‘Dr. Death' makes a call
And local students answer
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Published: August 19, 2007
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Inside a Michigan prison, inmate 284797 planned a secret phone call.
For him, prison was "the worst kind of slavery” in this country. Jack Kevorkian was bored. Frustrated. Isolated.Advertisement
Bryan FarhaOklahoma City University professor teaches behavioral studies in education, but set the call up for students at the University of Central Oklahoma.
The secret call: how it happened
Kevorkian's secret call was an unexpected surprise.
Bryan Farha, an Oklahoma City University professor of behavioral studies in education, had been sending questions to Kevorkian that students in his Death and Dying class had for Kevorkian for about two years. Kevorkian's trial consultant and friend, Ruth Holmes, would relay the questions to Kevorkian while he was in prison and call Farha's class with the answers. Kevorkian never joined the calls because prison officials wouldn't allow it.
About that time, University of Central Oklahoma sociology professor Brenda Chappell heard about the unique situation and asked Farha to arrange and co-conduct similar correspondence for students in her Social Problems course.
Days before a scheduled call between Holmes and Chappell's class, the professors learned Kevorkian's defiant nature hadn't soured behind bars; Dr. Death was considering defying his holders' rules and speaking directly to the students.
Farha joined Chappell and about 45 of her students in the UCO classroom on Jan. 30, 2004. Through clever use of his prison-approved call list and some unorthodox conference calling, Kevorkian reached the students.
"I was just amazed he would jeopardize his position in prison,” Chappell said. "He did this for a group of people who'd never met him.”
Why he called
"He thinks the hope for the future is young people,” Holmes said. "He has almost given up on educating older people because they don't have the power that the energetic, young people do.”
Kevorkian's respect for Farha was another reason he made the secret call, she said.
"We knew that was a man who was in the process of educating and informing in a way they (students) should be given options to talk about subjects and things that should not be shoved under the carpet,” Holmes said.
A learning tool
Playing the tape "never fails” to stimulate student engagement to a level "almost off the charts,” Farha said.
The intent of playing the tape isn't to sway students to support Kevorkian, but to encourage healthy discussion of controversial issues related to death and dying, Farha said.
"We have an angle on Kevorkian that I don't think anyone else has,” Farha said.
He now plays the recording for students in various courses each semester. During the Death and Dying course, the Kevorkian recording is played during a chapter on the legal aspects of death.
Low profile
The call wasn't publicly disclosed until now.
"We just thought about the educational benefit of making it happen,” said Ruth Holmes, Kevorkian's trial consultant and close friend, who helped arrange the call. Kevorkian had turned down interview requests from journalists such as Mike Wallace and Barbara Walters, electing to speak with the students instead.
The call was made to a class of University of Central Oklahoma students.
The Oklahoman was not permitted to make a copy of the recording, but Farha allowed a reporter to listen to it.
No regrets
Kevorkian said he didn't regret euthanizing Youk or allowing CBS to broadcast video of Youk's death on "60 Minutes,” which ultimately led to his conviction.
The only thing Kevorkian regrets, he said, is the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear his case.
"It's a cowardly court who refuses to face this issue,” he said. "I figured that my conviction would force the court into a decision, but I was dead wrong.”
That meant he was stuck in prison, which he bluntly called "boring,” earning laughs from the students.
Civil disobedience
Kevorkian's eccentric tactics drew the ire of many during his trials in the 1990s.
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