Topic: CNSNews.com
An April 11 CNSNews.com article by Randy Hall repeats unsourced claims attacking an alleged critic of Mike Adams, the conservative writer who is suing the North Carolina university where he works for allegedly denying him full professorship. Hall writes of Kimberly Cook, Adams' department head: "An outspoken atheist said to have openly criticized Christianity, Cook described to a recruitment committee her ideal candidate for a teaching position as 'a lesbian with spiked hair and a dog collar.' "
Hall cites no source or corroboration for this claim; that may be because it comes straight from a press release by the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Adams. Hall apparently took the ADF's claims on faith despite its history of making misleading, slanted claims in its press releases.
Further, Hall portrays Adams as a victim of purported discrimination against conservatives in academia and as a criminologist who has "received awards for excellence and produced several peer-reviewed publications" without noting his controversial history as a pundit and a college instructor:
-- A 2004 Adams column falsely claimed that a lesbian North Carolina politican's baby was created by the sperm of the woman's brother, suggesting she was in an incestuous relationship.
-- A September 21, 2004, Wilmington Star-News article notes that "Dr. Adams is a divisive character of the first order" and that he has been accused of making "unsubstantiated sexual harassment complaints" against a fellow professor.
-- While Hall relates a incident involving a student named Rosa Fuller from Adams' point of view (that is, Adams was unjustly accused and did nothing wrong), Bartholomew tells a few things about the case that Hall didn't note:
A UNC student named Rosa Fuller sent out an email criticising US policy in the Middle East in fairly strident and breathless language, to which Adams sent a dismissive and critical response (this is all covered in his book, apparently). Some other recipients replied to Fuller’s email threatening violence, and these senders were investigated by the authorities. However, Fuller also alleged that Adams had defamed her, inciting these threats, and an investigation followed. At first I thought this claim against Adams was rather weak, but, as SZ at World O'Crap has dug up, one of the threat senders ("People like you deserve to be dragged down the street by your hair. . . . I hope you will have the good sense to keep you[r] liberal moth shut at a time like this. No one needs your shit.") was a UNC student named Krysten Scott, who married Adams eighteen months later.
There are some possible clues there as to why Adams was denied a full professorship (in addition to generally being a jerk). But because Hall made little effort to venture beyond the ADF press release (it's not until the 21st paragraph that he quotes a university spokesman denying Adam's claims), his readers won't know that Adams has apparently behaved in a way that warrants his treatment.
