Cross-posted at Hatewatch.]

English professor Lee Bebout intended to be thought-provoking when he offered a course at Arizona State University (ASU) titled “Race Theory and the Problem of Whiteness.” He had no idea that it would also provoke the wrath of, first, Fox News viewers, and then, white supremacists, sparking protests on campus, and yet ultimately drawing the explicit support of ASU administrators.

But that’s what happened after Bebout listed the course for ASU’s spring semester. Now, having survived a barrage of hate mail and protests, he can only say he’s relieved the ordeal appears to be over.

“I’ve been a lot less stressed lately,” he told Hatewatch. “There were moments of anxiety in the beginning of all this, but once I got support from folks, the anxiety subsided tremendously.”

The problem began a little while after the course was listed, when an ASU student named Lauren Clark wrote a blog post for Campus Reform, a right-wing organization founded by David Horowitz and Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute. The institute is devoted to policing American campuses for “the conduct and misconduct of university administrators, faculty, and students.”

The next day, Clark appeared on Fox News with host Elisabeth Hasselbeck to attack Bebout’s course in more explicit terms.

Clark and Hasselbeck listed the texts — which included such titles as The Possessive Investment in Whiteness, Critical Race Theory, Everyday Language of White Racism, Playing in the Dark, and The Alchemy of Race and Rights — and Clark said they suggested a trend: “All of these books have a disturbing trend and that’s pointing to white people as a root cause of social injustices for this country.”

“Clearly we have a lot of work to go, as a society, in terms of racial tension,” Clark continued. “But having a class that suggests an entire race is the problem is inappropriate, wrong, and, frankly, counterproductive. I wonder what students like myself are taking out of this course when they learn all about all this negative racial tension out in society. There’s a lot of negative implications here.”

In reality, the course is a fairly standard academic study of race in modern society. As ASU administrators explained at the time the controversy erupted: “This course uses literature and rhetoric to look at how stories shape people’s understandings and experiences of race. It encourages students to examine how people talk about – or avoid talking about – race in the contemporary United States. This is an interdisciplinary course, so students will draw on history, literature, speeches and cultural changes – from scholarly texts to humor. The class is designed to empower students to confront the difficult and often thorny issues that surround us today and reach thoughtful conclusions rather than display gut reactions. A university is an academic environment where we discuss and debate a wide array of viewpoints.”

Within hours of the segment having aired, Bebout and ASU were barraged with hate mail from around the country. Some of the messages included threats; one of special note contained a cryptic religious message suggesting the professor deserved to be murdered.

But that was just the beginning. A short time later, members of a neo-Nazi youth organization called the National Youth Front (NYF), a youth-oriented arm of the white nationalist organization American Freedom Party, began plastering the ASU campus with fliers featuring Bebout’s portrait and the stark label “Anti-White.” They also went to Bebout’s neighborhood and distributed them there.

An NYF spokesman, Angelo John Gage, told Talking Points Memo that their “Operation Bad Teacher” program targeted Bebout because his course was “racist.” (Gage himself has a long history of racism and anti-Semitism, including stints on The White Voice, a white nationalist website, and Stormfront.) He also claimed none of his members had threatened Bebout.

“No longer will we have our identity destroyed and our people defamed,” declared NYF’s website. “This week, several of National Youth Front’s members went to ASU to raise awareness that we will no longer tolerate this antiwhite agenda. Over four hundred fliers were delivered over several days to both Lee Bebout’s neighborhood and ASU.” A local NYF member who called himself “John Hess” admitted to being the person seen in a video promoting the campaign.