I was at this year's United Association for Labor Education conference in New Orleans in March and I got to hang out with Judy (most memorably at Jaques-Imo's Restaurant, in Uptown, with a great group of people that included two members of the *Mineros* union representing striking miners in Cananea, Mexico). If you go to the website with the Breitbart video, you'll see that the comments are really toxic, including lots of threats of or incitements to violence. The video itself, which is transparently patched together, doesn't even really depict what they claim it does. But Judy's colleague has already been forced to resign both from a union post and from a teaching post at the university.
For details, check out the excellent article<http://labornotes.org/2011/04/right-wing-hoaxster-smears-labor-educators>at Labor Notes by Jane Slaughter and Mischa Gaus ( http://labornotes.org/2011/04/right-wing-hoaxster-smears-labor-educators), and here is the blog pos<http://dollarsandsense.org/blog/2011/04/right-wing-attacks-labor-studies.html>t my colleague Linda Pinkow wrote on the whole affair:
We were outraged to learn about the recent attack on our friend and
> colleague Judy Ancel <http://cas.umkc.edu/labor-ed/staff.htm>, by the
> unscrupulously malignant Andrew Breitbart. The right-wing blogger, best
> known for creating deceptive videos that undermined the community organizing
> group ACORN and US Department of Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod, has
> found a new target: labor educators. Breitbart and his henchmen edited
> videos of several courses co-taught by Professor Ancel and adjunct
> instructor Don Giljum. The clumsily edited videos (in which the instructors
> magically change their clothing in the middle of their lectures!) purport to
> show Ancel and Giljum advocating violence by union members.
>
> In her response to the attack<http://stlactivisthub.blogspot.com/2011/04/judy-ancels-statements-on.html>,
> Ancel says:
>
> "These videos are no idle prank. They do real harm. Both Don and I are
> receiving threats and ugly and scary messages. There are death threats
> against us on Breitbart’s blog.
>
> "These videos are an attack on higher education and its mission to working
> adults, putting labor education programs at risk. They create fear and have
> an enormously chilling effect on freedom of thought and expression. They
> seek to undermine the academic freedom that is required to study, better
> understand, and hopefully improve our conditions of life….
>
> "These attacks on me, my colleague, and the students in my course are an
> affront to democracy and must be challenged by citizens, workers and
> students, or else they will continue."
>
> While the provost of UM Kansas City denounced Breitbart’s video as
> “inaccurate and distorted,” officials at UM St. Louis demanded Giljum’s
> resignation. Hopefully they’ll reconsider that rash and cowardly move.
>
> The American Association of University Professors issued a statement<http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/newsroom/2011PRs/Ancel.htm>Thursday, strongly condemning Breitbart. AAUP general secretary Gary Rhoades
> writes:
>
> "Breitbart has a right to voice his views; he does not have a right to his
> own facts. He does not have a right to distort the class in ways that are
> evident in the video clips and that are detailed by Judy Ancel in her
> response to the attack. Neither does he have the right to trample on the
> academic freedom of professors and their students, nor on the privacy rights
> of students in their classroom work."
>
> For more information, Labor Notes<http://labornotes.org/2011/04/right-wing-hoaxster-smears-labor-educators>has a comprehensive article about the situation. Our thoughts and best
> wishes go out to Ancel and Giljum. Free thought and free expression are
> under attack today in this country. We all need to speak out while we still
> can.
>
-- -- Chris Sturr Co-editor, Dollars & Sense 29 Winter St. Boston, Mass. 02108 phone: 617-447-2177, ext. 205 fax: 617-447-2179 email: sturr at dollarsandsense.org