Michigan State U. Professor’s anti-Republican rant earns him a suspension
We recently featured a video rant from Michigan State University (MSU) professor William Penn, who opened the first day of his creative writing class ranting against “old Republicans” who he says “raped” the country.
Thanks to new technology and a brave student willing to capture this event on video secretly, this vile screed went viral and now it the instructor is facing serious consequences for his classroom antics.
In an email to students on Thursday morning, Dean Karen Wurst of the College of Arts & Letters made the announcement:
“On Aug. 29, during your Literatures, Cultures, Identities course, Professor William Penn made comments he has acknowledged were inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive and may have negatively affected the learning environment.
Once MSU was made aware of the situation the Office of the Provost immediately began a review.
As a result, Penn’s duties have been reassigned, and he will not be teaching this semester. A new instructor is being assigned to your course.”
A school trustee also chimed in with some scathing remarks:
In an interview with Campus Reform on Wednesday, MSU trustee Mitch Lyons said he found Prof. William Penn’s comments “disturbing.”
…“The comments themselves were disturbing, from my take, regardless of the political spectrum you’re on, it’s certainly not fostering a safe place to learn. It was intimidating, offensive in nature, and there’s no place for that in our university.”
Lyons said Penn’s comments created a hostile campus culture.
SUSPENDED: Michigan State removes prof who went on anti-Republican tirade (Campus Reform)
Comments
The professor(term used loosely) has to be a dim, a Marxist or both. A conservative would have been shown the door. Whoops, my bad. A conservative wouldn’t have been hired in the first place.
I wish pocket video recorders had been available when I was in college (mid-70’s) and the professor launched into a condescending tirade about Christianity on the first day of history class. To this day, I wish I’d walked out, but sat quietly until the class was over, where I went to admissions, dropped the class and secured a refund of tuition.
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130908/OPINION01/309080001/Students-flagged-bigoted-prof?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|p
Evidence suggests it is Penn’s normal way of teaching.
I checked out a website called Kloofers.com, which allows students at colleges nationwide to rate their professors. The 94 students who assessed Penn’s skills gave him two stars out of five possible.
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Nearly every student had something to say about the hostile environment Penn created in his classroom. A sampling:
■“Penn is horrible. … Picks on the attractive girls in class. … He’s creepy and misogynistic.”
■“Penn is over the top liberal and doesn’t accept any other views or ideas. … (M)ocks students every day.”
■“Penn is easily the worst professor I’ve ever had.”
■ “Hates conservatives and Republicans, squelches all ideas but his own.”
■“Professor Penn managed to offend everybody in class. … He’s close-minded and even told us that he doesn’t believe in ‘communication.’”
■“All he talks about is his political views and sex.”
■“The man is easily the biggest anti-Semite I have ever heard speak.”
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Instead, the university touted Penn, a Native American, as representative of faculty diversity, and one description even noted his commitment to breaking through stereotypes.
Apparently, generalizing that all Republicans are old, rich white people who hate to pay taxes is not a stereotype that bothers MSU.
Count on this: Penn will be back. He has tenure, which on today’s campus allows loose cannons like him to keep on firing, despite student pleas for relief.
I’ll give one of the professor’s students the last word: “Incredible that public funds support this ignoramus.”