TEACHER REBUKED FOR VERBAL ATTACK;
HE CALLED AFA CADET A DISGRACE TO NATION

Dick Foster, ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
November 16, 2002

A history professor at St. Xavier University who sent a scathing anti-war e-mail to an Air Force Academy cadet last month has been suspended from his teaching position, school officials said Friday.

Officials at the Chicago college issued a public apology for Professor Peter N. Kirstein's blistering attack on the freshman cadet.

The episode left in doubt Kirstein's return to the faculty after a sabbatical planned for the spring semester. A freshman cadet, whose name has been withheld, sent Kirstein an e-mail Oct. 31 asking for his help in publicizing the upcoming Academy Assembly, an annual forum at which political science majors can discuss major political issues.

Kirstein responded with a bitter two-paragraph attack:

"You are a disgrace to this country and I am furious you would even think I would support you and your aggressive baby-killing tactics of collateral damage. Help you recruit? Who, top guns to reign death and destruction upon nonwhite peoples throughout the world?" Kirstein wrote.

He called the cadets "air force cowards who bomb countries without AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) without possibility of retaliation."

"You are worse than the snipers. You are imperialists who are turning the whole damn world against us," he wrote.

Kirstein's message caused an uproar of indignation.

Calls and messages from around the country flooded the school.

Xavier President Richard Yanikoski removed Kirstein from his teaching duties Monday and issued an administrative reprimand. While Kirstein is on sabbatical, he will undergo a peer review.

Yanikoski issued a formal apology to the academy. Kirstein also wrote a personal apology.

"I recognize individuals who serve in the military deserve respect both for their service and their viewpoints. It is wrong for me or anyone to blame an individual serving in the military when the debate is over national policy," he said.

School officials also are responding to all cadets and their families who contacted the school, Yanikoski said.

Air Force Academy officials have not commented on the incident.

"We're referring everyone to Xavier," said academy spokesman Pam Ancker on Friday.