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Math Professor Mocks a Leftist Belief and Gets Fired
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | May 1, 2020 | George Leef

Posted on 05/01/2020 6:00:51 AM PDT by karpov

Humorless, intolerant leftist academics are a force to be reckoned with on many college campuses, and a new case at the University of North Texas (UNT) pushes the envelope.

After earning his PhD in mathematics from Baylor University in spring 2019, Nathaniel Hiers found employment at UNT. He began teaching full-time as an adjunct faculty member in the fall semester—three sections of linear algebra and one of calculus. The mathematics department thought highly enough of Dr. Hiers that, in November, it notified him that he was invited to renew his contract for the coming semester. Hiers promptly emailed back to say he’d accept the school’s offer.

Trouble for Hiers began, however, on November 25. He was relaxing in the faculty lounge that afternoon, waiting for a colloquium to begin, and noticed a stack of fliers. They weren’t identified as a university document and had been left anonymously. The subject of the fliers was “microaggressions” and the argument they made was that such speech, although unintentional, is harmful to some individuals’ physical and psychological health. Therefore, faculty members were encouraged to avoid them.

The flier gave a number of examples of microaggression such as saying, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job” and “America is a land of opportunity.”

Those expressions, according to the flier, are harmful because they support “the myth of meritocracy” and promote “color blindness.” Another example of a microaggression listed was “being forced to choose Male or Female when completing basic forms.”

This idea that certain groups in the population are so sensitive to and easily harmed by such apparently benign utterances has been around for many years. Some academics believe it, while others find it to be just a weak and unproven assertion.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: academia; college
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1 posted on 05/01/2020 6:00:51 AM PDT by karpov
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To: karpov

Three sections of linear algebra? By one instructor? I’m guessing it was pretty watered down.


2 posted on 05/01/2020 6:05:52 AM PDT by bwest
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To: karpov
The problem in America is .... too many government indoctrinated (where did they become THAT, I wonder) ... people have become embedded into the fabric of our culture and it will take a drastic sweeping of our lives .... friends, neighbors, employers, politicians and a ton of peripheral et cetera's, to become clean of this evil.


"All that Hiers did after reading the flier was to write on the chalkboard, “Please don’t leave garbage lying around,” with an arrow pointing to the stack of them. He couldn’t imagine the trouble his jest would cause him."

3 posted on 05/01/2020 6:07:44 AM PDT by knarf
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To: bwest
"Three sections of linear algebra? By one instructor? I’m guessing it was pretty watered down."

I'd suggest that the lesson plans for Linear Algebra rarely need to be updated based on current events or new discoveries in the field.

4 posted on 05/01/2020 6:09:30 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: karpov

Ironic, is it not, that one of the few remaining true academic areas in our formerly respected universities is being negatively affected by folks who deserve no respect whatsoever.

I really think that the STEM departments should pull a UK and split from the the the IU (Idiot’s Union) which currently infects our universities.

Even my esteemed graduate university is thoroughly infected by these folks who wouldn’t even have qualified as janitors years back.

Hopefully, the humanities departments will wake up and do a thorough cleaning and disinfecting and return to their former position of respect.


5 posted on 05/01/2020 6:10:01 AM PDT by Da Coyote
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To: karpov

“adjunct faculty member”

Your job’s on the line right there.

“the myth of meritocracy”

Don’t you go to college to improve yourself? Gain knowledge? Increase your “merit”?

I would fail so hard in todays university setting.


6 posted on 05/01/2020 6:10:52 AM PDT by BBQToadRibs
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To: karpov

I’m heartened to read that this guy didn’t apologize and is fighting back.


7 posted on 05/01/2020 6:10:56 AM PDT by Fiji Hill (uat)
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To: karpov

The left are very bad people, just as you wouldn’t see a movie today sympathetic to the nazis. The left are today’s nazis. When they can, they will kill dissenters.


8 posted on 05/01/2020 6:11:13 AM PDT by Williams (Stop Tolerating The Intolerant)
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To: karpov

It was a passive aggressive move of microaggression by a Leftist to place those tracts in the lounge.


9 posted on 05/01/2020 6:13:53 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (The fish wrap media promoted Obama's Benghazi lies in 2012)
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To: bwest
Three sections of linear algebra? By one instructor? I’m guessing it was pretty watered down.

Why? They would all be the same curriculum. Prepare once, teach three times.

10 posted on 05/01/2020 6:14:38 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux - The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: karpov

Wonder what the snowflakes think about microaggressions now that a true killer aggression in the form of Wuhan virus has happened?


11 posted on 05/01/2020 6:15:33 AM PDT by yldstrk (Bingo! We have a winner!)
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To: Williams
When they can, they will kill dissenters.

Always have, always will. They have mass-murdered more people in the last 100 years than have died in all wars combined. Leftists in power are second only to disease as the leading cause of death in the 20th Century.

12 posted on 05/01/2020 6:15:42 AM PDT by Teacher317 (We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men)
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To: Williams

I see them on socialist networking media browbeating anyone who questions the extended lockdown and continued kicking the can.

And they wish death on those who dissent.


13 posted on 05/01/2020 6:16:15 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (The fish wrap media promoted Obama's Benghazi lies in 2012)
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To: karpov

I think describing Hiers’s opinion as “stupid” would be considered a really big micro-aggression.


14 posted on 05/01/2020 6:19:16 AM PDT by euram
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To: Williams

I have no doubt there are many of today’s Left who would ship us to re-education camp just for posting on Free Republic.

Not getting on that bus. Not giving up the weapons.


15 posted on 05/01/2020 6:21:01 AM PDT by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: karpov

SIC’ EM, Nathaniel Hiers

You may wind up OWNING that faculty lounge and can charge admission!!!


16 posted on 05/01/2020 6:21:05 AM PDT by Oscar in Batangas ( (January 20, 2017, High Noon. The end of an error.))
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To: karpov
Schmidt said that he decided to fire Hiers because he refused to recant his opposition to the microaggression idea.

He has good company on recantation...


17 posted on 05/01/2020 6:25:11 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: karpov

in before the picture of the UNT mug.


18 posted on 05/01/2020 6:27:26 AM PDT by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world)
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To: Da Coyote

For a long time, I thought this staggeringly stupid bosh would never penetrate the math, engineering, chemistry and physics departments or the medical schools. I am so disappointed that they did not resist. It always starts simple and quickly escalates until it jeopardizes the very foundation of science and math and ultimately leads to death and destruction.


19 posted on 05/01/2020 6:29:15 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: ShadowAce

I was referring to demand, not supply.


20 posted on 05/01/2020 6:30:25 AM PDT by bwest
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