EIGHTY-TWO DAYS after being suspended from teaching, Kenneth W. Hearlson has been vindicated. Sort of.

You’ll remember that on September 18,
Hearlson, a professor at Orange Coast College, taught his Introduction to Government class the way he always does. The next day, four Muslim students from his class complained to OCC administrators that Hearlson had called them “terrorists,” “Nazis,” and “murderers.” One claimed Hearlson had pointed at him and said, “You drove two planes into the World Trade Center. You were the cause of what happened September 11.” The day after that, Hearlson was placed–no questions asked–on administrative leave, and barred from campus. The charges were lies, and from the very beginning, there were tapes of the class which proved that nothing the Muslim students alleged had happened.