If you're my friend, Prof. Hoppe you shall defend
To all of my friends, and anyone else reading this... A great professor, an excellent and highly respected Austrian economist, Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, has come under attack by the PC-police. In his lecture, Time Preference and Its Implications, he discussed the phenomenon of time-preference, the preferring of present satisfaction over future satisfaction. All human beings have some degree of time-preference; this is inherent in the fact that we act. If we didn't have time-preference, we would never act. A person with a high time-preference has a high preference for present satisfaction (present goods) over future satisfaction (future goods); a person with low time-preference has a low preference for present satisfaction over future satisfaction.

The portion of the lecture that Prof. Hoppe has gotten in trouble over is the part where he gives several examples to illustrate the phenomenon of time-preference. He notes that the very old and the very young tend to have high time-preferences. He also briefly notes that homosexuals tend to have higher time-preferences.

Although Prof. Hoppe's been giving this lecture for 18 or so years, with no complaints, one student was offended by this. So, he complained to an administrator. The next class, Prof. Hoppe mentioned it, and said that he was only speaking in generalities -- that is, certainly such was not a specific statement about any homosexual person, anymore than his comment about the elderly would be specific about an old person (like Warren Buffet, who obviously has high time-preference even in his late 70s) -- and did not mean to offend anyone. The student, however, felt that this was "dismissive", and complained further. Now, the University of Las Vegas -- where Prof. Hoppe works -- wants to "punish" him, by issuing a letter of reprimand and cancelling his next payraise.

So, I'm curious. What do you think? I have intentionally left out the details of what Prof. Hoppe said because I want you all to listen to the lecture before making a judgement. Please do this. I think it is important to hear the entire lecture, and not simply make a judgement based on a sound-byte. The lecture is approximately one hour long, but is well worth the time (even ignoring this entire situation). I think you will find Prof. Hoppe to be a calm and enjoyable person to listen to, and even funny at times.

Here is some contact information, so that you can get in touch with the University

Contact info: President Carol C. Harter, Phone: 702-895-3201, Fax: 702-895-1088, harter@ccmail.nevada.edu. We have had reports that Harter's email has been taken down (not verified), so to be sure you could fax it or cc her staff listed here:
Kathleen Robins, Ph.D., Senior Advisor to the President; Schyler Richards
Deputy to the President; Betty Hanseen, Assistant to the President. Als: Dr. Raymond W. Alden III, Executive Vice President & Provost.

Other possible contact info: http://system.nevada.edu/Contact-Us/index.htm;
http://www.unlv.edu/main/boardRegents;
http://www.unlv.edu/president/cabinet.html#charter.

Here is some background information in the form of blogposts from the Mises blog, which contain a number of references to various articles discussing the hoopla:

Defend Hoppe
Lecture causes dispute
UNLV Regent warns "Professors have to be careful what they say."
UNLV Regents Chairman: Hoppe Should Not Be Disciplined
Political Correctness Crowd goes after Hoppe
The Volokh Conspiracy
Instapundit.com
Artists Under Attack, Muslims Against Advertising
Effort to punish UNLV professor gains exposure
The Thought Police Strike Nevada
UNLV Chooses Secrecy
Stifling free discourse at UNLV
Professor, ACLU may sue UNLV