By Dave Newbart
A Saint Xavier professor who called an Air Force cadet a "disgrace to this country'' who practiced "baby-killing tactics'' has been publicly rebuked by the university administration and could face other discipline.
The professor, Peter Kirstein, and university President Richard Yanikoski have both issued apologies after receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of angry e-mails from military members around the country.
Ten days ago, Kirstein, who has taught history and political science for 28 years at Saint Xavier on the South Side, received an e-mail message from a cadet seeking help advertising a political science assembly to be held at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs in February.
Kirstein, who has criticized the military for years, fired off a response ripping the "Air Force cowards.''
"You are worse than the snipers,'' he wrote.
Over the next several days, Kirstein's e-mail was forwarded around the academy and then to military mailing lists and electronic bulletin boards around the country.
Early last week Kirstein issued an apology saying he did not mean to "impugn the character'' of the cadet. "I should have written him in a more thoughtful and contemplative manner,'' he wrote.
Although Kirstein declined to comment to the Chicago Sun-Times Friday, Yanikoski--himself a former Air Force member--said the professor's initial e-mail was a "spur of the moment'' response that he now sincerely regrets.
"His deeply held feelings got the best of him because he believed he was being asked to support something antithetical to his own belief structure,'' the president said. Although Kirstein is free to hold anti-military beliefs, he is not free to issue "demeaning, degrading statements as a professor in or outside the classroom,'' Yanikoski said.
Yanikoski personally responded to hundreds of angry e-mails. In response to one calling the statements "tasteless, unprovoked, rude, unprofessional and indefensible,'' Yanikoski wrote, "I completely agree.''
Many e-mailers have called for Kirstein to be fired, but Yanikoski doesn't believe one e-mail should lead to termination. He said he is exploring "all options'' in regards to sanctioning Kirstein, if at all.
And he said the university plans to send one or two students to attend the assembly.
Jim Borders, the Air Force captain in charge of the assembly, said Friday that the cadet and the academy accepted the apologies from Kirstein and Saint Xavier.