Apparently, a professor at UW-Madison is forwarding the idea that the US Government perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, similar to the Nazi's Reichstag fire. People are upset because this professor wrote an essay on his view, and this essay is included in a book required for one of his classes.
I understand the controversy, but I'm all for the professor having his own views provided he can back them up. I haven't read the essay, so I can't speak to the evidence for his claim.
The strange part of the article is this (and also the source of the title of this post):
The university's decision to allow Barrett to teach the course touched off a controversy over the summer once his views became widely known.
Sixty-one state legislators denounced the move. One county board cut its funding for the UW-Extension by $8,247 -- the amount Barrett will earn for teaching the course -- in a symbolic protest, even though the course is unrelated to that branch of the UW System.
In this move, the county is only harming its own students and not doing anything to actually protest the professor they dislike. I can't believe any person thought this was a sensible action to take.