Roger L. Simon tipped me to the outrageous story of DePaul University Professor Thomas Klocek, who has been suspended after a verbal altercation with Muslim student groups.

The Chicago Jewish News has an account of the confrontation; if this is accurate, professor Klocek is apparently guilty of nothing more than expressing pro-Israel views in the face of extremist Palestinian propaganda, including the ever-present canards about Rachel Corrie:

What happened, then, on the afternoon of Sept. 15 has been pieced together from accounts by Klocek, his attorney, John W. Mauck of the law firm Mauck & Baker, accounts from the school and from the DePaulia, the student newspaper, as well as from an e-mail account by Salma Nassar, president of the DePaul group Students for Justice in Palestine and one of the students who was involved in the incident. (Nassar did not respond to requests for an interview from Chicago Jewish News).

Here’s what all the parties agree on: The trouble began when Klocek stopped at a booth run by Students for Justice in Palestine and one next to it from UMMA (United Muslims Moving Ahead.) He picked up some literature from the SJP table and read a sheet depicting the death of Rachel Corrie, the American activist who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer when she tried to stop a house demolition in the West Bank town of Rafah.

The handout described Corrie as being “murdered by Israeli bulldozer” and went on to state that she “was deliberately ran (sic) over, twice, after a two-hour confrontation between the non-violent international activists and the Israeli armed forces.”

Klocek said he turned to the student staffing the SJP booth and said, “You know, there’s more than one perspective on the Middle East conflict. You’re only presenting one side here.”

Students at the booth “began to engage me in conversation,” he said. Klocek expressed his belief that “strictly speaking, right now there is no such place as Palestine on the map. The Palestinian people were simply Arabs who lived in the West Bank and Gaza.”

One of the women at the table told him that she was a Palestinian, then, according to Klocek, “she got up from the table and said, you know, the Palestinians are being treated by Israelis the same way Hitler treated the Jews.”

“I took umbrage,” Klocek said. “I told her that was an absolutely scurrilous statement, an absolute lie. I said that I believe the Israeli armed forces have exercised very careful restraint in their responses to what has been almost daily suicide bombings. There is a big difference between (Israelis) targeting a terrorist and someone strapped with bombs going in to a cafe or a seder and blowing up people.”

Then, Klocek said, “the UMMA people began to come over. It was eight against one. A very spirited conversation” ensued.

Klocek said that when he felt the discussion was generating more heat than light on both sides, he decided that neither side was going to convince the other and started to leave. When a student asked if he had any connection with the university, he told her who he was and what courses he taught.

As he walked away, Klocek said, “students began coming after me, and I thumbed my chin at them. It’s an Italian New Jersey expression meaning, ‘I’m finished,’ ‘I’m out of here.’”

“Students for Justice in Palestine,” of course, has a wildly different story; and as usual, it involves “racism:”

Nassar, the SJP president, described the event in an Oct. 4 e-mail she sent to a number of campus organizations as “a racist encounter.” She wrote that when students “responded to (Klocek) in a polite and professional manner … he continued to make derogatory and racist comments,” including making comments about how all terror attacks have been committed by Muslims. (Klocek said that he was quoting Chicago Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg, who in turn was quoting Abdel Rahman Al-Rashed, the manager of an Arab news channel, who stated that “It is a certain fact that not all Muslims are terrorists, but it is equally certain, and exceptionally painful, that almost all terrorists are Muslims.”)

Nassar went on to state that “we tried engaging Professor Klocek in conversation but he kept interrupting us and did not allow us to answer any of his questions.” In addition, she wrote, “he continuously referred to Palestinians as ‘those people’ and went on to say that Palestinians ‘do not exist.’”

She wrote that when Klocek was leaving, he “made an obscene hand gesture (he flipped us off.)”

Nassar wrote that she and other students from SJP and UMMA immediately reported the incident to the dean of students and the dean of the School of New Learning, as well as to the advisors of their groups. “Professor Klocek disrespected the student/professor relationship,” she wrote. “It was completely inappropriate for him to approach students in an aggressive manner, his racist and ignorant comments about Muslims and Palestinians, and the profanity he used completely crossed the line.” (Klocek admits that he “raised his voice” but denies using profanity.)

In an interview she gave to the DePaulia, the student newspaper, Nassar added that Klocek “was very aggressive and angry and would go from one topic to another. Every time we tried to address a topic he’d get angry and switch.” She reiterated in the interview that his comments were “inappropriate and offensive.”

And that was all it took for Dean Dumbleton to cave in:

Nine days after the incident, Klocek was called to the office of Susanne Dumbleton, dean of the School for New Learning. Dumbleton told him that she had received two letters, one each from SJP and UMMA, and that “there were very serious charges against me from the students,” according to Klocek, who never saw the letters.

He said Dumbleton told him that she had met with the students and their faculty advisors from the two groups, and that they were “hurt and crushed” by Klocek’s remarks. “They said you used your title as a professor and your power over them to force them to accept your remarks as true. The dean said she agreed with them,” Klocek related. (Dumbleton did not respond to repeated requests for an interview with Chicago Jewish News.)

She then told Klocek he was suspended, with pay, for the remainder of the autumn quarter. She also advised him to stay off campus, which he did, and suggested that he not talk to the student newspaper, the DePaulia, Klocek said. (The school denies that the latter suggestion was ever made.)

Marathon Pundit has more on this outrage.