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from the debating-whether-something's-debatable dept.
It looks like anybody can be against academic censorship, as this opinion piece in the Washington Post shows:
Wisconsin's Supreme Court can soon right a flagrant wrong stemming from events set in motion in 2014 at Milwaukee's Marquette University by Cheryl Abbate. Although just a graduate student, she already had a precocious aptitude for academic nastiness.
On Oct. 28, in an undergraduate course she was teaching on ethics, when the subject of same-sex marriage arose, there was no debate, because, a student said, Abbate insisted that there could be no defensible opposition to this. (Marquette is a Jesuit school.) After class, the student told her that he opposed same-sex marriage and her discouraging of debate about it. She replied (he recorded their interaction) that "there are some opinions that are not appropriate that are harmful [...]
[...] McAdams, a tenured professor then in his 41st year at Marquette and a conservative who blogs about the school's news, emailed Abbate seeking her version of the episode. Without responding to him, she immediately forwarded his email to some professors. She has called McAdams "the ringleader" of "extreme white [sic] wing, hateful people," a "moron," "a flaming bigot, sexist and homophobic idiot" and a "creepy homophobic person with bad argumentation skills."
Because there is almost no Wisconsin case law concerning academic freedom that could have guided the circuit court, McAdams is asking the state supreme court to bypass the appeals court and perform its function as the state's "law-developing court." He is also asking the court to be cognizant of the cultural context: Nationwide, colleges and universities "are under pressure" — all of it from within the institutions — "to enact or implement speech codes or otherwise restrict speech in various ways."
[Post-publishing edit: An A/C below helpfully provides the following far more neutral reportage by Inside higher Ed titled Ethics Lesson which explains the situation with more light and less head. Thanks A/C - Ed. (FP)]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @07:26PM (13 children)
It is common for an instructor to give a bad grade to a student who is known to be conservative.
This isn't new. It happened about 60 years ago to my father, a baby boomer in college. The assignment was to write about nuclear war or weapons or something like that. My dad wrote a paper that concluded we should have more nukes. The liberal professor was not pleased.
Shutting down the Catholic take on gay marriage at a Catholic university, while not also shutting down the anti-Catholic take on it, clearly shows that the instructor was biased. It would be acceptable to shut down both sides or neither, and at a Catholic university it would be understandable to shut down the anti-Catholic take on it. Of the 4 possible options, the instructor took the 1 option that was least acceptable.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @08:06PM (11 children)
Was going to FTFY, but too much is wrong. Let us try a reformulation, shall we?
"It is common for conservatives to earn bad grades due to lack of intellectual ability and curiousity, and to be completely unaware (Dunning-Kroeger) of the cause of their bad grades and so to attribute them to the bias of their instructors."
Evidently, this even spans generations of conservatives! As Dan Quayle once said: "It's a terrible thing to never use your mind!"
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 09 2018, @11:31PM (10 children)
"lack of intellectual ability" --> couldn't see obvious correctness of far-left communism and perversion
"lack of curiosity" --> refused to try a 3-way with trannies and a goat
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @03:11AM (9 children)
Conservative: very, very, bad at math. Even simple math. Have fallen for the "tax cuts for the rich will improve the economy" scam since Reagan! And now obviously unable to solve the "missionaries, trannies and a goat" problem. They did not refuse, it is just mathematically impossible. And these people complain about getting flunked? Amazing.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:35PM (6 children)
The best/worst part is, somehow they've convinced themselves that it's everyone ELSE who's been permanently and fatally disconnected from reality.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 10 2018, @08:51PM (5 children)
If people became conservative at age 70, that might make sense. You get disconnected from reality when you go senile.
Instead we find that people become conservative as they get employed, start families, and buy homes. This suggests that becoming conservative is associated with growing up. Once you start taking on an adult role in the world, you become conservative.
It's a matter of growing up, becoming mature, and learning that there is a reality that you might not prefer but can not ignore.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday January 10 2018, @09:33PM (2 children)
So why is it that I've moved leftwards as I've gotten older? Why is it that after more experience, more learning, more travel, meeting more people, learning different languages, I've let go of some "conservative" ideas I held as a child and teenager?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @02:31AM (1 child)
Brain damage, most likely.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:12PM
Come on now, people getting "conservative" as they get older isn't brain damage, it's assholery. Just because you're missing a few (hundred million...) neurons doesn't mean everyone else follows the same life path.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @12:20AM (1 child)
you forget how to do simple math? And substitute wishful thinking and racist hateful misogyny? I don't see it. Early onset dementia?
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:00AM
1. The person being addressed
2. The first tranny
3. The second tranny
Now we have a 3-way, as stated. As for the goat... we count it the same as a condom or handcuffs or anal beads. It's a toy.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 11 2018, @10:09AM (1 child)
There are "trannies", so 2 or more. Let's say 2. There is the person being addressed, which makes 3. The goat counts as much as a condom, butt plug, or fake eyelashes. So we're still at 3.
It is thus a 3-way at minimum. It need not be more. Thou shalt not count to 4, and 5 is right out.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday January 11 2018, @04:14PM
You only need to post the same offtopic bullshit once. Twice or more gets you Spiced Ham'd.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday January 09 2018, @09:17PM
No, I didn't "assume" that. I don't feel like going back and finding the quote now, but where I read about it, it said the student himself basically admitted his work was poor. I don't remember who reported that the student said that, but the student's own reported assessment of the rationale for his grade was what I was basing my post on.