Arthur B. Robinson

[Astrodude]

A well-known scientist named Arthur Robinson is as conservative as one could possibly be on the American political spectrum. He home-schooled all of his children with apparently tremendous success and is a hard-core Christian.

He had a respectable career as a scientist with Linus Pauling before the two had a major falling-out. Pauling, a Communist, was eventually going to come into conflict with Robinson, a member of the John Birch Society. Robinson gets credit for debunking Pauling's claim that major doses of vitamin C cure common colds. Since his falling-out with Pauling in the 1980s, Robinson has gone on to run a homeschooling curriculum, a conservative newsletter with a guy who disputes general relativity, and a book with a guy who believed the world was going to end in 2000(Robinson did not share this view).

In 2010 at the height of Tea-Party mania, Robinson got the GOP nomination to run for a US House of Representatives seat where he lost by a large margin but made waves.

Anyways, his home-schooled children have all been quite successful academically with records that anyone should be proud to have. A couple have PhDs and I think one is a veterinarian. However, recently, three of his children were expelled from the PhD program at Oregon State University. One of the children, Noah, won an award for best master's thesis. Robinson claims the expulsion was political retaliation for seeking office as a paleoconservative.

Here's what I haven't heard addressed:

OSU responded formally to the charges and included a statement "Federal law prohibits institutions of higher education from discussing matters concerning our students with anyone other than the student himself or herself without the express consent of the student involved."

This means the students could consent to have their academic records made public, but they haven't consented. If their academic records were still sterling in the PhD program, why wouldn't they release them?

Also, if their academic records markedly declined when their father began campaigning, why don't they consent to show this decline? It would suggest that they received unfair marks due to bias teachers.

Either way, with the Robinsons capable of consenting for the release of records, they're the only conspirators in this hyped incident.

[Scott Sommers]

Wikipedia, the source of all true things, tells us,

Quote:

Claim of retaliation against Robinson's childrenIn 2011 Robinson alleged that Oregon State University was part of a conspiracy to retaliate against him for his political activism by expelling his three children, one of whom is a PhD candidate, from the Oregon State University Nuclear Engineering and Radiation Health Physics department.[9][10] Art Robinson has stated in regards to the controversy "I have no proof, that is what I believe."[11] Art Robinson has fought with university administrations over the education of four of his six children, he mounted a similar attack on Southern Oregon University to force them to allow his daughter Arynne to graduate without meeting university requirements because he felt the university courses were "specifically designed to destroy her faith, her innocence, her self-respect, and her happiness in her way of life"[1] Unlike Oregon State University, Southern Oregon University backed down in the face of Art's threats of "law suits, adverse publicity, and 'an ever increasing telephone, fax, and letter campaign'" mounted by his home schooling devotees.[1]

In a statement, OSU would not comment on matters concerning the students without their consent, but declared all the other claims, including those about the faculty, to be unfounded.