New Attack on Labor Educators and Academic Freedom

Click here to read the whole article from Labor Notes:

Two Missouri labor educators are under attack in the right-wing blogosphere from notorious hoaxster Andrew Breitbart, whose outfit was responsible for the deceptive video that took down the national community organization ACORN.

This week’s target is labor studies, specifically a University of Missouri course taught by labor educator Judy Ancel and Operating Engineers business manager Don Giljum, who’s taught labor ed classes since 1989.

According Breitbart’s website, Ancel and Giljum have spent the spring semester teaching union members how to gain power through violence and intimidation.

In a now familiar technique, the evidence for the grand conspiracy is a video that’s been sliced and diced so much it looks like coleslaw.

Breitbart released two seven-minute videos, deceptively edited and remixed snippets that are taken from more than 30 hours of classroom video-conference tapes.

The videos cut away context and patch statements together from weeks apart to turn probing academic questions into semi-endorsements of violence. Watch Giljum seamlessly change shirts between sentences.