KC University Backs Labor Professor In Video Controversy

ALAN SCHER ZAGIER
04/29/11 07:39 PM ET
AP

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- University of Missouri-Kansas City officials say they're standing behind a labor studies professor whose lecture comments about union agitation tactics have created an Internet stir among conservative commentators.

Video clips on conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website show professor Judy Ancel seemingly endorsing violence as a union tactic during a recent class. UMKC Provost Gail Hackett pledged support for the academic freedom of the school's professors and said videos posted on Breitbart's site rely on "selective editing" and are presented in "an inaccurate and distorted manner."

A campus review of 18 hours of unedited video continues, Hackett said in a statement released late Thursday.

Breitbart was at the center of two video controversies in recent years – one that led to the firing of a U.S. Agriculture Department employee over an edited video of what appeared to be a racist remark, and another that embarrassed the community group ACORN when workers were shown counseling actors posing as a prostitute and pimp.

(Original here.)