Professor Judy Ancel and Adjunct Don Giljum have been cleared by the University of Missouri of having advocated violence in their class, as was suggested by video selectively edited and appearing on Andrew Breitbart's site, Big Government. This follows up on a diary by JGibson.
From DemocracyNow:
Two Missouri labor professors have been vindicated after a right-wing smear campaign almost cost them their jobs. Last month, the website BigGovernment.com—run by right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart—posted footage of a labor relations class taught by University of Missouri professors Judy Ancel and Don Giljum. In the video, the professors appeared to make a number of statements backing the use of violence in the struggle for labor rights. But it turned out the video was edited in a way to distort their words—similar to recent video campaigns against ACORN, Planned Parenthood, NPR and former FDA official, Shirley Sherrod. “I was just appalled. I knew it was me speaking, but it wasn’t saying what I had said in class,” said Judy Ancel, Director of the Institute for Labor Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City.
This is an important case for a number of reasons. The privacy of the students may have been violated. Distance learning as a whole could be subject to privacy concerns. The rising use of adjunct faculty, meaning the lack of tenure protection to more and more teachers, is at issue. The role of a CNN host in spreading the smear has broader implications. A high government official was also involved in the smear. And, of course, there are Tea Party connections.
Should Andrew Breitbart be enjoined, on penalty of contempt of court, from publishing more selectively-edited videos until the Sherrod lawsuit is resolved? I think so.
See JGibson's fuller contextualization here. See also AaronBa's diary on drive-by lying.