CU teacher catches flak for essay on supremacy
Berny Morson, Rocky Mountain News
Published February 23, 2007 at midnight
The Anti-Defamation League on Thursday condemned a white supremacist essay attributed to a composition instructor at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus.
But the civil rights group also noted that instructor Joshua McNair's views are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution.
ADL regional director Bruce DeBoskey praised CU officials, who also have backed McNair's constitutional rights.
McNair's essay, "Organization, Cooperation and Action," won a prize in a 2004 contest sponsored by the white supremacist group Stormfront.
The essay says, "And though it may hurt to acknowledge, we cannot ignore the tremendous success of that most solid, focused and thus most powerful group in our midst today and how they amassed the supremacy they now enjoy. It was not through simple individual merit, but instead first through cooperation and organization, then by action."
That description is usually applied to Jews in white supremacist literature.
The Boulder Daily Camera reported on the essay Thursday and posted it on the newspaper's Web site. The Camera said the essay came from the Stormfront Web site.
The essay was no longer available on that site, however, by late Thursday.
McNair did not return an e-mail message seeking an interview and verification that he was the author of the essay.
McNair is a first-year graduate student, CU spokesman Bronson Hilliard said. While he was an undergraduate, McNair sponsored a campus speech by a Holocaust denier, Hilliard said.
McNair is an instructor in the campus' composition program.
morsonb@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5209
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