An organization has started a petition to get psychology professor Kevin MacDonald removed from his position because of his personal views.
Doug Kauffman, an activist and student at Cal State Long Beach, said more than 1,000 people have already signed the petition created by Students Fight Back.
“The ones who have signed the petition are pretty disgusted by him,” Kauffman said. “Many of them are very much in favor of him being removed, but they understand the difficulty because he is a tenured professor.”
There has been a lot of noise surrounding MacDonald for years, but the spotlight has grown brighter since October 2009, when he became director of the American Third Position, a political party that some call racist.
“He goes around on public radio and television discussing white power politics,” Kauffman said. “We need to view him differently because there is no longer any veil of defense.”
Kauffman admitted that the petition is probably not going to get MacDonald removed.
“[The] petition’s purpose is not so much necessary to bring about MacDonald’s removal on its own. … It is a way to gain students’ attention,” he said.
Psychology professor Martin Fiebert doesn’t think the petition will get MacDonald fired, either.
“I think the faculty has taken its stand and I don’t know if there’s anything else to do, unless he engages in behavior that is illegal and unethical, and it is not clear if he has crossed that line or not,” Fiebert said.
The psychology and women’s, gender and sexuality studies departments have stated on their CSULB Web pages that they have dissociated themselves from MacDonald’s work.
Psychology professor Dan Chiappe did not want to discuss the petition against MacDonald.
“I am over this issue,” Chiappe said. “It is just causing a lot of stress.”
MacDonald said he is not worried about the petition.
“No one talks to me about [the petition],” MacDonald said via e-mail. “I am not worried because my understanding is that the university stands behind academic freedom and the tenure system.”
Students Fight Back has previously encouraged students to boycott MacDonald’s classes. According to MacDonald, however, he has more students in his classes than in past semesters.
“I think it is going to be more difficult right now because of the budget crisis and the lack of courses, but in that most people prefer not to give any more power to a Nazi,” Kauffman said.
Kauffman said he has heard some of MacDonald’s students complain about remarks he has made.
“People do have a right to unpopular views, so people from a wide political spectrum can express themselves as citizens of this country,” Fiebert said. “I think MacDonald might fall into that category of having an extreme view, but having a right to express it.”
But Fiebert said students have the right to challenge others’ views.
“Students are consumers of education, and I think they have a legitimate right to challenge faculty who present views in their classroom that are, you know, inappropriate,” Fiebert said. “I think what the students have done is they have expressed a sentiment about his views and actions.”
MacDonald said his views have not generally upset anyone beyond “very few students.”
“They don’t like the fact that I have a sense of my own ethnic interests that is inconsistent with their ethnic interests,” he said. “The problem is that the interests of non-white minorities are seen by very many people at the university and elsewhere as legitimate, but my interests are not. This is ridiculous and will not continue in the long run.”
Kauffman said MacDonald has crossed too many lines.
“There’s really nothing defensible about feeling that there should be a white ethno state, regardless of quibbling about the details. When he tries to defend himself against anything we have said, he never denies feeling that there should be a white ethno state. That is the problem,” Kauffman said, referring to MacDonald’s radio interview on Radio Free Mississippi on Dec. 14, where MacDonald described a “white homeland.”
It is unclear what the future will bring for MacDonald, but he is ready to defend himself and his views.
“I think for the most part [the petitioners] are people who are trying to do what they can to help people like themselves. They are utterly oblivious that other people have legitimate interests, as well, that might conflict with their interests,” MacDonald said. “I wouldn’t mind talking to them individually or even as a group. But not in my classroom.”