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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, Troll) by ikanreed on Tuesday December 20 2016, @10:04PM
Oh, bullshit, just the stupid-ass ethnonationalists who identify strongly with authoritarian ideologies all are.
The problem is that shouldn't be a lot of people, but it is. You're taking Godwin's law and using it to ignore that they're here, they're getting a lot of power, and doing shitty things with it.
As far as Zionism goes, it's about half and half people who genuinely care about a government receiving financial and military support from the US while remaining one of the latest remaining apartheid states in the world, and people who use that as a code-word for anti-Semitic ideas that tend to center on conspiracies about how "The Zionists" just happen to control everything. I can be a member of the former group and recognize the reality of the latter. I know I've been called anti-Semitic because of that, but you know what? I understand those charges and how it relates to the shitty people out there who are saying shitty things. I don't go out of my way to resent people who are concerned about it.