Ball State faculty member under fire

MUNCIE -- A Ball State University professor criticized by some students who say he is promoting a liberal agenda is now also under fire from national conservatives.\nGeorge Wolfe, who directs the university's center for peace and conflict studies, is being accused by conservative author and commentator David Horowitz of hating America and supporting terrorism.\nHorowitz recently wrote an article about Wolfe in an online journal, FrontPage Magazine.\n"There are 250 peace studies programs in America like the one at Ball State," Horowitz wrote. "They teach students to identify with America's terrorist enemies and to identify America as a great Satan oppressing the world's poor and causing them to go hungry."\nWolfe called the charges "absurd" and "shameful," especially since the peace studies program at Ball State teaches nonviolent alternatives to conflict resolution.\n"I don't know of any terrorist that uses nonviolence," Wolfe said. "So that pretty much exonerates our program of charges that it backs terrorism."\nWolfe said he has received so many critical e-mails, from all over the country, that he closed his e-mail account.\n"My e-mail is impossible to manage," Wolfe said. "One person said I should move to a communist country."\nThe criticisms began after a student filed a complaint with Students for Academic Freedom, a national organization founded by Horowitz, and accused Wolfe of being biased.\nIn a letter to the organization, Ball State Provost Beverley Pitts defended Wolfe.\nBall State spokeswoman Heather Shupp said the student never filed a complaint with the university.\nShupp called it "incredible" to believe that a course supporting terrorism would be approved by the university, which has a "pretty good system of checks and balances" and oversight regarding the courses it offers.