**Edit 1: I updated the first link so that it goes to the google cache of Chapman's original entry, instead of his recently edited one.

My Letter to the Exponent re:Chapman

Some friends of mine brought this blog entry by Purdue Library Sciences Professor Bert Chapman to my attention. Part of my reaction is the following letter to the Exponent editorials section:

Professor Bert Chapman's recent blog entry regarding the 'economic case against homosexuality' inspired me to help highlight other paths to fiscal responsibility in these tough economic times. My research shows that librarians are a shocking example of wasteful spending in our state and country. There are 433 public libraries in Indiana (not including public school libraries) in addition to 57 colleges or universities in Indiana. According to bls.gov the average annual salary for all librarians in the federal government was $80,873 in 2007. That conservatively represents an annual cost of ~$40 million dollars for Hoosiers (assuming only 1 librarian at each library). If we look at those public school libraries, the 95,615 public schools in the United States result in an annual national expense of over 7.5 billion dollars.

If we stopped wasting money on librarians, America could use that money to, as Chapman suggested, combat pandemics like H1N1 (or even real pandemics like Malaria or the type of AIDS that straight people get). Or better yet, if Indiana kept its $40 million dollars Mitch Daniels could take the whole state out to Taco Bell.

Getting rid of librarians makes economic sense. Wal-mart trusts people to check out their groceries so surely we could implement self-checkout at our libraries. Replacing librarians with minimum wage workers to put books back on the shelf and assist people with self-checkout would save billions. This process could even generate new income if we allowed police to access these systems and fine those who don’t return books. Of course, a degree of service would be lost without librarians. However, I think we’ll manage locally as long as someone teaches the new workers to be as helpful as the last Purdue librarian I spoke to who offered to "help [me] do a search on 'the google'".

I can't wait for the CCAV idiots who don't understand satire to send their responses in accusing me of hating librarians *rolls eyes*.

Unfortunately, due to the 300 word limit the Exponent has on editorials I didn't get to mention that Chapman's argument should be seen as highlighting the importance of recognizing and encouraging gay marriage (since the root of all these problems are extramarital non-monogamous sex). Nor did I get to mention that the rate of std transmission amongst gay women is lower than the straight population.

Chapman's entry really bothers me, and it's not just that he essentially calls gay people worthless (in a literal sense) it's that almost nothing infuriates me more than fake intellectualism and psuedo-science.

If Chapman had any intellectual or academic honesty he would not just ask for other 'possible economic costs' but any information about economic change that is positive or negative. He is only interested in advancing a baseless argument, rather than seeing if there is any truth to it.

If Chapman wanted his argument to be taken seriously he should have actually talked to a real economist (we have an excellent business school here at Purdue, Mr. Chapman) and demonstrated a more sophisticated understanding of economics. Spending money on research is not 'wasteful' it employs people and often produces multiple marketable and lucrative developments. From a morally dubious but purely economic perspective, coming up with a medicine for millions of sick people to buy creates a new product that people will purchase, which boosts a consumer driven economy. It is also particularly ironic that he talks about homosexuals dragging down the economy and then goes on to mention that the majority of companies benefit from hiring gay people because they don't provide domestic partnership benefits

Chapman's argument is lazy and demonstrates his own professional incompetence. Chapman is a librarian who specializes in organizing government information yet "doesn't know if the Justice Departments Bureau of Statistics (naming the source kinda looks like he did research and cited it... but he didn't) keeps track of prison rape statistics or same sex sexual assault." Being able to find that information is his job. I tried my hand at tracking this information down and it took me all of 5 minutes. Not only did I easily find this information but, surprise surprise, homosexual inmates are the victims of these type of crimes at an alarmingly higher rate than heterosexual inmates (this was easy to find).

Chapman is xenophobic and ethnocentric. He mentions in passing that he thinks straight people engaging in extramarital, non-monogamous sex create the same problems, yet focuses the attention of the entry on disproportionately demonizing homosexuals for this. Also, while I understand he probably chose it because it gets a lot of attention lately, calling H1N1 flu a pandemic worthy of the type of funding reallocation he suggests is just outright ethnocentric and disrespectful of the millions of people in impoverished countries suffering and dying from malaria, tetanus, and tuberculosis.



More to come...

**Edit 1: The first link now directs you to the google cache of Chapman's original entry.

Paul Roales Campaign Kickoff

My friend and West Lafayette City Councilman Paul Roales is kicking off his campaign for the IN-26 seat in the Indiana House of Representatives today. Join the party and show your support for Paul tonight at Black Sparrow in Lafayette from 5:30-9pm. To learn more about Paul and his campaign click the link in the title.

House Keeping

OK, so now that Right-Said-Jed (too sexy for his... sanity?) has reminded me that I actually made this thing for a reason I figure I should update folks on the goings on I know about in the world of progressive things around Purdue.

First off, Boiler Green Initiative is doing a recycling project where they encourage people to recycle at the home football games. Last year in just 7 games they collected over 45,000 pounds of recyclables. If you would like to volunteer to help you will receive a game ticket that lets you sit anywhere you want in the stadium and you can also earn some money (based on the hours you work) for a student group of your choice. Oh, you also I guess are doing something to save the fragile little blue rock we live on. BGI's next meeting is 9/28 at 7pm in stewart 310. Sign up for the recycling thing can be done via the BGI website.

Second, College Democrats will be holding their officer elections next Thursday in Rawls 1071. Newcomers are not only welcome but encouraged to join the process and run for a position. College Democrats will also be showing a public screening of the Michael Moore documentary 'Sicko' some time later this month or early next month (more details as I make them up).

Third, the evil capitalist-pig-warmonger-guntoting-redneck- college republicans have challenged the College Democrats to a something-th annual game of dodgeball. They kinda overwhelmed us last year since most College Dems were busy getting some Kenyan terrorist out of Baghdad and into the White House. If you want to come battle the forces of evil with us the game will be Tues. 9/29 at the Co-Rec at 7pm.

Purdue Queer Student Union has its weekly meeting on Tuesdays at 7pm in the QRC (G20). They have also resumed holding a regular coffee night (I think its weekly but I'm not 100% sure). I believe this is weekly and held at the Vienna coffeehouse from 8-10pm on Wednesdays.

If you know of any progressive organizations I'm leaving out that have events going on please let me know and I will update accordingly.

Terrorist on Campus

No, not the guy John McCain said he didn't care about but still was the topic of approximately a trillion paranoid letters to the editor of The Exponent.

Yesterday (and maybe today, I can't confirm cause I don't typically go to campus on Fridays)Brother Jed Smock was on campus doing his regular 'gay people are the debil!!' thing. I will soon be doing my regular thing by turning his visit into a reason to donate money to Purdue Queer Student Union

If you're not familiar with Bro. Jed he is an ultra-conservative preacher who travels to universities around the country and preaches what he calls a 'confrontational evangelism'. Translated that means he goes around and calls college kids a bunch of names and tells everyone who listens to rock music or has ever thought of so much as looking at someone who thought about having a gay friend that they are going to go to hell.

Normally I'd throw this guy in with the Fred Phelps' (of 'our soldiers are dying because got hates how tolerant the USA is of gay people' fame) of the world, and that certainly is company he belongs with, but if you listen to him enough, with the right mindset, I can at least understand how some people might get the misconception that he's only a preacher with a conservative message but has his heart in the right place.

Wrong.

Despite the fact that I believe President Carter was right in that much of the conservative extremism lately has much to do with race, I still believe that while conservative Americans may be divided on their thoughts on homosexuality (especially in a religious context), the large majority now consider racism morally reprehensible. I suspect, if they knew the following, that less students would be sympathetic or neutral to this choad.

Thus I present Brother Jed: The Racist

*"The only things Mexicans contribute to society are burritos" -Jed

*"the only things Jews are good at is making bagels and running banks" -Jed

* Brother Jed has also written a book dedicated to the defense of apartheid in South Africa called 'Gold in the Furnace:South Africa on Trial'

Other Fun Jed Facts
- He admits to having done a shitload of acid back in the day (coincidentally right before he had his 'epiphany'... never thought I'd say this but maybe he should have kept doing the acid)
-He claimed to have been on the faculty of the History Department at U of Wisconsin but attempts to confirm this resulted in no records or recollection of Jed ever being there and is absent from all payroll records.
-He is quoted as having said 'God has a vagina for every homosexual'. I'm disappointed I didn't get a chance to ask him if the deal was still good for us bi-folk. Do we just get it for a couple days on a rental basis?
-... And finally, just because I was born and bred to despise IU I have to point out that he went to college in Bloomington. Way to go blockheads, learn to make better acid.