The latest manifestation of the conservative targetting of academia is the Professor Watchlist, created by the "activist organization" Turning Point USA, founded by rising star Charlie Kirk. It's stated purpose is to "watch" professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom"
Of course, this is not new. David Horowitz has written a book called The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America . HeterodoxAcademy.org has rational articles discussing the liberal slant to modern college campuses. Nicholas Kristoff writes an interesting piece on the same topic. However, with the election of President Trump, the stakes may have been raised. A professor in California has gone incognitio after criticizing Trump in the classroom and receiving death threats.
But more important is how the attempt to blacklist liberal academics has actually backfired. George Yancy [not the George Yancey from the Kristoff piece above] published a response, "I Am a Dangerous Professor" in the New York Times, and since then it seems to have become de rigueur for all academics to get their name on the Professor Watchlist in order to cement their tenure. An entire hashtag on Twitter has taken form: #trollprofwatchlist! People have taken to mocking the list by suggesting candidates such as Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, and Jesus, not to mention Socrates, who obviously belongs.
Charlie Kirk may not be dangerous, but he did start this list. I am watching him now.
[Editor note - This story was substantially rewritten for balance. As always, the original submission is available at the link below.]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:56PM
but it is not this.
The problem is they are awash in money from student loans.
This has caused gamour colleges with more interest in providing a great experience than an education leading to a productive life.
The better colleges still offer a great education, but this requires that the student be interested.
Instead of focusing on a conservative or liberal agenda, perhaps a college should spend it's extra cpu cycles getting students interested in something more practical?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:20PM
There can be more than one problem with something. With colleges today there most certainly is.
They were disgustingly left of center when I went to school, which is partly why I dropped out and taught myself what I wanted to know; the other part being they taught too slow but still required attendance and my ADHD simply could not abide that. Today they are so far off the scale that the scale no longer means anything to their insane positions.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:34PM
Shame they didn't offer you a safe space back then.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:37PM
It's a safe bet that nobody on this site is interested in having a "safe space". Just saying...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:39PM
What do you mean? SoylentNews is the Mighty Buzzard's safe place!!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:12PM
Yeah, you lot should probably start saying something when you disagree with me instead of being all polite and restraining yourselves.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:31PM
So you're saying we should be nasty dicks who quit school because there no safe spaces for non liberals? Yea, you can go shove that pussy shit right up your ass. Grow a pair for christs sake.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:41AM
No, I'm saying colleges aren't worth the money outside a very few specialized careers. The liberal bullshit is just that, bullshit. Unless you're gardening, bullshit is not a valuable commodity. Universities are selling very, very little that's actually worthwhile nowadays.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday December 21 2016, @02:05PM
I don't know about that. It's worth something to have drunk in the span of the Western tradition, pored over its fine details, and see its effects played out in the world all around us. Without that the doubt that others know more than I do, or have some special knowledge I don't have, would blunt my edge.
I would say I didn't get that value from undergrad, though, having had to drink from the firehose in grad school with real professors, not teaching assistants, to get there, and it was not worth what they charged. But it was not bullshit, and not without any value.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Touché) by gauauu on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:40PM
the other part being they taught too slow but still required attendance
Using "they" as a universal complaint about colleges isn't fair here. Some colleges/programs/classes require attendance. Some don't. Attendance wasn't required in most of my university classes (I had a few classes that I skipped for months in a row, preferring to learn the material from other sources).
Today they are so far off the scale that the scale no longer means anything to their insane positions.
Are you associated with a college today, or are you making this based on what the media has reported to you? As an employee of a large state university, in a liberal town, I'd say: my university is a giant mix of things. Mostly liberal-leaning. But not entirely. And not "so far off the scale". Even our recent well-loved University President is a conservative Christian pig farmer. You're making a big blanket statement that isn't universally accurate, from my experience.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:38PM
I'm basing that on what the students and faculty have to say about themselves as well as the insane percentage of higher learning professors who self-identify as liberal or progressive. This is the only remotely political news site I frequent, so it has to have expanded well beyond anyone's narrative to even reach my notice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:47PM
still required attendance
It disgusts me when I hear of colleges that require attendance for lectures.
How can an institution promote learning when they treat adults like irresponsible children who have no ownership over their education? Of course, promoting learning is not what brings in money.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:45PM
What are you talking about? If they don't require attendance, that would increase profit margins as they'd be able to cut down on the in person student services and there'd be less need for things like parking.
But, by the same token, you're talking about students that are coming in from the K-12 system typically and are needing to take breadth requirement classes so that the school isn't turning out people that are completely unqualified for anything. We've got enough dumbasses out there with college degrees, but no actual history of thinking as it is.
But, as far as attendance goes, that's mostly shitty colleges that do that, I'm not aware of any colleges in this part of the country that force people to come in other than on days with exams or projects due.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:19PM
Today they are so far off the scale
I like my "cultural escape velocity" idea / meme. Once any subgroup accelerates away from the main group fast enough, it keeps on going out into the universe never to return home. That's pretty much where the flakier left wing college stuff is today, so far away from mainstream it can't ever come back.
(Score: 2) by tfried on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:35PM
...
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:35PM
They were disgustingly left of center when I went to school, which is partly why I dropped out and taught myself what I wanted to know; the other part being they taught too slow but still required attendance and my ADHD simply could not abide that.
One of those students, eh? This explains so much about the origins of the Might-be-a-Buzz. Remember, real dudes can abide.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday December 20 2016, @08:15PM
Was a simple bit of logic:
The comp-sci stuff I can learn quicker myself, so is the non-comp-sci stuff worthwhile enough to justify the time and money it's going to cost me?
No? Don't waste either then.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @11:10PM
Remember, The Big Lebowski [imdb.com] is fiction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 21 2016, @03:09AM
Because K-12 were decidedly RIGHT OF CENTER when I was in school. (20-30 years ago.)
I finally dropped out of high school 2 years early, then went off to college, where the ineptness, from both liberal and conservative professors made things unbearable, until I got into the bluecollar 'collegized' tradeskill programs, where I didn't fit in socially, but at least the teachers were practical.
Honestly if there was Wikipedia back when I was still in gradeschool I might have turned out quite different. Being able to feed my ADHD by jumping between subjects wasn't nearly as easy back in the days of books, where you might have to jump between dozens of them over the course of a half hour or hour to find further reading on subjects, rather than clicking a nice hypertext link and moving to something a few volumes over from your previous topic in the encyclopedia.