Posted on 12/18/2014 3:26:16 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
U-M professor Susan Douglas
Susan Douglas is a University of Michigan professor and department chair who is not shy about expressing her viewpoints - political or otherwise.
Earlier this week Douglas penned a column for the independent nonprofit magazine In These Times titled "It's okay to hate Republicans."
"I hate Republicans," she wrote to begin her column. "I can't stand the thought of having to spend the next two years watching Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Ted Cruz, Darrell Issa or any of the legions of other blowhards denying climate change, thwarting immigration reform or championing fetal 'personhood.'"
University of Michigan spokesman Rick Fitzgerald responded on behalf of the school, saying it didn't share the same viewpoints as Douglas.
"The views expressed are those of the individual faculty member and not those of the University of Michigan. Faculty freedom of expression, including in the public sphere, is one of the core values of our institution," Fitzgerald said in an email to The Ann Arbor News.
"At the same time, the university must and will work vigilantly to ensure students can express diverse ideas and perspectives in a respectful environment and without fear of reprisal. The university values viewpoint diversity and encourages a wide range of opinions."
U-M's anti-discrimination policy states that people affiliated with the university cannot create "...an intimidating, hostile, offensive, or abusive environment for that individual's employment, education, living environment, or participation in a University activity."
The column was met with backlash from at least one member of the U-M Board of Regents, and Grant Strobl, the chairman of U-M's chapter of Young Americans for Freedom and a member on the National Board of Governors of Young Americans for Freedom.
Regent Andrea Fischer Newman wrote in a post on Facebook that she found Douglass's column "extremely troubling and offensive."
"...This particular column, which expresses and condones hatred toward an entire segment of individuals in our society based solely on their political views, fails to observe an equally important value of our University -- respect for the right of others to hold views contrary to our own. Professor Douglass's column ill-serves the most basic values of a University community," Newman wrote.
Strobl said in a statement that Douglas' column "...is blatant intolerance, and the university should take action on the behalf of intellectual diversity and all of the students who are intimidated into silence."
He continued: "In the position of an instructor, she can intimidate and inhibit the student's freedom of expression. I believe there is a difference between displaying your own beliefs as a instructor and making statements that are hateful and may intimidate students into a certain ideology."
The article was removed from In The Times' website this morning before reappearing under a new url.
A spokesperson for In The Times emailed The Ann Arbor News stating that the article was originally titled "We can't all just get along," but was then changed, without the author's knowledge or approval, to "It's okay to hate Republicans."
"The author rejects the online title as not representative of the piece or its main points. Her preferred title has been restored. We have also removed from the comments section all threats to the author's life and personal safety," the publication's spokesperson wrote in an email.
Douglas wrote in her column that in the 1970s, she worked for Republican senate minority leader Fred Lippitt in Rhode Island and "loved him."
"He was a brand of Republican now extinct -- a 'moderate' who was fiscally conservative but progressive about women's rights, racial justice and environmental preservation," she continued.
She added that her loathing of Republicans is a "recent phenomenon" and pointed out things like "Rush Limbaugh's hate speech"; "the GOP's endless campaign to smear the Clintons over Whitewater, then bludgeon Bill over Monica Lewinsky;" and "the ceaseless denigration of President Obama," as her reasons for hating Republicans.
"According to researchers, the two core dimensions of conservative thought are resistance to change and support for inequality. These, in turn, are core elements of social intolerance," she wrote.
"So now we hate them back. And for good reason. Which is too bad. I miss the Fred Lippitts of yore and the civilized discourse and political accomplishments they made possible. And so do millions of totally fed-up Americans."
Probably depends on how many phone calls and e-mails they get from us.
And we have the right to point it out, too. Although, she might disagree. Why? Because, she like most Liberals are hypocrites.
She’s probably never had a long walk on a beach with someone.
I have to wonder whether or not I may have encountered Bill Ayers in Ann Arbor
I lived there from 1967 through 1971, and met lots of wacked out “new” politics types
I’m sure there’s a progressive out there somewhere waiting for her.
I agree.
these people hold grudges forever. Bill committed perjury almost 20 years ago and Rush has been on for almost 30 years. They stay in their apartments or their basements dreaming of ways to get Bush, or Rush or to make Gore president... Savage was right, they suffer from a mental disorder.
Rabid wombats have more sense than this so called “professor”. Just imagine the insanity she’s allowed to brainwash kids with. At some point Americans who care about our future have to ask themselves, what do we have to do to stop this?
Her eyes are too far apart from each other. That is definitely not normal. Probably some genetic defect in her ancestry.
And, BTW, I agree with you too. Your point is very valid. She has the right.
As always.....
Given the choice between vaporizing Detroit or Ann Arbor, Detroit would be the one still standing in the morning. Detroit may be a leech but its an indifferent leech. Ann Arbor on the other hand is an angry, self righteous, and demanding leech.
I barely remember the sixties...
MUCH,,,no everything.. has changed for me since then
I guarantee that if the professor had been a Conservative and had written that she hated Democrats then the diversity gestapo would have run her out of Ann Arbor on a rail and made sure that she never worked anywhere else.
Dear taxpayer citizens of Michigan: Do you realize that your tax money (probably $200,000+ per year) goes to support this bigoted, degenerate loser who is abusing her students by being in the same room with them? Her apparent self-loathing is being projected onto Conservatives. One must ask why she doesn’t merely end her life to save her self from such pathetic, whining suffering.
Does anyone have this fool’s email? Thanks.
This is her response
http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/12/u-m_professor_susan_douglas_is.html
And this is the truth. They would find a law or a rule to destroy her. That they do not now do so is because she doesn't offend *THEM*.
Someone should print up a bunch of leaflets saying she hates Islam and distribute them around Dearbornistan.
She strikes me as someone who would artificially inseminate themselves, just to have an abortion.
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