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posted by on Tuesday December 20 2016, @01:36PM   Printer-friendly
from the foolproof-like-all-other-watchlists dept.

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.]

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:58PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @03:58PM (#443845)

    It's always the far right that makes lists

    Eeeh, about that [github.com]...

    Why do people keep using the term SJW?

    Because regardless of the word used, describing authoritarian cultural marxists will always acquire that connotation since the concept itself describes deplorable behavior. The only way not to have a negative word for SJWs is not to have a word for SJWs.

    On the flipside, as a strongly liberal person myself, I've never been called an SJW by American conservatives. Have you ever considered that maybe the smoke is there for a reason?

    Certainly the creation of lists of progressive academics to target in order to clean up whatever problem is spouting-- is that not the result of warrior seeking to enforce social justice from his own perspective, or is there better term for the same thing?

    No, it's the result of trying to live in a society which condones biggotry against you.

    Does SJW only get applied to ideas one doesn't like?

    It applies to cultural marxist ideas. I don't like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, but I certainly wouldn't call either of them an SJW.

    Maybe a better solution is to stop targeting people that are not being overly harmful in their actions just because its different, and stop making up terms to label them as the enemy, and instead start working to resolve differences or establish a common ground or framework?

    They [professorwatchlist.org] are [professorwatchlist.org] being [professorwatchlist.org] overly [professorwatchlist.org] harmful [professorwatchlist.org]

    These are just a few names I found by randomly clicking around the list, I'm sure there will be far more egregious examples if one was to look.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:00PM (#443882)

    > Eeeh, about that...

    Wow, a twitter filtering tool to protect individuals from organized harassment. Totally the same thing.

    > cultural marxist

    Lol. Are we resurrecting that one now? Be sure to abbreviate it to make it faster to type over and over and over.

  • (Score: 4, Informative) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:16PM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:16PM (#443897) Journal

    OK, let's look at your examples shall we?

    Dr. Charles Strozier : Oh noez! He believes that climate change is a factor in middle-eastern poverty, which in turn is a factor in jihadi recruitment! Quick, call the national guard! Save us from this terrible threat!

    Darry Sragow : He's SUPPOSED to be partisan, [insidehighered.com] and for balance the university gives equal time to a Republican partisan. However your watchlist site somehow omits that detail. I'm sure that was just an oversight, and not glaringly dishonest.

    Latham Hunter : Feminist who wrote an article about how Christmas is wrapped up a bunch of centuries-old patriarchal tropes. Well duh. But you believe that someone expressing an opinion about Christmas is "overly harmful", and worthy of being put on a watchlist? Did I get that right?

    Peter Singer : OK, this one is a bit of a wonk. However I wouldn't be too worried about him brainwashing young adults - his views are so unpalatable that very few people would take them on board without opposition. He's a philosopher, so his job is to logically analyse the ethics and morals we take for granted, and it appears that has led him to some uncomfortable conclusions. The question is, does he bully and brainwash his students into following his own beliefs, or does he encourage them to argue, examine and criticise them? I don't know. Do you? The "watchlist" website certainly makes no effort to find out.

    Selena Lester Breikss : Looks like someone who allowed her own gender issues to seep into her work. Oh dear. Note that the University told her she couldn't [nationalreview.com] classify words like "male" and "female" as hate speech.

    So what do we have? A feminist and a history professor who hold some opinions on climate change and gender issues that those on the right might disagree with. A part-time non-lecturer whose job is to represent the Democratic side of a balanced lesson in political partisanship. A lecturer who made a professional slip up and got slapped back down by her employers, and one guy who holds some radical and somewhat disturbing opinions, but who may or may not try to impose them on his students. Is this really the best you can do? Remind me, just which side is it made up of crybaby pussies begging for a "safe space" devoid of opposing views?

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:32PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday December 20 2016, @05:32PM (#443911)

      There's two problems with the people listed

      1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition in an era of internet and usenet where insane ramblings disconnected from all reality but amusing to think about are free and easy to find. Or more like, hard to avoid.

      2) They got on the list for punishing critical thinking and dissent from their own views specifically committed against students to the right of Marx.

      Maybe I'll try an analogy that should make sense to more left wing thinking people using their terms. They love talking about nazis, so I will too. Some nazis had really weird beliefs about the hollow earth under Antarctica and so forth. But lefties would see the problems with hollow earth theory are that it distracts from more significant areas of anti-nazi criticism such as ovening the Jews, the hollow earth is not important and more or less off topic and is useless in the sense of angels dancing on the head of a pin anyway. The hollow earth is not why nazis are declared problematic. The other problem with hollow earth theory is most lefties want to punish nazis for something other than very weird geological theories, like, say, ovening Jews, or killing all the commies they could find, things like that. They don't want to kill them right back for supporting hollow earth theory, they want to kill them for killing Jews, an eye for an eye until we're all blind etc.

      I think I made a pretty fair analogy above. Or at least it would be hard to improve without changing all out of recognition.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:59PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:59PM (#443967)

        1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition in an era of internet and usenet where insane ramblings disconnected from all reality but amusing to think about are free and easy to find. Or more like, hard to avoid.

        VLM, I gots a final solution for you! Just do not attend University! Worked for the Buzz! And what do you need that bit of sheepskin for anyway? Obviously college is not for you, if you think that you are paying for the "opinions" of the professors. I am sure you have your own opinions already, and that they are just as much opinions as any other opinions, so why pay money to change them for some other opinions you also do not understand? Cite: see above about the abyss.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:05PM

        by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Tuesday December 20 2016, @09:05PM (#444043) Journal

        > 1) Their opinions are kooky and not worth $30K/yr tuition

        whoa whoa whoa, what happened to all the free market stuff we all love to hear so much about? Surely if some people are prepared to pay 30k/yr, then those people are atomatically worth 30k/yr, right? Something something invisible hand something something market forces.

        > 2) They got on the list for punishing critical thinking and dissent from their own views specifically committed against students to the right of Marx.

        Citation needed. Only one of the ones listed threatened to punish students, as far as the watchlist website or a google search can tell me, and that was not for "holding opinions to the right of Marx" but for using words that she herself found objectionable.

        I'm not sure I follow your analogy - you're saying that "lefties" are idiots for thinking that the hollow earth stuff was worse than the holocaust stuff?

  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:51PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 20 2016, @06:51PM (#443963)

    On the flipside, as a strongly liberal person myself, I've never been called an SJW by American conservatives. Have you ever considered that maybe the smoke is there for a reason?

    You know, that is just what a flaming SJW would say! Your failure to insult gives you away, you SJW!!! Pretending to be a critic of Authoritarian Cultural Marxism (ACM) is the oldest trick in the book or ACMs who are also SJWs!! Your not foaling anyone, you SJW! (There, now you have been called a SJW, you SJW!)