Had he then launched into some silly tirade about how that proves gay
people are morally bankrupt, god doesn't love them, or some other
nonsense then the student might have a beef. As far as we know
nothing like that happened.

No...but if he didn't have the facts behind him, his statement in and
of itself indicated bias, didn't it? It all comes down to facts and
motive.

"Mark Stahl" <stahl@nospam.aecom.yu.edu> wrote in message
news:LdadnQdyq9JQBZrfRVn-qw@giganews.com...

"DianaC" <dianaiad@vernoyoudontizon.net> wrote in message
news:a7MNd.21939$uc.38@trnddc09...

"J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1107785658.442560.167320@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Monday, February 07, 2005
By Scott Norvell

March 29, 2004
A professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas may be punished
because he offended one of his students by saying in a lesson on
economic planning that homosexuals tend to plan less for the future
than other groups, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Hans Hoppe, described as a conservative libertarian economist with 20
years experience at UNLV, says that during the lesson he gave several
examples of groups that tend not to plan for the future, among them the
very young, the very old, childless couples and homosexuals. He said
discussion of homosexuals took up about 90 seconds of a 75-minute
lecture.

Within days of the lecture a student had lodged an informal complaint
about its content. The university is now threatening Hoppe with a
letter of reprimand and wants him to give up his next pay increase.

Hoppe is fighting back, with the help of the ACLU. It is not his job,
he said, to consider how a student might feel about economic theories.

"Our task is to teach what we consider to be right," he said. The
offended student, he said, should have been told to "grow up."

Question. DO homosexuals as a group tend not to plan for the future? Can
this be proven with properly gathered statistics? If not, then the
professor should be reprimanded. If yes, the student should be told to
sit down and learn something. But I don't see anything in the above
article that says one way or the other.

I think this misses the point a little. If he's wrong about homosexuals
as a group doing less future financial planning, then he should be
reprimanded exactly the same amount as he would be for getting any other
relatively mundane fact wrong in a lecture-- which is to say, probably
not much.

Except of course that this isn't exactly like getting a year wrong in a
history class, where one can say 'oops' and change the chalk mark.

If he is incorrect, and he made the whole idea up out of his
presuppositions about the nature of 'gayness', he needs to do some more
research. And some serious thinking.

On the other hand, there is the point about being homosexual not tending
to result in relationships with children, so THAT may well enter into the
picture.

Now me, I don't know. I only know (for certain sure) one gay woman; she is
unequivocally 'out', is a cross dresser,

specializes in lesbian studies, and is one of my English professors, from
whom I would take any class at all and whom I would dearly like to adopt.
She reminds me of a puppy, constantly seeing joy in all things, excited
about her job and her students and her subject; she teaches T.S. Eliot as
if she were the very first person to find all the allusions in "The Waste
Land" in an Easter egg hunt. If I were to judge 'gayness' by her, I would
wish that all were gay. So I am prejudiced. (grin)

Certainly he shouldn't be reprimanded any more or less because the
statistic referred to homosexuals. He wasn't gay bashing, he was
describing (at least what he knew to be) the economic differences among
different demographics. Nothing wrong with that.

If that is what happened, not a thing. I agree.

Had he then launched into some silly tirade about how that proves gay
people are morally bankrupt, god doesn't love them, or some other
nonsense then the student might have a beef. As far as we know nothing
like that happened.

No...but if he didn't have the facts behind him, his statement in and of
itself indicated bias, didn't it? It all comes down to facts and motive.

In medicine, we learn about all kinds of characteristics that different
groups have, including potentially embarassing things like differential
disease rates in people with different socioeconomic status,
racial/ethnic backgrounds, and sexual orientations. Those things don't
necessarily apply to any individual, but they help to narrow down
differential diagnoses, ask particular questions in the history, etc.
Knowing about them doesn't mean we think black men are bad people because
they have higher rates of heart disease; it means we can treat early
signs more aggressively. Presumably, knowing something about the economic
behavior of different groups allows analogous adjustments to economic
variables when doing anything from planning a marketing campaign to doing
individual financial planning. It's perfectly legitimate. The student
does, indeed, need to "grow up." The ACLU really is a wonderful group.

Do I detect irony? (grin)

"Mark Stahl" <stahl@nospam.aecom.yu.edu> wrote in message
news:LdadnQdyq9JQBZrfRVn-qw@giganews.com...

"DianaC" <dianaiad@vernoyoudontizon.net> wrote in message
news:a7MNd.21939$uc.38@trnddc09...

"J Young" <youngopinions@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1107785658.442560.167320@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...

Monday, February 07, 2005
By Scott Norvell

March 29, 2004
A professor at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas may be punished
because he offended one of his students by saying in a lesson on
economic planning that homosexuals tend to plan less for the future
than other groups, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Hans Hoppe, described as a conservative libertarian economist with 20
years experience at UNLV, says that during the lesson he gave several
examples of groups that tend not to plan for the future, among them
the
very young, the very old, childless couples and homosexuals. He said
discussion of homosexuals took up about 90 seconds of a 75-minute
lecture.

Within days of the lecture a student had lodged an informal complaint
about its content. The university is now threatening Hoppe with a
letter of reprimand and wants him to give up his next pay increase.

Hoppe is fighting back, with the help of the ACLU. It is not his job,
he said, to consider how a student might feel about economic
theories.

"Our task is to teach what we consider to be right," he said. The
offended student, he said, should have been told to "grow up."

Question. DO homosexuals as a group tend not to plan for the future?
Can this be proven with properly gathered statistics? If not, then the
professor should be reprimanded. If yes, the student should be told to
sit down and learn something. But I don't see anything in the above
article that says one way or the other.

I think this misses the point a little. If he's wrong about homosexuals
as a group doing less future financial planning, then he should be
reprimanded exactly the same amount as he would be for getting any
other relatively mundane fact wrong in a lecture-- which is to say,
probably not much.

Except of course that this isn't exactly like getting a year wrong in a
history class, where one can say 'oops' and change the chalk mark.

"BTR1701" <BTR1702@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:BTR1702-58BB3C.19131407022005@news.east.earthlink.net...

In article <cu83va$roo$1$830fa795@news.demon.co.uk>, "Ben Wainwright"
<sweety-pie@sexmagnet.com> wrote:

<snip to>

People are entitled to make statements such as this so long as they
are based on *evidence* and not someones own personal suppositions

Even then they are entitled to make such statements. Nothing in 1st
Amendment jurisprudence says people have the freedom to speak only so
long as their speech is based on evidence and not supposition.

Well, make that 'professors who are being paid to teach facts, and who if
they teach falsities when they are contracted to teach facts, are liable
to the people who pay them".

Such as the university which is asking the man to forgo his next raise.

"BTR1701" <BTR1702@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:BTR1702-58BB3C.19131407022005@news.east.earthlink.net...

In article <cu83va$roo$1$830fa795@news.demon.co.uk>, "Ben Wainwright"
<sweety-pie@sexmagnet.com> wrote:

<snip to>

People are entitled to make statements such as this so long as they are
based on *evidence* and not someones own personal suppositions

Even then they are entitled to make such statements. Nothing in 1st
Amendment jurisprudence says people have the freedom to speak only so
long as their speech is based on evidence and not supposition.

Well, make that 'professors who are being paid to teach facts, and who if
they teach falsities when they are contracted to teach facts, are liable to
the people who pay them".

Such as the university which is asking the man to forgo his next raise.