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Today, Vincent Carroll, the editorial page editor of the Rocky Mountain News, called the University of Colorado's Ethnic Studies Department an "intellectual slum":

RESURRECTING THE VENOM

Would it surprise you to learn that the founder of a viciously abusive Web site is a part-time instructor in CU's ethnic studies department? I didn't think so.

Suffice it to say that Benjamin Whitmer, like the academic hero he defends and apes (you know who I mean), has a weakness for fantasized violence. Here, for example, is a post on his site from last year, targeting, as it happens, me: "F--- him with every ghastly medieval torture device known to humankind. . . . Had we our way, we'd stake his lower intestine to the ground and make the motherf----- take a half-mile walk."

Whitmer shut down the site (whose name I won't give him the satisfaction of printing) when Ward Churchill critic Grant Crowell exposed his identity in December. But after expunging the offensive content under the excuse of protecting the identities of other contributors, Whitmer resurrected his creation this month.

"We were a satire site," is how he explains the ugly content he pulled down, proving that his honesty may rival that of his idol.

Oddballs with violent imaginations and an inability to engage in serious debate may be a dime a dozen, but most of us like to assume they will not be rewarded with jobs lecturing at public universities. But then most of us never imagined the sort of intellectual slum that CU's Ethnic Studies Department turned out to be, either.