Michigan State reassigns teaching duties of professor caught on tape bashing Republicans

[Goalie49009]

EAST LANSING — Michigan State University has relieved one of its professors of his courses after he was recorded denigrating Republicans before a classroom of nearly 400 students.

But the professor remains a full-time faculty member at the university.

MSU administration officials began investigating professor William Penn and a nine-minute video of him telling his Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities class last Thursday that Republicans have a racist agenda and "raped this country."


http://www.mlive.com/lansing-news/index.ssf/2013/09/michigan_state_reassigns_teach.html#incart_river_default



oh boy lol

[In_The_Wind]

1. Can they get away with doing that?

[Goalie49009]

3. I really do not know.....nt

[TM99]

4. Of course they can and they should.

He is allowed his personal political beliefs. He is not allowed as a professor with a diverse student population to spew his beliefs during classes when he should be teaching the subject at hand.

What if he was attacking Democrats, going on about 'FemaNazi's', 'the Gay Agenda', and going about Jesus & abstinence?

[Xyzse]

5. Actually I agree with this

Doesn't matter who I support, a professor encourages debate and should not allow their personal beliefs be propagated in class. Provide details, facts and context but he should have learned enough not to go beyond that in class.

I understand that I can agree with what he is saying, however, he'd have to cite facts and examples as clinically as possible.

Outside of class, I could care less what he says.

Also, for the OP, this may be more GD material than lounge. I don't mind in particular, but FYI.

[Goalie49009]

8. I'm too scared to go into GD

at least here I don't have to worry about the wolves.

[Xyzse]

9. LOL, I wade in now and then

[hunter]

7. It was a rare class in college that didn't get political at some point.

And I was a science major...



It's well known that "Truth has a liberal bias."

Yeah, I had a few conservative college professors (tending to the Libertarian side of conservative...) but I never had one go batshit Rush Limbaugh or T.V. Jesus Preacher crazy.

Fuck equal time for right wingers. They've got Fox News. Pretending young college republicans are an intelligent empathetic life form is futile.

[TM99]

10. Well thankfully, you are not a college administrator.

You are wrong on several accounts.

I was a young college Republican almost 30 years ago. Sorry to disappoint you, however, I was and remain quite intelligent and very empathetic. I have multiple graduate degrees and work as both a psychotherapist and a tech entrepreneur.

In college, I organized the first AIDS Symposium at my small college campus. Because of it, we got condoms into all dorm bathrooms. I was also a big conservationist involved with WWF, the Sierra Club, started an Amnesty International Group, and spent summers in college working for Habitat for Humanity. Summers in my first graduate program were spent going door to door in support of CONNPIRG.

This type of blind partisanship is what causes difficulties on both sides of the political spectrum. I am no longer a registered Republican, preferring now to be an Independent aligned with sane & intelligent Democrats, Greens & Libertarians.

This isn't about equal time for right wingers. This is about what is appropriate in a collegiate setting. And what this professor as a 'liberal' or another as a 'conservative' did or might do to this extreme is simply unacceptable and unprofessional. Occasional political discussions if the topic warrants it or the circumstances is one thing. Argumentative and narcissistic pushing of a political agenda is quite another.

[hunter]

11. I'm right. The class got cheated.

Ripped off by racist right wing Republicans. Again. Who will teach the class now? Some first year, underpaid, unprepared, and overworked lecturer, right? Or maybe even a Teaching Assistant? Yep, everybody screwed again!

Personally I didn't like this professor, not at all, talking about the state "investing" in students in anticipation of a monetary "return" on that investment. Fuck that shit. I had better high school teachers than that even in a school that was "Lord of the Flies" most of the time. I quit high school for college to escape the violence. I had such a high SAT score that my grades (or missing the Senior Prom) didn't matter. I was still considered among the top 10% of students in California.

Maybe the successful students will leave Michigan and do something creative that may or may not make money but makes the world a better place, and not because they wanted to be "successful" by venal pathetic U.S.A. standards, but just because it seemed the right thing to do and they had a talent for it. Maybe they'll take on some altruistic kind of work that pays like crap because Republicans are full of shit. Something like teaching in a rotten city or abandoned rural areas. Maybe they'll live by a pond and write a book that makes the world a better place, much more than Bill Gates or Steve Jobs ever "accomplished."

I quit the Sierra Club and CALPIRG because they were basically consumer groups. I've never wanted to be a "consumer." I think Ralph Nader is a loathsome narcissist. I think that the consumerist lifestyle is over-rated. I have more fun dumpster-diving than I do shopping in a big-box store. I drive a 1984 car with a salvage title. It cost $800. If someone gave me a brand new car I'd give it to someone who needed it and wanted a brand new car. I don't.

I'm mostly a Luddite. I don't respect our culture and it doesn't respect me. I intend to keep my soul until the very end, even if I die on the streets with a beer in one hand, a dirty magazine in the other, and a smile on my face.

Anyways, I'm not a "blind partisan" of any sort. I mock it all. If you were a Registered Republican at any point after the Eisenhower era I wouldn't have liked you. Nixon was obvious scum, and Reagan was worse.

I wouldn't vote for more than a few Democrats either except that most Republicans really ARE racist assholes and the rest are utterly clueless.

Please feel free to criticize my grammar.

[TM99]

12. You seem confused and angry.

The professor was a 'liberal' not a Republican.

Did you actually watch the video? He spent more time lecturing the students on the 'evils' of Republicans than he did on writing, which was the subject. I really don't think the students are going to miss that if they are actually there for an education.

Of course, you are a partisan. You picked two of the things I did which were socially engaged and describe why YOU don't approve of them. You judge me based solely on the 'party' I was registered with determining that you would not have 'liked' me.

It isn't about like or dislike, it is about respect and disrespect. Manners, boundaries, and appropriate behavior used to count in the adult world. Do they still? Or has everything been reduced ad nauseam to personal politics - red team/blue team?

I can respect your choices even if I personally disagree with them. But if I was your teacher of writing at a college, I would actually teach you what you paid me to do. I wouldn't waste time on rancorous political speech designed to inflame or harm. That is truly cheating them out of what they paid for.

[hunter]

14. I was smiling the whole damn time I wrote it. This is the Lounge.

Maybe I should have just alerted the original post and been done with it. Leave the Lounge to the kittens.

Anyways, the biggest hurdle a professor has to overcome in a class like "Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities" is getting these dull, conservative kids to write something that doesn't bore you to tears, make you despair for the future of humanity, and pour yourself another shot of whiskey.

By the time I hit college, still a minor who had to get permission for field trips, I'd experienced enough life to write entire novels.

Nothing like, "We went to the Grand Canyon this summer and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Tusayan. The MacDonalds there is very expensive. We saw some Chinese people. They talk funny."

[TM99]

15. You still sound angry to me

when you call all of the kids in the class "dull, conservative kids".

You don't know if they are dull or smart. You assume that if they are 'conservatives' that they must be dull.

But hey, this is the Lounge, and serious discussions are frowned upon here.

So have a good morning.

[Chan790]

16. Not if he has tenure.

Some people in this thread at just wrong...yes, he has a right to lecture as such in his class. No, the university was wrong to remove him.

[In_The_Wind]

17. That's what I thought.

[Denninmi]

2. That's a shame in a way.

Not maybe very professional, but he speaks the truth.

[hunter]

6. Shouldn't it be up to the students if they want to stay with this professor???

I'd be angry if I if I was in the class and the Professor was replaced by some unprepared first-year lecturer.

I say send in a college dean to tell the students they are opening up an alternative course for anyone who was offended by the lecture titled:

"Bestiality and Animal Husbandry Skills for College Conservatives."

[Blue_Tires]

13. my thoughts from another thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3605105