Had I not been in a rush yesterday when I posted on Crystal Dixon, the University of Toledo Administrator suspended for saying some politically incorrect things (and expressing some downright crazy notions), I might have learned that she has since been fired for speaking her mind.

Last Friday, she “received verbal notification from the University of Toledo that she has been fired.” Via Don Surber who asks “shouldn’t a university be open to ideas that are unpopular?” (Via Instapundit).

After expressing his views in the Toledo Free-Press, University President Lloyd Jacobs said he disagrees with “a number of those view points and . . . that some of those viewpoints don’t seem at least on the face of it consistent with the University stated values.”

Wait a minute, so the university president gets to express his views in an article, but someone who says something inconsistent with what he calls the university’s stated values loses her job? Sounds like a dictatorship to me.

I guess this university administrator doesn’t much value the free exchange of ideas. But, then again, that exchange does seem to be lacking at many American universities today.

I’d been trying to think up some clever title for this post, even since I’d read some description of he former First Lady as Clintonstein, coming back from the dead. But, given her poll numbers in West Virginia (and Kentucky), she shows remarkable vitality for someone written off as dead.

With some surveys showing her up by more that 40 points, she could win in West Virginia today by a margin larger than her opponent’s in any previous contest. And this while most consider him the presumptive Democratic nominee. Personally, I expect her to do about as well in the Mountain State as he did in the Peach State, winning about two-thirds of the vote. Would a victory of that magnitude change the shape of the Democratic race?

In a piece on the West Virginia contest in Politico, Kenneth P. Vogel suggests it might:

a massive margin of victory could bolster Clinton’s central argument to the superdelegates who will ultimately decide the nomination. Her campaign contends that Obama has serious problems with the blue collar and elderly whites who dominate West Virginia’s voter rolls — and who Team Clinton asserts will be key in a number of states if Democrats are to defeat presumptive Republican nominee.

Would her success here, when most pundits give her campaign up for dead, cause Democrats to rethink the risks of nominated a candidate as untested as Senator Obama, one who has trouble with key Democratic constituencies? Given the enthusiasm, nay, the zealousness, of many of his followers, I doubt it cause them to reconsider or even to entertain the possibility of an alternative candidate. They have seen these problems before and ether dismissed them or claimed that these Democrats will come home in the fall.

I don’t think the West Virginia results will make much of a difference in the final outcome of the Democratic race, but they could prove a serious embarrassment to Senator Obama should he do as badly as the polls suggest.

Should he do that badly tomorrow, expect him to ratchet up his efforts in next week’s contests in Kentucky and Oregon to avoid further embarrassments. That seems to be something most Democrats want, given that nearly two-thirds want Hillary to stay in the race (via Instapundt).

The Democrats may have settled on a nominee, but a good chunk of their rank and file seems unsettled by the choice.

In his comment to my post on the University of Toledo’s decision to suspend an employee for expressing her un-PC views on gay rights, John (AverageGayJoe) asked me to square my opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which would prevent private employers from firing an employee because of his sexual orientation and my criticism of the University of Toledo for firing this employee with silly ideas. He asked:

Are you saying that this maxim of yours doesn’t apply when it comes to the University of Toledo? If so, why? UoT may be a public university for all I know but I do recall you rejecting ENDA-like legislation even for the public sector. Why is it that this ‘right’ to discriminate only applies to homosexuality in your eyes but not elsewhere?

First, I never said I opposed ENDA-like policies for the public sector. [Please note that five hours after posting this, I caught an error in the original version of sentence which I have since fixed. --Dan]

Second, had Ms. Dixon worked for a private institution, say Ohio’s Oberlin College, I would support its right to fire her for her silly statements. I might note the hypocrisy of an institution adopting a non-discrimination policy protecting certain individuals while firing another one for her viewpoint, but would leave it at that.

According to is website, The University of Toledo is a “public metropolitan research university . . . . one of 13 state universities in Ohio.” I believe any public institution must adhere to different standards than a private one. Please note that I expressed as much in the original post: “If the crazy ideas she expresses on her own time don’t prevent her from doing her job on the state‘s time, then she should be allowed to keep her job.” (Emphasis added)

It’s the simple distinction between public and private. I believe we should allow private institutions the freedom to conduct their affairs as they see fit. The marketplace can punish a private enterprise for its discriminatory policies, but state agencies are, by and large, immune from market conditions.

State institutions, since they, by definition, serve us all, must have different standards. While I oppose nondiscrimination laws in the private sector, I favor nondiscrimination policies in the public sector, protecting gay employees from being fired because of their sexual orientation and also protecting social conservatives because of their views on sexual orientation (or other issues).

I have a lot more to say on this matter and may well address it in a subsequent post, but for the moment, will leave it at that, underscoring the difference between public and private institutions. There are many issues this issue brings up, some addressed in the comment thread following the initial post.

Wow…. this is “objective journalism” ??   You have got to be kidding.

Barack Obama sported a flag lapel pin and talked up patriotism Monday as he campaigned in blue-collar West Virginia. He also shot a solid game of pool.

The Illinois senator concedes he will lose Tuesday’s West Virginia primary to Hillary Rodham Clinton, probably by a wide margin. But the coal-mining state might be a good backdrop for some of his longer-range goals nonetheless, such as battling claims that he’s insufficiently patriotic and, more frivolously, that he’s lousy at sports beyond basketball.

Obama, after his Charleston speech, stopped at Schultzie’s Billiards hall. In his shirt sleeves and tie, he showed much greater skill at pool than he had shown at bowling during a much-lampooned stop last month in Pennsylvania.

As a small crowd oohed and ahhed at his third consecutive good shot, Obama said his talent at billiards was ‘‘the sign of a misspent youth. I wasn’t doing wholesome things like bowling.”

Asked by a local reporter how he would deal with voters who think he is ‘‘un-American,” Obama said that if people follow the news, ‘‘they’ll know that I’m a practicing Christian. They’ll know that my grandfather fought in World War II and I was raised to love America. And all these phony e-mails talking how I don’t pledge allegiance are just political smears.”

I wonder if the AP “reporter” had an orgasm after writing this?

-Bruce (GayPatriot)