30-11-2016, 11:56 AM
A conservative activist organization named Turning Point USA (TPUSA) has released a "Professor Watchlist" to provide information about university academics across the United States who "advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."
Turning Pointa nonprofit organization that promotes right-wing values of free markets and limited government and connects with young, college-age conservativestargets nearly 200 professorsfor purportedly displaying liberal bias. The sources of the information are primarily news sites such as Campus Reform, The College Fix and Hypeline, which is also run by Turning Point. The offenses of the professors listed include promoting a ban on guns, shutting down hate speech, blaming patriarchy for sexual assaults, linking Donald Trump with slavery, and suggesting that children should be raised without racial prejudices.
Turning Point doesn't just give the professors' names and supposed bias incident. The list also includes where they teach, what they teach and publicly available photos of them. The work is being done to "expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students," according to the TPUSA website. The creation of the watch list is still in progress, and students are encouraged to submit names of professors. However, only those who "have already been reported somewhere else" will be added.
The website says the organization's aim is to protect students and expose professors who attack conservative beliefs. "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right for professors to say whatever they wish," the website reads. "However, students, parents, and alumni deserve to know the specific incidents and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in lecture halls."
Matt Lamb, a regional director of Turning Point, told The New York Times, "We aim to post professors who have records of targeting students for their viewpoints, forcing students to adopt a certain perspective, and/or abuse or harm students in any way for standing up for their beliefs."
Though the timing of the watch list coincides with white nationalistsgathering to celebrate Donald Trump's election victorywhile Trump himself has "disavowed" white nationalist movementsTurning Point does not have ties to the "alt-right," according to its founder, Charlie Kirk.
Slate's Rebecca Shuman reports:
"Intentionally or not, the Professor Watchlist, simply by being a self-styled watch list, has aligned itself with the ugly, frightening new political status quo," she wrote.
The targeted professors have denounced the list for critiquing their published writings rather than their work in the classroom.
"I learned that I'm a threat to my students for contending that we won't end men's violence against women if we do not address the toxic notions about masculinity in patriarchy … rooted in control, conquest, aggression," wrote University of Texas, Austin, professor Robert Jensen. "This rather thin accusation appears to flow from my published work instead of an evaluation of my teaching, which confuses a teacher's role in public with the classroom."
On her Facebook page, Heather Cox Richardson, a professor in the history department at Boston College, defended herself from accusations of being leftist, writing, "I made the list not because of complaints about my teaching, but because of my public writing about politics. … I also teach the history of American conservative beliefs, as well as those of liberalism."
President-elect Trump has not commented on the list, but his supporters have shown their support for outing "leftist" professors
Turning Pointa nonprofit organization that promotes right-wing values of free markets and limited government and connects with young, college-age conservativestargets nearly 200 professorsfor purportedly displaying liberal bias. The sources of the information are primarily news sites such as Campus Reform, The College Fix and Hypeline, which is also run by Turning Point. The offenses of the professors listed include promoting a ban on guns, shutting down hate speech, blaming patriarchy for sexual assaults, linking Donald Trump with slavery, and suggesting that children should be raised without racial prejudices.
Turning Point doesn't just give the professors' names and supposed bias incident. The list also includes where they teach, what they teach and publicly available photos of them. The work is being done to "expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students," according to the TPUSA website. The creation of the watch list is still in progress, and students are encouraged to submit names of professors. However, only those who "have already been reported somewhere else" will be added.
The website says the organization's aim is to protect students and expose professors who attack conservative beliefs. "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right for professors to say whatever they wish," the website reads. "However, students, parents, and alumni deserve to know the specific incidents and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in lecture halls."
Matt Lamb, a regional director of Turning Point, told The New York Times, "We aim to post professors who have records of targeting students for their viewpoints, forcing students to adopt a certain perspective, and/or abuse or harm students in any way for standing up for their beliefs."
Though the timing of the watch list coincides with white nationalistsgathering to celebrate Donald Trump's election victorywhile Trump himself has "disavowed" white nationalist movementsTurning Point does not have ties to the "alt-right," according to its founder, Charlie Kirk.
Slate's Rebecca Shuman reports:
[Kirk] told me in no uncertain terms that he "denounce[s] completely" last weekend's nauseating neo-Nazi Woodstock, and that the watch list's launch had been planned for "months." Its dovetailing with the white nationalists' coming-out partyand the corresponding rash of grim, incredulous press coveragewas an unfortunate coincidence, and one that caused an unanticipated surge of traffic thanks to heightened media attention in the wake of the launch's inauspicious timing. The intention, he said, is not to threaten or harm the professorshis commitment to free speech means he'll "fight to the death" for their right to disagree with himbut to raise "awareness" for students and the parents who often pay their tuition.
No matter the intentions, Schuman wrote, the watch list is damaging."Intentionally or not, the Professor Watchlist, simply by being a self-styled watch list, has aligned itself with the ugly, frightening new political status quo," she wrote.
The targeted professors have denounced the list for critiquing their published writings rather than their work in the classroom.
"I learned that I'm a threat to my students for contending that we won't end men's violence against women if we do not address the toxic notions about masculinity in patriarchy … rooted in control, conquest, aggression," wrote University of Texas, Austin, professor Robert Jensen. "This rather thin accusation appears to flow from my published work instead of an evaluation of my teaching, which confuses a teacher's role in public with the classroom."
On her Facebook page, Heather Cox Richardson, a professor in the history department at Boston College, defended herself from accusations of being leftist, writing, "I made the list not because of complaints about my teaching, but because of my public writing about politics. … I also teach the history of American conservative beliefs, as well as those of liberalism."
President-elect Trump has not commented on the list, but his supporters have shown their support for outing "leftist" professors
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass
"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn
"If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and never will" - Frederick Douglass