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Show Innocent as well as guilty can be charged File 13 It was announced recently that the University would not hire anybody faced with a criminal charge. I suspect that this act was motivated by the pragmatic recognition re-cognition of community forces which present a danger to the function and growth of this university. uni-versity. As such, many may feel that it was necessary to placate such people. Aside from the pragmatic considerations, I suggest that the policy can have no reason for being. To assume that one is guilty until proven innocent, or to assume that die mere filing of a criminal charge-automatically charge-automatically renders a person bad is to forget that innocent people as well as the guilty can be charged with a crime. Such an act declares that a person is unfit to teach or participate in university life, even before the court as the agency of justice has the opportunity oppor-tunity to decide anything. 1 suggest that such a policy should be condemned. i buspeci inai mere are even some convicted criminals who may be fit to teach and who may indeed be able to offer something positive to university dialogue. The quality of one's teaching and one's capability to teach and inspire while communicating knowledge should be the criteria for hiring faculty. Presumably the finest teacher on earth, who might be charged with obstructing traffic while protesting a law requiring re-quiring all Christians to become Moslems, would be unable to teach here. I find that policy distressing. While one may or may not be forced to bow to outside pressure to assure his existence or capacity to contribute to others, he has an obligation to make it clear that such a policy is validated by force and that he reflects the moral validity of such a policy. The smoke of the present controversy con-troversy will die down eventually, but the policy will remain. |
