Paul Driessen

My column this week is a bit off my usual beaten track – but still closely related to the energy, environment and political topics I generally cover.
It addresses the incredible and despicable actions taking place at Oregon State University – a school that I once came close to attending, to pursue graduate studies in oceanography. I was accepted, but finally decided to go to law school instead. (If I hadn’t made that decision, I would now be another alumnus from this university, rallying in support of these students and their professor, and carrying the shame of being an alum.)
The column explains how someone I have known and admired for a number of years (Dr. Art Robinson) has been the target of retribution by OSU and Congressman Peter DeFazio – or more accurately, and more despicably, Art’s CHILDREN have been the target – for his “crime” of running against DeFazio in the last election, and declaring that Art will run against DeFazio again in 2012. Now the school is trying to kick all three children out of their PhD programs, even though they are and have always been stellar academics, and have only a short stretch to go before completing all their studies.
Just so you know: The three Robinsons have good grades, good exams, and good research. What have they done to warrant this? Nothing. In fact, the students are accused of nothing – openly. But meanwhile vicious and defamatory rumors are being spread behind the scenes to justify what is clearly … and can only be described as … political payback, Oregon style.
(As one reader – a Russian, in St. Petersburg! – wrote to me after seeing my article online over the weekend: “I’ve seen a lot of Edward Ray’s in schools and universities of my Soviet Russia. The only really shattering piece of news is that the painfully familiar situation is happening not in some Communist hell, like Cuba or North Korea, but in the USA – IN THE USA!!!” This is what we are up against. The only question is, What are we going to do about it?)
I hope you enjoy this hard-hitting and revealing article – and thank you for posting it, quoting from it, and forwarding it to your friends and colleagues.
All the best,

Paul