"What should Wisconsin do?"

Glenn Reynolds opines on the Kevin Barrett controversy:

They've got two problems here. No, make that three.

Problem one is that they hired a looney as an adjunct. That's not shocking -- adjunct positions pay badly and are often hard to fill....

Problem two is that they've converted this into a question of academic freedom, when it's not. At least, an adjunct who promised to teach white supremacy, or Christian supremacy, in a course on Islam would be very unlikely to retain his position. Wisconsin may claim otherwise, but I don't believe them, and I doubt many others do....

I think they'd try very hard to. The pressure for academic freedom here is very strong. But, of course, that kind of hiring mistake is far less likely to occur, so we probably will never face this test.

Problem three is that the Wisconsin administration has responded in a very tin-eared fashion and made the problem much bigger than it has to be.

To address these, they could fire Barrett, but I think that's a mistake and wouldn't get to the root of the problem. They need to look at the process for hiring adjuncts, and to protect students in Barrett's case they should assign the guy a supervisor or member of the department to co-teach the course for quality control. For justice, it should be the department head or committee chair who hired him, they should be present for every class, and it should be an addition to their regular course load. . . .

More importantly, they need to realize that people pay good money to send students to Wisconsin because it's "branded" as a place that provides quality education from quality professors. When you respond to criticism by basically disclaiming any responsibility for what's taught in classrooms, you also destroy the brand. Why send students to Wisconsin if that's the case? Where's the quality control? What does it mean to be an elite institution if you let any bozo teach whatever he/she wants in any course?

Good questions. I wish the university administration was not so averse to talking to the citizens about their concerns. It is content to state the justification for the decision, to tell people that they aren't working hard enough to grasp the justification, and to try to deflect attention onto the bad old legislators who want to intrude on the university. This aloofness doesn't help the university's cause. And, ironically, it runs counter to the very enthusiasm for free and open debate that the administration asserts as its reason to retain Barrett.