Julio Pino is a genocidal anti-Semite who uses his university email account to boast of sodomizing the mothers of his political opponents. But he has the protection of tenure. And he also has the protection of a cowardly administration, which fails to sufficiently condemn the behavior of a man who is probably too effeminate to act on his threats of violence and intimidation.
Pino, the unhinged Kent State University history professor, recently shouted "Death to Israel" during a speech by a former Israeli diplomat. The university’s president, Lester Lefton, now says that statementwas “deplorable.” Lefton issued a statement saying Julio Pino had a right to shout "Death to Israel” and disrupt someone else’s speech. That’s good to know because I plan to barge into Julio Pino’s history class next week and shout “Death to Julio Pino!” If the president doesn’t write a letter supporting my right to do so, I plan to barge into his office and shout “Death to President Lefton!”
I can do all this because we all know that shouting other people down and drowning out their protected free speech with threats of violence is also protected free speech. It’s what the Founding Fathers intended. Death to Jefferson! Death to Madison! Kill them all!
President Lefton surprised me when he wrote "We value critical thinking at this university and encourage students to engage with ideas that they find difficult or make them uncomfortable.” Well that’s just great! That must mean that Kent State has no university speech code. And that means we can engage in a little experimentation.
First, I say we go the Kent State diversity center and shout “Death to Africa!” and “Death to San Francisco!” If we have time after lunch, then we can go to the Kent State Women’s Center and shout “Death to Feminism!” If the point is lost on them, then we can ask a more serious question: Why have you not condemned Julio Pino for claiming – with his university email address - that he forcibly sodomized a woman who is a senior citizen?
For the record, President Lefton (see http://www.kent.edu/president/index.cfm), said this about Julio Pino’s most recent outburst: "We hope that our faculty will always model how best to combine passion for one's position with respect for those with whom we disagree. Calling for the destruction of the state from which our guest comes (as do some of our students, faculty and community members) is a grotesque failure to model these values."
Note that Lefton was talking about the “Death to Israel” remarks. Pino’s claims that he forcibly sodomized a senior citizen have yet to be condemned. Kent State officials are still trying to determine whether Pino’s email account was hacked as he claims. By the way, the investigation seems to have been lingering for about 18 months with no conclusion. Maybe that means Pino’s computer wasn’t hacked. Maybe he’s just a sociopath. Maybe Kent State University is just a den of spineless cowards.
The irony of the entire “Death to Israel” episode is that it came after Pino asked the Israeli speaker how he and his government could justify providing aid to countries with “blood money” he says came from the deaths of Palestinian children and babies. The speaker tried to move on after the absurd question. Pino started shouting and then left. He left many wondering “Was this the same Julio Pino who wrote an editorial to the Kent State student newspaper urging Palestinian children to strap bombs to their bodies to kill innocent Jews?” Okay, it really wasn’t irony. It was just blatant hypocrisy from a self-righteous racist.
Pino did not respond last Wednesday when I wrote to him about the “Death to Israel” incident. Maybe someone hacked his email account. Or maybe he was just out forcibly sodomizing a senior citizen. Sounds about right, since there’s no evidence his email has even been hacked.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer recently noted that Julio Pino was also caught up in a controversy in 2007 when he was cited on websites as being linked to an extremist Islamic website that espoused jihad and published bomb-making instructions. The Plain Dealer notes that “Kent State officials at the time said the extremist site had no connection to Pino or to the university.”
What the Plain Dealer does not note is that Pino and his former department chair have since admitted his connection to the terrorist website. Add the Plain Dealer to the list of cowards protecting a tenured terrorist who sucks the blood of the over-burdened taxpayer.
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