“…[M]aking
America whiter ‘again’ is not the only thing we need to fear with a Trump
administration. Only two days after the alt-right convention in D.C., Turning
Point USA launched Professor Watchlist, a website designed to call
out college professors who ‘discriminate against conservative students and
advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.’
“…Trump’s
inability to handle any sort of critique and his bullying of reporters and the
media all suggest that we are about to enter an era of censorship, threats
to free speech and other forms of suppressing dissent. When the ‘liberal’
media come under attack it generally isn’t long before the ‘tenured radicals’
come under fire, too.
“Turning
Point’s founder and executive director Charlie Kirk wrote a blog to explain that the purpose of the list was to
expose professors who are out of line: ‘Throughout the next 120 days, Turning
Point USA will be running ads to make sure students, faculty, and
administrators see that these professors made the Professor Watchlist.’ The
22-year-old closes his post with the chilling phrase: ‘We believe these people
need to be exposed.’
“Each
listing on the site — 200 professors so far — includes a
photo. Clearly the website is less about documenting issues and more about
public shaming and potentially targeting. The watch list is a sign of the
right’s new McCarthyism. But it’s also a sign of the amazing stupidity of the
post-truth era.
“Today’s
McCarthyism combines the red scare witch hunts of the 1950s with the 1980s
attacks on multiculturalism of the culture wars and the post-9/11 loyalty
tests. But Trump-era McCarthyism has further added the novelty of cyberbullying
and a post-truth, fake news lack of connection to reality...
“The
problem with the list — besides its more than obvious McCarthyist witch-hunt
tactics — is that it’s really stupid. It makes claims that have no basis in
reality. It exaggerates. It creates crisis where there is none. And worst of
all, it promises to increase conflict rather than improve it.
“In
fact, one of the greatest ironies of the list is that it proves that Kirk
really should consider going to college. Apparently he has taken some college-level courses, but they clearly haven’t
taught him some really basic critical reasoning skills. If he had studied history,
logic, evidence and reasoning, his list might be less idiotic…
“Kirk’s
list is based on flimsy information that simply doesn’t support his claims that
there is a problem of left-wing professors discriminating against
conservative students… Kirk apparently can ignore this history, probably
because he hasn’t studied it in college. But he even forgets the precedent set
by his own sources. Much of his site directly references a number of the
already existing resources that police liberal faculty. For instance, many
of the faculty on Kirk’s list also appear on David Horowitz’s Discover the
Networks. Horowitz leveraged the post-9/11 culture of fear to launch his ‘Academic
Bill of Rights’ and claim that college students were indoctrinated by
left-leaning faculty. He later published ‘The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Professors,’ which
argued that many U.S. professors were anti-American.
“Kirk
doesn’t only forget history and his sources. He also doesn’t seem to understand
that there is a difference between what a faculty member does in the classroom
and his or her extramural speech, social media posts and research. As Jensen explained in his piece about the list, much of
the ‘proof’ offered of faculty bias does not come from classroom encounters. In
fact very little of it does. Instead Kirk’s list cites tweets, essays, books,
blogs, published op-eds and other off-campus activity as evidence of
faculty discriminating against students in the classroom.
“And
Kirk fails to appreciate the fact that faculty are citizens, too. They can
tweet and post articles on Facebook and write op-eds. They can express
political beliefs, rant about racism and express dismay at the election of
Donald Trump on their own time. As the University of Illinois had to learn after
it rescinded a job offer to Steven Salaita in response to some of his
tweets, extramural speech can’t be taken to stand in for classroom behavior.
“There
is no necessary correlation between classroom conduct and the actions of a
private citizen. Most of the list’s examples have nothing whatsoever to do with
a faculty member in the classroom. This makes it a perfect example of McCarthyism
in the post-truth era. But
the stupidity doesn’t end there. Kirk joins a long line of hysterical
conservatives who freak out that faculty members are indoctrinating students,
but there is no evidence to back up any of their worries. In fact all the
research on student political beliefs and college show that faculty do not
influence their students at all. A 2008 article in The Guardian ran down a series
of studies, all of which concluded that faculty members are not indoctrinating
anyone.
“Matthew
Woessner, a conservative faculty member who has conducted some of this research
explained, ‘There is no evidence that a professor or lecturer’s views instigate
political change among students.’ Instead, the research shows that when students engage with faculty, their views moderate. If
students lean more left or right over the course of college it is
typically a result of student activities and peer interaction.
“In other research Woessner further found that
Republicans and conservatives, while vastly outnumbered in academia, ‘were, for
the most part, successful, happy, and prosperous. Fewer than two percent of
faculty (Republican or Democratic) reported being the victims of unfair treatment
based on their politics.’ While this data reflects faculty not student
attitudes it does show that ideas of bias against conservatives in academia is
also exaggerated.
“Other
research shows that if there are political biases in the classroom, they come
from students and are directed at professors. In a 2006 study by Woessner and
his wife, they found ‘that when students perceive a gap between their
political views and those of their instructor, students express less interest
in the material, are inclined to look less favorably on the course, and tend to
offer the instructor a lower course evaluation.’
“Of
course it is a great irony that the right champions the classroom concerns of
conservative students. Most of the time, the mantra of the right is to disparage
the whiny, coddled college student. In yet another sign of Trump-era
hypocrisy, when the whining is about attacks on conservatism, it is
legitimate. If it is in relation to Black Lives Matter, students apparently need to get over it…
“…[A]ll
campuses have protections for students who feel they are suffering bias or
discrimination. As a Penn State spokeswoman interviewed about the
watch list explained, ‘If students in a classroom believe that an
instructor has acted beyond the limits of academic freedom, there are policies
and procedures in place for seeking a faculty conference and mediation.’ The
idea that students don’t have protections on campus is ludicrous as well.
“It
is also clear that Kirk has never studied statistics because his list does not
offer a statistically relevant sample. In 2013
there were 1.5 million faculty members at degree-granting postsecondary
institutions. Kirk’s list has found a whopping 200 folks that purportedly are a
threat to conservative students. Assuming that the 2013 number of faculty has
mostly held steady, Kirk’s database represents .013 percent of all the faculty
in the nation. It is a textbook example of a data size that is irrelevant. It
literally proves the point that this is a nonissue. But in the land of
post-truth hysteria one example is all it takes to freak everyone out.
“So
Kirk’s list is a sad, pathetic and seriously stupid sign of the sorts of
concerns that occupy the minds of the rising new right. It is easy to joke
about it — and many have. Shortly after the watch list was launched
and Kirk called on students to submit tips, a new hashtag emerged on Twitter
— #TrollProfessorWatchlist — and it included submissions
of Harry Potter characters, a Trump University lecturer and Jesus Christ.
“The
hashtag is a great way to push back on the inanity of the list, but it is a mistake
to miss its dark, chilling side, too. What Kirk and others like him do is
perpetuate a myth about the ‘dangers’ of higher education that facilitates
attacks on the value and meaning of college education. Make no mistake: Behind
Kirk’s vendetta is a desire to destroy public higher education and replace it
with a neoliberal privatized model that looks a lot like Trump U.
“State
funding for higher education is down about $10 billion since the recession. Today more than
half of all faculty members are adjuncts, who
often have to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. Some professors make less than 50 cents an hour and far too many find themselves
on food stamps. As public funding has gone down, student tuition bills have
gone up, leaving students carrying a debt burden of more $1 trillion. Nearly 4 out of
5 college students are working part-time while studying for their degrees,
averaging 19 hours a week.
“That
is the real scandal of higher education, not the trumped-up charges that
faculty members are harassing conservative students. Maybe now that Kirk’s list
has been outed as a baseless witch hunt, he will consider going back to school
and learning from the very same professors he supposedly finds so frightening.”
Sophia A. McClennen is
Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the
Pennsylvania State University. She writes on the intersections between culture,
politics, and society. Her latest book, co-authored with Remy M. Maisel,
is, Is Satire Saving
Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics.
From Academic witch
hunts are back: The new McCarthyism, a sign of the stupidity of the post-truth era by Sophia A. McClennen
From George Yancy:
ReplyDelete“…I want them to lose sleep over the pain and suffering of so many lives that many of us deem disposable. I want them to become conceptually unhinged, to leave my classes discontented and maladjusted… So, in my classrooms, I refuse to remain silent in the face of racism, its subtle and systemic structure. I refuse to remain silent in the face of patriarchal and sexist hegemony and the denigration of women’s bodies, or about the ways in which women have internalized male assumptions of how they should look and what they should feel and desire.
“I refuse to be silent about forms of militarism in which innocent civilians are murdered in the name of ‘democracy.’ I refuse to remain silent when it comes to acknowledging the existential and psychic dread and chaos experienced by those who are targets of xenophobia and homophobia. I refuse to remain silent when it comes to transgender women and men who are beaten to death by those who refuse to create conditions of hospitality.
“I refuse to remain silent in a world where children become targets of sexual violence, and where unarmed black bodies are shot dead by the state and its proxies, where those with disabilities are mocked and still rendered ‘monstrous,’ and where the earth suffers because some of us refuse to hear its suffering, where my ideas are marked as ‘un-American,’ and apparently ‘dangerous.’
“Well, if it is dangerous to teach my students to love their neighbors, to think and rethink constructively and ethically about who their neighbors are, and how they have been taught to see themselves as disconnected and neoliberal subjects, then, yes, I am dangerous, and what I teach is dangerous.”
—George Yancy
In my classroom, students learn that I am passionate about searching for truth; that there exists a vast chasm between knowledge and belief; and that any method of investigative research should take on continuous questioning, re-evaluation, and revision. During classroom discussions, I often posit controversial and contrary ideas to spur my students to inquiry and debate. In doing so, I hope to challenge and encourage each one of them to devote the time and energy necessary to think these matters through – without telling them what to think.
ReplyDeleteIn my classroom, my students’ experience is the direct result of my own incessant learning: Plato, Hume, Mill, Wittgenstein, Shakespeare, Joyce, Kafka, and Camus, among so many others, show us that truths are elusive and relative, that nearly all beliefs are fallible and provisional, and that both truth and belief require unrelenting proof or analysis.
With a fundamental commitment to human rights, founded on philosophical principles and ideals, I challenge my students—through literature, philosophy, history, psychology, poetry and science, and through their own writing—to pursue a life based on reason, logic, critical thinking, compassion, empathy, humility, integrity, dignity, political and social justice, responsibility, mutual respect, and life-long learning.
Works, both classic and modern, are presented to explore concepts such as determinism, freedom of choice, the nature of reality, knowledge, ethics, and our moral responsibility towards one another and the rest of the natural world. My favorite authors reveal that we are each responsible for who we are and what we will become, and that the human experience is, consequently, complex and varied with many meanings because each one of us can create his or her future.
These are the values at the center of my core beliefs. What I have learned about the craft of teaching is that the teacher’s character and competency have a recurring impact on a student’s life and so, as I challenge my students, I must constantly challenge my own beliefs with rigorous inquiry, meta-cognition, and review.
In my classroom, learning is a discovery process shaped by analysis, reflection, and application. We become aware that we are all teachers and learners. My goals as a teacher are to take a student’s potentiality and to make it an actuality; to teach my students to think and investigate critically, to question unremittingly, and to discover purpose through meaningful action.
My students justify what they believe with evidence and describe how they arrived at their conclusions. They distinguish between facts and opinions and between relevant and irrelevant claims. They determine the factual accuracy of their statements and learn to detect bias and fallacious reasoning commonly found in argumentation. They ask themselves why some beliefs can be exempt from empirical confirmation while other beliefs undergo rigorous a posteriori proof.
They examine their reasons for supporting their particular opinions and question the efficacy of their beliefs’ practices (for there are some dogmas that advocate violence, terrorism, subjugation, misogyny, ethnic cleansing, and racial hatred). I want my students to confront such thinking and impede those who hold such viewpoints. I want my students to be dynamic and to be appalled by hypocrisy and indifference, by arrogance and injustice, and the unreasonable certainty that they or someone else might believe that he or she possesses the absolute truth.
-Glen Brown
Once you tamper with the truth and instead turn to right-wing propaganda, the end is near. This would be true in a far-left movement as well--but that's not what we have right now--it's the alt-right and a man who is absolutely incapable of being president. Get rid of the media, get rid of thinking teachers, harass those who disagree with you, remove facts, replace them with fear and hate of others, and we're done--unless we all stand up and fight.
ReplyDeleteThis is beyond belief! Our society is crumbling!
ReplyDelete(Sarcasm alert, here, because, these days, it's difficult to separate satire & sarcasm from the serious.)
ReplyDeleteI am surprised, Glen, that both you & Mike Klonsky are not on this list.
Clearly, the list authors didn't do their homework.
Both of you are a threat to decent society!!
Professor Watchlist
ReplyDeleteTurning Point USA
Dear Professor Watchlist:
We, the undersigned faculty at the University of Notre Dame, write to request that you place our names, all of them, on Professor Watchlist.
We make this request because we note that you currently list on your site several of our colleagues, such as Professor Gary Gutting, whose work is distinguished by its commitment to reasoned, fact-based civil discourse examining questions of tolerance, equality, and justice. We further note that nearly all faculty colleagues at other institutions listed on your site, the philosophers, historians, theologians, ethicists, feminists, rhetoricians, and others, have similarly devoted their professional lives to the unyielding pursuit of truth, to the critical examination of assumptions that underlie social and political policy, and to honoring this country’s commitments to the premise that all people are created equal and deserving of respect. This is the sort of company we wish to keep.
We surmise that the purpose of your list is to shame and silence faculty who espouse ideas you reject. But your list has had a different effect upon us. We are coming forward to stand with the professors you have called “dangerous,” reaffirming our values and recommitting ourselves to the work of teaching students to think clearly, independently, and fearlessly.
So please add our names, the undersigned faculty at the University of Notre Dame, to the Professor Watchlist. We wish to be counted among those you are watching.
Most sincerely,
The Faculty at the University of Notre Dame
Most sincerely,
ReplyDeleteEncarnación Juárez-Almendros, Spanish
Ani Aprahamian, Physics
Francisco Aragon, Institute for Latino Studies
Doug Archer, Hesburgh Libraries
Carolina Arroyo, Political Science
Katrina Barron, Mathematics
Kevin Barry, Kaneb Center
Christine Becker, Film, Television, and Theatre
Gail Bederman, History
Patricia Blanchette, Philosophy
Susan D. Blum, Anthropology
Catherine E. Bolten, Anthropology and Peace Studies
John G. Borkowski, Psychology
Bruce Bunker, Physics
Elizabeth Capdevielle, University Writing Program
Matthew Capdevielle, University Writing Program
Robert Randolf Coleman, Art, Art History & Design
Brian Collier, Institute for Educational Initiatives
Philippe Collon, Experimental Nuclear Physics
Michael Coppedge, Political Science
David Cortright, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
Mary D’Angelo, Theology
Antonio Delgado, Physics
Denise M. Della Rossa, German
Michael Detlefsen, Philosophy
Tarek R. Dika, Program of Liberal Studies
Jane Doering, Gender Studies
Jean Dibble, Art, Art History & Design
Margaret Anne Doody, English
Kevin Dreyer, Film, Television, and Theatre
John Duffy, English
Amitava Krishna Dutt, Political Science
Stephen M. Fallon, Program of Liberal Studies and English
Stephen Fredman, English
Christopher Fox, English
Judith Fox, Law School
Mary E. Frandsen, Music
Jill Godmilow, Film Television & Theatre
Karen Graubart, History
Stuart Greene, English and Africana Studies
David Hachen, Sociology
Matthew E.K. Hall, Political Science
Darlene Hampton, First Year of Studies
Susan Harris, English
Randy Harrison, Hesburgh Library
Anne Hayner, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
Peter Holland, Film, Television, and Theatre
Romana Huk, English
Charlice Hurst, Mendoza College of Business
Lionel M. Jensen, East Asian Languages and Cultures
Debra Javeline, Political Science
Claire Taylor Jones, German and Russian
Michael Kackman, Film, Television, and Theatre
Asher Kaufman, History and Peace Studies
Mary Celeste Kearney, Film, Television, and Theatre; Gender Studies
Micha Kilburn, Physics
Janet Kourany, Philosophy
Thomas Kselman, History
Greg Kucich, English
Rev. Donald G. LaSalle, Jr., First Year of Studies
Daniel Lapsley, Psychology
ReplyDeleteErin Moira Lemrow, Institute for Latino Studies
Neil Lobo, Biological Sciences,
George Lopez, Peace Studies
Cecilia Lucero, First Year of Studies
Collette Mak, Hesburgh Library
Julia Marvin, Program of Liberal Studies
Maria McKenna, Institute for Educational Initiatives and Africana Studies
Sarah McKibben, Irish Language and Literature
Erin McLaughlin, University Writing Program
Joyelle McSweeney, English
Stephen Miller, Music
Ann Mische, Sociology and Peace Studies
Leslie L. Morgan, Hesbuirgh Library
Brian O’Conchubhair, Irish Language and Literature
Lisa Oglesbee, Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures
Kathleen Opel, Notre Dame International
Jessica Payne, Psychology
Catherine Perry, Romance Languages and Literatures
Dianne Pinderhughes, Political Science
Pierpaolo Polzonetti, Program in Liberal Studies and Sacred Music
Margaret Porter, Hesburgh Library
Clark Power, Program of Liberal Studies
Ava Preacher, College of Arts and Letters
William Purcell, Center for Social Concerns
Benjamin Radcliff, Political Science
Steve Reifenberg, Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Karen Richman, Institute for Latino Studies
Charles Rosenberg, Art, Art History & Design
Deb Rotman, Anthropology
David F. Ruccio, Arts and Letters
Valerie Sayers, English
Catherine Schlegel, Classics
Roy Scranton, English
Susan Sharpe, Center for Social Concerns
Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Biological Sciences and Philosophy
John Sitter, English
Cheri Smith, Hesburgh Library
Donald Sniegowski, English
Thomas A. Stapleford, Program of Liberal Studies
James Sterba, Philosophy
Susan St. Ville, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
Maria Tomasula, Art, Art History & Design
Steve Tomasula, English
Ernesto Verdeja, Political Science
Henry Weinfield, Program of Liberal Studies and English
John Welle, Italian
Michael Wiescher, Physics
Pamela Wojcik, Film, Television, and Theatre
Christina Wolbrecht, Political Science
Martin Wolfson, Professor of Economics Emeritus
Danielle Wood, Center for Social Concerns