Northwestern University Rips Holocaust Denial by Professor

An associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science from Northwestern University has made a stir after remarks he made claiming the Holocaust was a myth appeared in the Iranian press.

Northwestern University President Henry Bienen said Monday that a professor's recent comments denying that the Holocaust happened are "a contemptible insult to all decent and feeling people" and an embarrassment to the university.

Bienen commented days after tenured engineering professor Arthur Butz commented in the Tribune and in the Iranian press that he agreed with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's assertions that the Holocaust is a myth.

Iran's semi-official Mehr News Agency and the English-language Tehran Times have published Butz's comments, promoting the Northwestern professor as one of the world scholars who support the Iranian president. Ahmadinejad, who also has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," recently ordered the restart of uranium enrichment, raising fears that Tehran could try to build a nuclear weapon.

Butz, a tenured Northwestern professor since 1974, is known for denying that the Nazis killed 6 million Jews during World War II. He promotes his views through his Northwestern-affiliated Web site, including a link to his 1976 book, "The Hoax of the 20th Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry."

All of this cannot be a surprise to his employer, NU and its President Henry Bienen because Prof. Bienen has this opinion up on his web site touting the book he wrote on the subject in 1976.

The book The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extermination of European Jewry, by Arthur R. Butz (1976), is now back in print in a new and moderately revised edition available from Theses and Dissertations Press

Now to act shocked by this revelation is a bit disingenuous. It can only be the inconvenience of public exposure that got the University's President to become concerned. It must have been OK up until then since no one seemed to care before today. Fortunately he doesn't teach history or one of the other humanities. He probably couldn't instill too much nonsense into his electronics and computer science students .

What to do about people like this in our Universities? Easy, first of all I think the tenure system needs a little reform. As it is any kook can worm his way into a tenure situation and then have a life long position of respect to support his particular brand of nonsense. Since that is unlikely, the second choice is simply not sign up for classes with these moonbats. His web page is up for any to see. When choosing a collage class schedule, one should go to the web and see what the available professors are publishing and decide if one is willing to support that professor with one's tuition money.

Of course one could just riot and burn the neighborhood and call for death to those who offend one's sensibilities, but that's generally reserved for Moslems and sports fans.