Cary Nelson, the University of Illinois professor who is president of the American Association of University Professors, has issued a statement arguing that a City University of New York professor has become the victim of “what nearly amounts to an American Fatwa” as a result of “virulent attacks” directed at her by Glenn Beck, the conservative Fox News commentator.
The statement suggests that Mr. Beck’s “relentless tirades” against Frances Fox Piven, whom the TV personality has called “an enemy of the Constitution” and accused of trying to incite violent revolution, have led his followers to direct anonymous threats of violence at the professor of political science and sociology at CUNY’s Graduate Center. The statement calls for those who take issue with Ms. Piven’s writings “to advance their positions in ways that foster responsible criticism and debate.”
But Robert Corn-Revere, a leading First Amendment lawyer who advises the Media Institute, on Tuesday said Mr. Nelson’s statement was likely to just add fuel to the fire. There is “a certain irony in complaining about inflammatory rhetoric and then describing it as an American Fatwa,” Mr. Corn-Revere said.
