Posted on 10/07/2005 5:53:21 AM PDT by OESY
We begin this week with a quiz. Imagine yourself as a freshman at State U. On the first day of class a professor walks in the door and says: "Hello, I'm Joe Schmoe, and I like sex with men. Christians hate gays, and the 'r' in Republican stands for 'racist.' We have too many Nazis running around on campus, and if you're a conservative you'll probably fail my course."
How do you react? (a) What a jerk, I hope it's not too late to drop this course. (b) What a hoot, now I know what to say to get a good grade. (c) Call the cops. He just violated the Academic Bill of Rights!
If you answered (c) you don't get credit, because most students have never heard of an Academic Bill of Rights. Yet such a thing is not pure fiction. An example of one is making its way through Congress right now as a resolution attached to the House-approved version of an education bill; and another resolution is being considered in the Senate. We'd vote "no."
This is not because the freedom to learn, or to speak, is alive and well on the American campus. Clearly it isn't. The template for both resolutions in Washington -- and similar ones have reached some 15 state legislatures -- was written by conservative activist David Horowitz. He was responding to a chorus of student complaints about political intimidation by (mostly leftist) teachers in college classrooms. The document says, among other things, that "no political, ideological or religious orthodoxy will be imposed on professors and researchers" and that "intellectual independence means the protection of students" too. (Full text at studentsforacademicfreedom.org.)...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
It's fun to dream. Maybe someday I'll give it a whirl.
It will be interesting to have the libs oppose this because it interfers with their freedom of speech.
Let's get rid of tenure next!
Since you're accused of being a Brownshirt anyway, I'd get together with a couple of other "nazis" and wait for this professor some night after class. He'd have to give his lecture from a traction bed for the next six weeks.
Or you could just stand up in class and expose him for the academic fraud that he is. But do so in the knowledge that he holds most -- if not all -- the cards, and that you're risking your academic standing.
I've had the same thought, Pablo. It might be an interesting bit of activism to put together a brigade to do just that!
I have a friend who did that. Be prepared for the comment he received: "Wow, you're old enough to be my father."
I thought my friend's retort was perfect: "Just how do you know that I'm not?"
Pablo64,
I had just such an experience.
I went bact to college(State school in NJ) at the age of 35. One of my classes was an advanced writing course taught by a flaming, man-hating lesbian who had been a nationally published author. I was one of 3 men in a class of over 20. After an announcement of her sexual preferences and obvious initial hostility from the instructor in the first several classes, I confronted her on her attitude in the middle of the class. I told her that she was welcome to any opinion she wished but I was there to learn the material and not to be abused for being a male or be lectured on the 'superiority' of her homosexual life style. She was flustered but the abuse stopped and her perverted sexusal orientation was never brought up again in the class. Several students, both male and female, approached me during the semester to comment and thank me for making the class less hostile and more tolerable. Sometime the direct approach is the most effective.
BTW, I did pass the class with high grades and a recommendation.
Oh yes,you guys really should do it!
My advisor in my M.A. program was also a lesbian, but unlike that prof of yours, she never brought it up, or thought it was relevant to what she taught. She was open about it, but in the same way the rest of the faculty was open about married; it was just an "ordinary" part of her life. FWIW I remain closely in touch with her and her partner, and they've both been very supportive of me, in spite of our political differences. All my nightmare uber-left profs were heterosexual and mercifully, I haven't encountered any since my undergrad years.
One of my undergrad progs was EXACTLY like the hippie teacher from Beavis and Butthead, down to the beard and sandals. He never bothered actually to teach the class, instead incessantly went on rants about how Mike Harris (the former Conservative premier of Ontario) and Jean Chretien were out to kill us all through their "neoconservative economic agenda" and quoting from Noam Chomsky like Elmer Gantry. Alas, although I had a lot of great teachers as an undergrad, they've all retired or moved on elsewhere...but he's still there :-p. I'm currently seeing if I can get a sessional post teaching at my old alma matter; I was a real smartass, so I wonder if he'd remember me.
LOL, sometimes being a smartass can come back to haunt you. The buffer of time is probably your best friend in this case. I have to just visualize your description of that professor since I have never even seen one single episode of Beavis and Butthead. I'm aware of who they are, but have no clue as to the show or other characters. He sounds like some of the profs where I went to school. Luckily I was in the music department. We had our own brand of weird in the Fine Arts Building, but at the time I was in school, it wasn't political.
What would we call ourselves, the Vast Right Wing Geezer Brigade? ;-)
I've already thought of that. Depending on the circumstance and how it was said, I would probably respond with something liike, "And don't you forget it young man (or lady)!"
I had several good friends who were "non-traditional" students when I was going to college. I joked with them about their age, but I also had some really great conversations with them and was interested in their perspective on things. (Not to mention that they were a good source for buying beer before I turned 21!) :-)
Campus Crusade for Geritol?
The Under-the-Weather Men?
LOL! He looks like the kind of "hippie" we laughed at (along with his patchuli-oil-smelling-hairy-legs-and-armpits girlfriend). We had a few of those kinds on our campus in the early '80's. I always looked at them as wannabe's; missed the whole hippie movement but were even too big of rejects for disco.
LOL! I'll go for the first one. It's got to have a good acronym - S.A.S (as in, "Don't give me any of your sas(s) youngster!") Ha Ha!
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