Daniel Flynn

Antioch College will host convicted murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal as a commencement speaker. The speech, which will be delivered via audio-tape from Pennsylvania's State Correctional Institution at Greene, will occur during the April 29 graduation ceremonies at the Yellow Springs, Ohio campus.
Coming a few months after two Antioch students were gunned down in Costa Rica, the decision to invite a man who's fame has come via shooting a policeman dead has left many in the community befuddled.
"I hope you don't infer from the selection that Antioch advocates violence, the taking of life, or opposes in any way those who enforce our laws," Antioch President Bob Devine defensively expressed in a public letter to calm the uproar. "I don't believe," he added, "that anyone at the College would condone violence or encourage violence against police officers."
"Antioch's invitation to my husband's murderer is not just a slap in the face to me and to Danny's family," explained Mumia Abu-Jamal: From cabbie to commencement speaker.

Maureen Faulkner, widow of Daniel Faulkner, "it is an insult to the families of policemen killed in the line of duty everywhere."

Free Speech Not Allowed at Antioch

Rather than citing any accomplishments of their commencement speaker, Antioch officials have invoked "free speech" as a mantra-like justification for their invitation to a convicted murderer.

Opponents of a death row commencement speaker, Antioch President Bob Devine contends, are "trying very hard to keep one person's voice from being heard." "Individuals on death row still have the right of free speech," declared Dean of Students Scott Warren.

"Antioch administrators keep reminding us about Mumia Abu-Jamal's freedom of speech," Mrs. Faulkner observed. "What about Daniel Faulkner's freedom of speech? Does Antioch care about Danny's freedom of speech? Danny lost his freedom of speech on December 9, 1981."

"As educators," Antioch's Devine claims, "it is our responsibility to provide an environment where widely varying points of view can be expressed and to engage people in the debate." Critics of Antioch point out that the school has long since abandoned any pretense of living up to its "responsibility" of presenting a variety of views.

Despite hosting such lecturers as socialist Manning Marable and transgender activist Leslie Feinberg, the school did not host a single conservative speaker this year. Nor is there any evidence of the school hosting a speaker that challenged the prevailing Leftist thought on campus during the academic careers of this spring's graduates. There are no tenured professors at the school who offer students a conservative viewpoint. Organizations like Transgender/Gender Questioning Group and the Anarchist Discussion Group proliferate at Antioch, but not one group exists promoting views at odds with the school-sponsored ideology.

These same administrators who incessantly invoke "free speech" preside over a restrictive speech code and even regulate the dating habits of their students. The school's "Sexual Offense Prevention Policy" mandates that "Verbal consent should be obtained with each new level of physical and/or sexual behavior in any given interaction, regardless of who initiates it. Asking ‘Do you want to have sex with me?' is not enough. The request for consent must be specific to each act." The policy decrees, for instance, that a male initiating advances upon a female ask, "may I kiss you," "may I touch your breasts," etc.

Despite telling the Antioch community that "constraining, limiting or preventing this sort of dialogue would be unwise and would work at cross purposes to the critical inquiry that is at the heart of a liberal arts education," President Devine has told students that he would ban pro-Faulkner protestors from campus on graduation day. He has also refused meeting space for those offering opposing viewpoints and will not grant the slain officer's widow a forum in which to air her dissenting opinion.

Devine has repeatedly assured his students that demonstrators will not be allowed on campus on graduation day to protest the school's decision to honor a convicted murderer.

Accuracy in Academia reserved space on campus to hold a "teach-in" discussing the facts of the case. After being informed that the school had plenty of space, AIA was able to reserve a room. The next day, Antioch suddenly reversed its position and claimed that a mistake had been made and that there was actually no space. An administrator later confirmed Antioch's ban of AIA, telling the group that the institution was a private school and that AIA would have to get a room off-campus if they wanted to hold a forum. Attempts by AIA to run an ad in the school's student newspaper were equally futile. Antioch Record employees refused to even send out any information to AIA on how to place an ad in their publication.

In the wake of the bad publicity, Antioch officials claimed to have issued an invitation to Daniel Faulkner's widow to present her side of the story. Maureen Faulkner found it strange that school administrators would invite her during the only time that they knew neither she nor any students could make it—while her protest of their commencement is to take place. She characterizes their faux-invitation as a brazen publicity stunt designed to undermine her protest, while at the same time providing the school with the opportunity to dishonestly claim that they had given her a platform to present an opposing viewpoint.

Overwhelming Evidence

Prior to achieving fame in the mid-1990s through books, radio commentaries, and articles, Abu-Jamal languished in obscurity for more than a decade. Shortly after he got a new defense team headed by left-wing lawyer Leonard Weinglass, a collection of rock stars, Hollywood actors, noted academics, and even world leaders began to trumpet his cause. In Philadelphia, however, his notoriety as a killer came many years before his international celebrity.

On December 9, 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal fired five shots at Philadelphia Policeman Daniel Faulkner, hitting him once in the back and then fatally in the face. Faulkner made the mistake of pulling-over Abu-Jamal's younger brother for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. A failed radio journalist, Abu-Jamal drove a cab for a living at the time he was arrested. Abu-Jamal was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in 1982. Since that time more than a dozen judges presiding over numerous appeals have denied all motions to reverse the jury's conviction.

Five eyewitnesses—including three who identified him at the scene—provided testimony implicating him as the murderer. "I saw Jamal standing over [Faulkner] and firing some more shots into him," eyewitness Robert Chobert testified. He concluded, "I know who shot the cop and I ain't going to forget it." Cynthia White swore that Abu-Jamal "came running out of the parking lot on Locust Street. He had a handgun in his hand. He fired the gun at the police officer about four or five times. The police officer fell to the ground. I started screaming." As she stared at the defendant she added, "There's no doubt: it's him." Three other eyewitnesses described a version of events consistent with White and Chobert's testimony.

When police arrived at the scene, the on-duty cab driver was wearing a holster, sported a chest wound from a return round from Faulkner's service weapon, and lunged for his gun. A gun registered in Abu-Jamal's name, which he bought in 1979, was found a few feet from him at the crime-scene. The five-shot revolver contained five spent .38 caliber "Plus P" shell casings. The round retrieved from Faulkner's brain was of that exact make. The fatal bullet had eight rightward turning grooves, matching identical grooves within the barrel of Abu-Jamal's Charter Arms revolver. Abu-Jamal's was the only gun, other than Faulkner's, found at the crime-scene.

Five additional witnesses report that Abu-Jamal admitted killing Faulkner. Perhaps most damning for the former radio commentator are the words of Phillip Bloch, an anti-death penalty activist who became friends with Abu-Jamal while working on a prison outreach program. Bloch reports that the death row inmate admitted to him that he killed Faulkner.

Amazingly, Abu-Jamal, the same man who incessantly churns out columns on everything from Elian Gonzales to the rampage over the International Monetary Fund/World Bank meetings, has nothing to say about the one thing that makes him a known figure: the murder of Daniel Faulkner. Mumia Abu-Jamal, and his brother, William Cook, both witnessed the murder, but refuse to provide any alternative version of events. They have remained silent for more than 18 years.

Conspiracy Theories

Ironically, helping the prosecution along has been a collection of "keystone cop" defense lawyers for Abu-Jamal led by Leonard Weinglass, who boasts such past clients as Angela Davis, the Chicago Seven, and Patti Hearst.

In 1995, Weinglass and his collaborators called Robert Chobert, a witness during the 1982 trial, to the Activists at the Liberty Bell took over and shut down the tourist attraction on July 3, 1999.

Chobert again testified that he saw Mumia Abu-Jamal kill Daniel Faulkner. Robert Harkins, another eyewitness called by the defense, told a story identical to that of his four fellow eyewitnesses. That same year supporters of the convicted cop-killer announced to an incredulous press that William Cook was finally going to vindicate his brother on the witness stand—he never showed. Perhaps the defense's low point came when their own ballistics analyst testified that it was impossible for a .44 caliber bullet to have killed Faulkner, obliterating one of the defense's most ridiculous, albeit most repeated, contentions that the fatal bullet didn't match the weapon of Abu-Jamal.

In 1996 the defense presented Veronica Jones, a witness who, as things turned out, never actually witnessed the murder itself. In 1997 they offered Pamela Jenkins. She claimed that key prosecution witness Cynthia White had privately recanted her damning testimony to her in recent months—despite the fact that White had been dead since 1992! Another defense witness who claims to have seen the dead act in mysterious ways is William Singletary—the only person who attests to seeing someone other than Abu-Jamal kill Faulkner. He holds that a mystery man shot Faulkner and fled, with a soon to be pronounced dead Faulkner talking to and then shooting Abu-Jamal. It is, of course, a medical impossibility for a man whose brains have been blown out to talk and to shoot another man.

Singletary initially told police he saw nothing. Nearly a decade later he changed his story and contended that he saw the real killer. He reported seeing a police helicopter at the crime scene that escaped everyone else's notice. He also stated that Abu-Jamal was wearing "a safari suit like the Arabs wear" on the night in question. Even the defense was forced to concede that Singletary is "a person whose recollection of what happened on the night in question we believe to be not entirely accurate."

Backlash

Since Abu-Jamal's commencement speech at Evergreen State College in Washington last spring, the movement promoting him has suffered a series of setbacks. Last summer, former Abu-Jamal friend Phillip Bloch, a believer in many of the same causes championed by the death row inmate, came forward and professed that Abu-Jamal had privately admitted his guilt to him. Last fall the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review the decisions of numerous Pennsylvania courts that have found no merit in Abu-Jamal's case, paving the way for Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge to sign a death warrant and leaving the petitioners with only appeals at the Federal, Circuit, and Supreme Courts. As the movement's profile has grown, its information campaign has begun to be scrutinized by outsiders, leaving many finding that their rhetoric about the case doesn't match reality.

Serious questions have been raised about the contention by activists that Abu-Jamal was a prestigious journalist at the time of his arrest who was silenced by police because of his scathing reports on the criminal justice system. "As a journalist," according to one Antioch student touting this view, Abu-Jamal had "effectively spoken out about …cruelty and racism long before his incarceration," which is why, the undergraduate hypothesizes, he was framed. Yet Abu-Jamal was a cab driver, not a journalist, at the time of his arrest. His influence was so slight that a computer check of Philadelphia's two major daily papers reveals that in the six months prior to his arrest, this supposedly renowned media figure's name appeared in only one newspaper item. Although Abu-Jamal's book, Live from Death Row, claims that a prestigious Peabody Award was bestowed upon him, he never won one. The entire story was concocted to inflate his reputation as a "journalist."

The backlash against Abu-Jamal has created a bunker mentality for many of his supporters, including the administration at Antioch. Administrators at Antioch have refused the opportunity to defend their choice on many national media outlets. Instead, they have chosen to justify their decision within the walls of their institution, where they have found only sympathetic ears. The school's action has sparked hundreds—including policemen and students—to vow to protest at the graduation. "I'm going to Antioch to let them know that the policeman that their commencement speaker murdered has a name," Maureen Faulkner told Campus Report. "Jamal murdered Danny with malice. People need to remember Danny, not his killer."

Those in the Antioch community still reeling from the shooting deaths of Emily Howell and Emily Eagen are asking why in the wake of these murders in Costa Rica did the school chose to honor a murderer. What would the reaction of the Antioch student community be, many have wondered, if another school chose to honor the killers of their classmates as they have chosen to honor the killer of a policeman, son, brother, and husband.

"Murdering a human being is wrong," Mrs. Faulkner offered. "The folks at Antioch should know this with two of their fellow students having been gunned down this semester."