Editorial

The best thing that can be said about the academic crisis that ignited

between Orange Coast College professor Kenneth Hearlson and the school’s

administration is that it is over.

Whether there were any other tangible lessons depends on where you are

sitting.

On one side of the fence is Hearlson and the freedom that should be

enjoyed by professors like him to stir their students out of apathetic

slumbers and make them think for themselves.

On the other is the college administration, charged not only with the

protection of Hearlson’s free speech but also to ensure the safety and

protection of its students.

Herein lies the fine line the college must walk.

Hearlson, accused of making inflammatory statements toward students of

Muslim descent, was cleared this week of the charges after an

investigation found the accusations were unfounded.

What isn’t up for debate, apparently, is that the classroom did get

heated during the lecture that day, Sept. 18, just a week after the

horrendous terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Hearlson’s acrimonious class discussion came as the wound was still

fresh, nerves raw from emotion and anger. And as we wondered in a

September editorial, were Hearlson’s classroom salvos akin to screaming

“fire” in a crowded theater?

That’s what we believe the college needed to decide. Were Hearlson’s

actions appropriate during this period? Was that the time to stoke the

anger and fear that was already running at an accelerated pace among his

students?

That itself needed no investigation because Hearlson admitted he

regularly makes incendiary comments. That’s just part of his shtick. With

that in mind, a simple warning from the college to cool the rhetoric and

get back to teaching the class would have sufficed.

Instead, administrators focused on a “he said, she said” slippery

slope that fueled protests and publicity from both sides and made college

officials look as if they were not standing behind their professor.

As the investigation proved, that was an error.

Not only did its outcome hardly please anyone, instead we are all left

with questions. Why did these students accuse Hearlson of statements he

apparently didn’t make? What was the so-called “reprimand” Hearlson

received in the form of a letter from college President Margaret Gratton?

Sadly, there really are no answers for now. The only thing we can hope

will transpire from this very public dispute -- the debate reached

national levels -- at the college is that campus officials will find

better ways of dealing with professors who have a proclivity to offend in

the name of academics and those who are offended.

As we said, the college is responsible for protecting them both and

learning how to better walk that fine line will do everyone a favor in

the future.