The problem about writing a blog for a decade or more is that sometimes you forget stuff. I had seen some discussion about an academic named William Bradford and his outlandish article bloviating about the perils of pro-Islamic academics giving aid and comfort to the enemy. He suggested treating U.S. scholars as “enemy combatants.” The name seemed vaguely familiar but not enough for me to try to figure out why.
Fortunately, the Indiana Law Blog forgets very little and posted a reminder about Prof. Bradford’s less than graceful exit from Indiana’s academic legal circles. That jogged my memory. I too had a brief piece about Prof. Bradford about 10 years ago entitled, “Sometimes they just don’t like you because you’re a wanker:”
Ruth Holladay has a column entitled Truth comes out about professor’s background. Professor William C. Bradford resigned after being revealed as a fraud. Apparently he had promoted himself as a war veteran and Silver Star recipient. He was neither. He held himself out as a conservative persecuted by the liberal elites of academia because fellow professors voted against Bradford receiving tenure. Sometimes it’s not your politics or philosophy. Sometimes it’s just you. Good riddance.
Looks like Prof. Bradford is, again, forced to move along from his academic position, not because of any grand conspiracy, but because he doesn’t seem to have the right temperament for the job.
When claims seem to be too good to be true, they aren’t. Always good to see this revealed. And isn’t it interesting to see how many judgmental people are the most guilty.
It’s pretty astounding that West Point, of all institutions, hired someone who had lost an earlier job because he lied about a combat decoration.
John M, I finally got around to following some of this through. Bradford’s protests about being denied early tenure reeks of the shrieks of Clarence Thomas at being accurately portrayed at his confirmation hearing in 1991.
It is indeed troubling that West Point would not discover this well documented case of academic fraud.