Librarian attacked by profs for promoting 'Marketing of Evil'

College employee accused of 'sexual harassment' for recommending David Kupelian's best-selling book

Posted: April 15, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

In what is being called an "astonishing" and "shameful" case of campus persecution, Ohio State University's head librarian is being formally accused of "sexual harassment." His crime? Recommending that the school's freshman class be required to read WND Managing Editor David Kupelian's controversial best seller, "The Marketing of Evil."

Scott Savage is head of Reference and Instructional Services at the Bromfield Library on Ohio State University's Mansfield campus.

The school's Office of Human Resources put Savage under "investigation" after three professors – Hannibal Hamlin, Norman Jones and J.K. Buckley – filed a complaint of discrimination and harassment, saying Kupelian's book made them feel "unsafe."

In his role as a member of OSU Mansfield's First Year Reading Experience Committee, Savage had suggested new students read "The Marketing of Evil," as well as three other books – "The Professors" by David Horowitz, "Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis" by Bat Ye'or, and "It Takes a Family" by Sen. Rick Santorum.

But the attacks on Savage stem directly from faculty members' reaction to "The Marketing of Evil," according to the Arizona-based public-interest group Alliance Defense Fund, which is defending the librarian.

"Universities are one of the most hostile places for Christians and conservatives in America," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel David French, who heads the group's Center for Academic Freedom. "It's shameful that OSU would investigate a Christian librarian for simply recommending books that are at odds with the prevailing politics of the university."

ADF sent a "Cease and Desist" letter to OSU Mansfield officials March 28 informing them of Savage's constitutional rights. In it, the legal group explained the attack on Savage:

After Mr. Savage suggested the four additional books, Professors Hamlin and Jones took issue with "The Marketing of Evil." They e-mailed the Committee and labeled Mr. Savage "anti-gay" and called his suggestions "homophobic tripe."

Jones did not stop there; he sent a private email to Mr. Savage's supervisor, questioning the integrity of the library staff. He sent another email to the Committee, arguing with Mr. Savage's academic opinions and quoting additional text from Amazon.com's review of "The Marketing of Evil." After this e-mail exchange, a non-committee faculty member, J.F. Buckley, emailed all faculty and staff at the Mansfield campus criticizing the book Mr. Savage mentioned, denigrating Mr. Savage's professionalism, and claiming that he felt threatened by Mr. Savage. ...

On Monday, March 13, 2006, at the routine faculty meeting, several faculty members accused Mr. Savage of sexual harassment and made a motion to file formal charges against him. The faculty unanimously passed the motion and appointed Professor Gary Kennedy to notify OSU's sexual harassment officer. Two days later the faculty met again and rescinded the motion (due to confusion as to whether the faculty had the authority to pass the origional motion), but instructed the complaining professors to notify OSU's sexual harassment officer individually. On March 16, 2006, Buckley, Jones and Kennedy filed a Discrimination & Harassment Complaint with OSU's Office of Human Resources.

To date, the university refuses to halt the investigation, saying in response, it takes "any allegation of sexual harassment seriously."

French is incredulous that faculty members are attempting to label a librarian as a "sexual harasser" simply because they disagree with his book suggestions: "It is astonishing that an entire faculty would vote to launch a sexual harassment investigation because a librarian offered book suggestions in a committee whose purpose was to solicit such suggestions," he said.

Note: Readers may read all the e-mail exchanges between the professors attacking Savage and "The Marketing of Evil" here.

Here are a few of the OSU professors' March 9 intra-faculty e-mail comments:

Jones: "The anti-gay book Scott Savage endorses (below) falsely claims that 'the widely revered father of the 'sexual revolution' has been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who encouraged pedophilia." This is a factually untrue characterization of Dr. Kinsey and his work on every point. ... I am frankly embarrassed for you, Scott, that you would endorse this kind of homophobic tripe.

Buckley: "Rather than waste your time with the paucity of intellectual rigor that Kupelian brings to the table, I encourage you to visit his website, and see for yourself his unmitigated homophobia and xenophobia. In short, he is a pontificating, phobic, cultural atavism bemoaning the loss of an (Anglo) America that only existed on such shows as "The Lone Ranger." ... As a gay man I have long ago realized that the world is full of homophobic, hate-mongers who, of course, say that they are not. So I am not shocked, only deeply saddened – and THREATENED – that such mindless folks are on this great campus. I am ending now, with the hope that I have seriously challenged you Scott, and anyone who "thinks" as you purport to do. You have made me fearful and uneasy being a gay man on this campus. I am, in fact, notifying the OSU-M campus, and Ohio State University in general, that I no longer feel safe doing my job. I am being harassed."

Commenting on the controversy surrounding his book, Kupelian said: "It's disgraceful that this university's faculty members would destroy an innocent man by calling him a 'sexual harasser,' just because he recommended my book. What's ironic is that my book simply champions the traditional, Judeo-Christian values almost all Americans took for granted 60 years ago. But today, many of us, at least on our nation's college campuses, are in mortal combat with those same values."

"The Marketing of Evil," released in August, has become one of the nation's most talked-about books, widely praised by Dr. Laura, David Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, D. James Kennedy and many others and garnering over 100 five-star reader reviews on Amazon.com. Here's a sampling:

·  "Opening this book is like turning on the Sun. … Mr. David Kupelian has written a remarkable book that reveals how the American public has been taken down the slippery slope of moral relativism."

·  "I finished "The Marketing of Evil" over a month ago. It absolutely changed my life."

·  "Prepare to see your world with new eyes!"

·  "Read this book and you will start seeing the lies more clearly and you will then be on the path to truth. It will be very painful for some to admit the truth. You will have to say to yourself, as I did, "Oh my God. All those precious years wasted living by these lies." … In the long run you will feel a tremendous sense of gratitude for having read this book."

·  "This book has put a powerful voice to many things that truth-loving people in America have felt in their spirits for a long, long time. … I like my medicine straight and my truth even straighter, and this book delivers, with no apologies or flinching. … I for one am forever changed."

·  "This was a great book!! So truthful. Should be required reading. Shows what is behind much of the assault on traditional values, and how we have morally slipped so far in America."

·  "The way Kupelian writes is phenomenal, his footnotes are extensively accurate, and his research superb. … Kupelian takes the reader, sometimes by the hand, and shows them point by point why we need to remember our heritage as Americans, and see what has happened since traditional values have been thrown out the window, to further a free-for-all society that has decayed from the inside out. … Give this book to everyone you know, you'll thank me."

·  "Kupelian, with a calm, steady and patient hand, exposes the left as master marketeers selling an agenda of ever-increasing licentiousness and depravity as a designer substitute for classical American ordered liberty. … Kupelian pulls back the curtain and exposes the wizards pulling the levers of fraud and deceit that has masqueraded as news for the last 40+ years."

·  "The Marketing of Evil" irritates only those who hate the light of day, goodness, family and the Truth. I recommend this book for anyone who is looking for an explanation of the simple question: 'How could we (Western Civilization) have sunk to such depraved depths?'"

·  "A book whose time has come."

·  "The socialists in this country no doubt cannot stand that this book even exists, however, thinking people will find the book an eye opener!"

·  "David Kupelian exposes like nobody before how key statistics related to crime, divorce and everything negative is related directly to our propensity to literally buy evil. Evil that was intentionally marketed to the public! … This book really pulls back the veil on evil. A must read for anyone that cares about the future of our nation."

·  "I will forever look at the media and liberalism even more cautiously than I have in the past."

·  "David Kupelian has authored a masterpiece that belongs in every home in America next to the Family Bible."

·  "This fast-paced survey book is one of the more eye-opening books you will read this year. I got this book thinking there wasn't much I'd learn, but I was quite mistaken."

·  "This book may offend those with a secular, humanistic, left-wing outlook but I feel that it is required reading for our time. Indeed, it is one of the best books that I have read for some time."