Of a Tokin' Professor and a Token Black Conservative

Colleges of Education have a reputation for their lack of intellectual rigor. Stories like this one don't help to improve that reputation.

A high-ranking Penn State professor was caught smoking marijuana this summer in his University Park office, campus police have reported.

Murry R. Nelson, 60, of College Township, is the department head in curriculum and instruction in the College of Education. Shortly after noon on July 29, according to a criminal complaint, campus police got word that the smell of burning marijuana was escaping from 164B North Chambers Building -- Nelson's office.

Nelson admitted to smoking marijuana cigarettes soon after police arrived there, the complaint says. Police reported that they confiscated a number of items, including bags with marijuana and rolling papers.

The professor, who could not be reached Thursday, waived his right to a preliminary hearing last month. He has worked at Penn State since 1975, according to his curriculum vitae.

Nelson faces two charges in Centre County Court: possession of a small amount of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia. State College-based lawyer Andrew Shubin said Thursday that he is representing Nelson.

By the way,one of Nelson's colleagues in the department of curriculum and instruction is David Warren Saxe.

The shouting-down of a black conservative speaker at Penn State has sparked an investigation into speech codes at schools throughout Pennsylvania.

By the time the animosity and intolerant atmosphere surrounding the arrival of Star Parker to campus had subsided, Dr. David Warren Saxe decided he had had enough with the ever-increasing harassment of conservative, anti-establishment voices at Pennsylvania State University. He sent a critical letter to the University’s president seeking an official statement on whether unconstitutional speech codes were being implemented under the guise of "diversity" and "tolerance" regulations, while he began to take up with the Pennsylvania State Board of Education an inquiry into what he calls "an open assault on free speech" in the state’s many institutions of higher education.

Can you imaging what a faculty meeting is like in that department? Also, I wonder if the "campus police got word" from Dr. Saxe?

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