To answer some questions: I have not had the pleasure of working with the RMPN on this issue but have enjoyed some of the events they host. I rely on my advisor Alan Gilbert [Marx’s Politics, Democratic Individuality etc] for moral support and on several affinity groups. I was reluctant to tell the department chair about this incident and would not have if it were not for the encouragement of Oneida. But there is a strange power-play there too that I am aware of. I must admit that I have received nothing but kind words and moral support from the department chair. Of course when these emails make the rounds I suppose that the need for yet 'another' section of Introduction to American National Government will disappear, and the need for faculty to teach it will follow (I can hear it now, ‘laws of supply/demand after all, it was a decision out of our hands’).
True, Kelly was the faculty advisor on paper but there were administrative issues because she was a toady adjunct like me and the position called for a full-time associate/full professor- it appears as if strings were pulled. This is not the person in question however- the person in question who approached me in my shared office was/is operating behind the scenes under the cloak of tenure while Kelly was left out to dry. It is my understanding - and I could be wrong on this- that it is this faculty member who was the strong arm behind most of the college Republican actions. One of the head students of the campus Republicans (there are three universities) was hired as an assistant of some capacity for the leading member of the Colorado senate, who led the campaign to enact the Academic Bill of Rights as a state law as I think that link you posted explains. While the Republicans did loose badly in Colorado I think that it was more an indication of the lack-luster economy with rising unemployment heightened by the aspect of increasing rental rates and property sales- I rarely heard any discussions on the issue of the ABR, when I did it was usually reactionary drivel (I live, for some unknown reason, in Tancredo’s House District). Regardless, there have been instances within the college scene at METRO - some that I can go into at length once I get the ok from the students involved (but will most likely be included in the presentation/paper mentioned above) - where the college lawyers have washed their hands of any culpability and the administration has whitewashed disgraceful actions; and I am not discussing the mere issuance of grades or presentation of material but death threats and threats of rape and torture posted to open websites hosted by the Uni allegedly made by members of these groups against members of the campus group Creative Resistance which is the main force of small ‘c’ communist resistance on campus and off (when Kelly was allowed to serve as the college Republican advisor it opened the door for adjuncts and I volunteered to be the advisor for C-Rez when Oneida had to resign). Further, it is my understanding that the hierarchical nature of the beast did not, however, favor everyone, as one is I believe on the way out of METRO - but I can not be certain of that - while the other lurks and remains in a position of hierarchical power. Dan