Lecturer under fire for 9/11 conspiracy belief

Wisconsin lawmakers are demanding that a University of Wisconsin-Madison lecturer be pulled from his fall teaching position because of his belief that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were not carried out by terrorists, but by the U.S. government.

Kevin Barrett, who is scheduled to teach the course "Islam: Religion and Culture," said his views on the 9/11 attacks should not come as a surprise to anyone.

"I've been saying these things for three years, on local and national radio and TV, while teaching at UW-Madison and Edgewood College of Madison," he said. "Nobody even complained before, least of all the students."

"The appropriate question to ask about professors who give their opinions about 9/11 in the classroom, whether to embrace or reject the official theory," says David Ray Griffin— professor emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology, "is the standard one: Do they do so in an academically responsible manner, supporting their opinions with evidence in a way that could be defended before their peers?"