Keep up the pressure, critics of academia. It's making a difference.

Michigan State University actually removes professor who told class Republicans ‘raped this country’

By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--September 6, 2013

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Amazing. A liberal professor uses the platform of his classroom to spout his political agenda, and a public university disciplines him for it. William Penn must be wondering what the heck just happened. You can click the internal box if you really want to hear the whole nine-plus minutes, but the money quotes are here, along with sub-titles because some of it's not that easy to understand:

Now I have to be honest here. When I first heard what Penn said, my reaction was that it sounded no different from what I heard six or seven times a week when I took political science classes at Western Michigan University in the 1980s. All the professors were liberal, everyone knew it, and you just had to cut through the spouting and try to make sure you had a grasp on the actual assignments. My situation was a little different from the typical conservative student insofar as I was a columnist for the student newspaper (and in my last year I was the editor), so I had my own platform to respond if I wanted, and of course they knew who I was. The typical conservative student found it frustrating, but what could you do? Even if the administration was inclined to discipline them (which they weren't, not so much out of ideology but just because they'd rather not have fights they don't need to have), their union - the American Association of University Professors - would back them to the hilt.

So how and why did Michigan State find the cajones to remove Penn from the classroom? Well for one thing, lest we get too excited, they did not fire him. They removed him from the classroom at least for this semester, which is quite a slap to be sure, but he remains employed by the university. Here's more from the Detroit News (for which I also write a column):

Penn made the comments about Republicans last week and they were recorded by a student. Michigan State spokesman Kent Cassella said school officials are reviewing the remarks by Penn, who is an award-winning novelist. He says the school is committed to “creating a learning environment that is characterized by mutual respect and civility where diverse ideas can be explored.” Penn told his writing students that Republicans are cheap. He said they don’t want to pay taxes “because they have already raped this country and gotten everything out of it they possibly could.” Penn says “dead skin cells” were washing off “old Republicans” at the party’s national convention last year in Florida. He also said the country was full of “closet racists.” The video was posted online by Campus Reform, a Virginia-based conservative group. Penn did not respond to requests for comment Thursday. MSU sophomore Shelby Bryant said in an email that Penn shocked students during his first class of the semester. “All I remember is looking around and seeing the look on all my classmates’ faces, as (we) had nothing to say,” said Bryant, who is majoring in special needs education and transferred to MSU this semester. “It’s not that we didn’t want to stand up for ourselves, but more of the fact that we were in shock.”

Groups like Campus Reform that are keeping an eye on such professors, including sending in students with video cameras, deserve a lot of credit for this. When stuff like this comes to light, it's hard for university administration to just ignore it, which is what they would probably prefer so they can avoid a fight with the union. To be honest, I don't really care if a professor wants to give his opinion. But when he's supposed to be teaching and all he's doing is pontificating, there should at least be a record of that so his employers can make a determination of whether he's doing what he's being paid to do. About that, William Penn is still going to receive his salary of $150,000 a year, so don't shed any tears for him. And don't spend too much time wondering why college costs so much and delivers so little value in return for the investment. The answer is right there on the video.

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Dan Calabrese——Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

Follow all of Dan’s work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

Keep up the pressure, critics of academia. It's making a difference.

Michigan State University actually removes professor who told class Republicans ‘raped this country’

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