The ProFessors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.

[pgwenthold]

So one of the local professors, who teaches courses in "peace studies," is listed in David Horowitz's book, "The ProFessors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America." Accusations are that he is a communist, and, well, I haven't read the book so I don't know all the story. Horowitz has commented, "I don't have off the top of my head the academic guidelines...But they should look at those guidelines and see if a course which takes students to a communist, terrorist state -- Cuba -- is ... an academic course about war and peace, or is it designed to convert students to a particular point of view?"

Of course, students don't always agree. One notes that he had a class with the guy, but never heard anything anti-american and never got the impression he was communist. Another says, "He's a revisionist when it comes to the Cold War. He thinks the U.S. was more to blame for it than the Soviet Union,"

"But he admits that it's revisionist and he teaches you the traditional view," e lets students debate him in class in front of other students. He doesn't silence other opinions and he doesn't ridicule other students for stating their views, so there I take objection to what Horowitz said."

Sounds like a dangerous guy to me.

OTOH, all is not clear. On one hand, we hear things like:

"[Horowitz] admitted he never attended a class taught by Targ, but chose most of the professors based on their writings and the curricula of their classes.

He also said peace studies, women's studies and African-American studies... are not legitimate disciplines because they sprang from a political movements."

But then, in defense of himself, Horowitz claims, "What my academic bill of rights does is take existing academic freedom provisions, which say professors should not introduce controversial matter which is irrelevant to the subject, and enforce them."

Of course, this has nothing to do with the professor discussed above. For example, how are Cuba and communisim irrelevant to the subject of, say, the Cold War? Moreover, what does a professor's _writings_ have to do introducing controversial matter which [sic] is irrelevant to the subject?

This is just like that UCLA group that _claimed_ to be concerned about professors inappropriately introducing political commentary in class, but when examined more closely by Dr Kitten, it was shown that their criticisms had NOTHING to do with inappropriate political commentary but was just an attack on their fields of study or personal politics. Now we know where they learned it from.

[elaine]

I guess I'm confused. You admitted to not having read the book, yet there are many quotes and comments on this subject. I'm not clear on where your information is coming from. Am I missing something?

I haven't read the book either, though it's my understanding one of my former professors is listed in the book. I'll probably check it out of the library when it's available.

[pgwenthold]

Yes, the quotes are from the local paper. I didn't provide a link to protect the identity of the local region :-)

[elaine]

It will be interesting to see how accurately the book is reflected in the newspaper. Despite being the political conservative I am, I probably wouldn't be interested in the book, if a former professor weren't listed. Too much other stuff to read.

[drkitten]

This is just like that UCLA group that _claimed_ to be concerned about professors inappropriately introducing political commentary in class, but when examined more closely by Dr Kitten, it was shown that their criticisms had NOTHING to do with inappropriate political commentary but was just an attack on their fields of study or personal politics. Now we know where they learned it from.

Oh, absolutely. And the idiot behind the UCLA group used to be affiliated with Horowitz himself, before he (the idiot) was fired for unethical behavior.

And we know where he learned that, too.

[pgwenthold]

It will be interesting to see how accurately the book is reflected in the newspaper. Despite being the political conservative I am, I probably wouldn't be interested in the book, if a former professor weren't listed.

If you had a course with one of the professors in the book, then can you comment on whether he/she would "introduce controversial matter which is irrelevant to the subject"?

Do you consider your former professor "dangerous"?

Do tell.

[elaine]

If you had a course with one of the professors in the book, then can you comment on whether he/she would "introduce controversial matter which is irrelevant to the subject"?

Do you consider your former professor "dangerous"?

Do tell.

Dangerous? No.

Intolerant and abusive and hostile to students who are non-indians and those who disagree with her political philosophy? Most definitely. She most definitely has an agenda. I'll do more details later.

[pgwenthold]

Dangerous? No.

Intolerant and abusive and hostile to students who are non-indians and those who disagree with her political philosophy? Most definitely. She most definitely has an agenda. I'll do more details later.

Be sure to address the point about "Introducing controversial matter which is irrelevant to the subject," which is one of Horowitz's claims.

[writerdd]

Has anyone read this book? I saw it the other day at the local bookstore and was going to at least look at the TOC to see who they say is dangerous, but I forgot. I was wondering if Dennett is listed. So I looked on Amazon, but they don't have "look inside this book" for this book.... but it's gotten mostly 1star reviews, and a couple of 5 stars. It's not on google book search. I wonder if it's worth reading at least to write a review of it somewhere...

The whole concept of the book seems stupid to me. Sure, you will have some professors (even high school teachers) with wacky ideas. So what, you're supposed to be learning HOW to think, not WHAT to think.

Donna

[Tony]

Dangerous? No.

Intolerant and abusive and hostile to students who are non-indians and those who disagree with her political philosophy?

When you say "indians", are you talking about the feathered or the dotted sort?

[Zbu]

Dangerous? No.

Intolerant and abusive and hostile to students who are non-indians and those who disagree with her political philosophy? Most definitely. She most definitely has an agenda. I'll do more details later.

I had a women's studies teacher like that once. A complete nutjob who didn't let men speak (and told us to shut up if we dared tried to speak when a woman was waiting). While the class was annoying and a waste of my time--she was sick about half the time and I eventually got a B+ in the class despite not reading any of the books--there are just some professors like that. That's pretty much why most universities have a drop date so late into term so you can save your GPA and spread the word about some teachers who have tenures but don't teach. The same goes for another professor at my university who teaches African-American Lit and is a complete ******* to the extent where she writes books and makes them required reading in her class. Aside from being pompous and arrogant enough to label people racists, she also has decorated the wall outside her office with clippings all about her.

These people are annoying. Dangerous? Not hardly, their agendas are incredibly obvious. But labeling academics as 'dangerous' because of these agendas is both insulting to the students who should be able to see them and to the populace at large that thinks that they need some jerk to tell them what to think. I'm not a fan of the two examples I gave above, but compared to the chump that wrote that book, I'd back academia.

[elaine]

I had a women's studies teacher like that once. A complete nutjob who didn't let men speak (and told us to shut up if we dared tried to speak when a woman was waiting). While the class was annoying and a waste of my time--she was sick about half the time and I eventually got a B+ in the class despite not reading any of the books--there are just some professors like that. That's pretty much why most universities have a drop date so late into term so you can save your GPA and spread the word about some teachers who have tenures but don't teach. The same goes for another professor at my university who teaches African-American Lit and is a complete ******* to the extent where she writes books and makes them required reading in her class. Aside from being pompous and arrogant enough to label people racists, she also has decorated the wall outside her office with clippings all about her.

These people are annoying. Dangerous? Not hardly, their agendas are incredibly obvious. But labeling academics as 'dangerous' because of these agendas is both insulting to the students who should be able to see them and to the populace at large that thinks that they need some jerk to tell them what to think. I'm not a fan of the two examples I gave above, but compared to the chump that wrote that book, I'd back academia.


Sorry it took me so long to respond. I still haven't read Horowitz' book regarding the professor I had. The examples above are pretty much the same as my experience. This professor had/has a reputation for her hostility towards whites and particularly males and giving lower grades to those who disagree with her. She often threw in words like racist, rapist, and sexist whenever refering to any white american males. She didn't allow for debate in her class either. I recall the first day of class, the professor, when discussing the course overview, said that this was a class for learning, not debate or a place for our (the students') opinions. She was openly hostile in her responses to anyone who would ask a question that would challenge her assertions.

It's been about eight years, so I'd be hard pressed to cite specific examples. Clearly she left and impression though.

Still, I wouldn't classify her as dangerous. Just an unreasonable whack job.

[Skeptic]

There's always a problem of selection. Two people had said on the record, "I wish the USA will be destroyed". One said it continously and acted on it for the last 20 years, the other said it once in an overheated moment in a protest rally and didn't repeat it since. Targ seems like the first kind of person, the womans studies professor Zbu encountered the second. Horowitz's book doesn't seem to distinguish between these two kinds.

I too like making fun of academic nut jobs, but Horowitz seems to take them far more seriously than they deserve.

[Skeptic]

Look, they're acting like that out of a (justified) feeling of inferiority. It's an open secret in academia (and by now everywehre) that "women's studies", "queer studies", "black studies", "whatever studies", etc., departments are fake departments, where hiring is (in effect) due to gender and race and sexual orientation while no real scholarship worth anything is done.

So the only way they can feel any self-respect is by pretending that they are in some sort of "great fight against racism and sexism" (or whatever -ism the creation of their "X-studies" department was supposed to solve in the first place) by being rude to students.

[pgwenthold]

As of yesterday, I now officially qualify for Horowitz's book. I did, in fact, introduce controversial material unrelated to the subject of the course in my chemistry class.

We were talking about the upcoming exam, and I was talking about the format. I said, it has some short answer, fill in the blank, matching, multiple choice, one of those Japanese number puzzles from the [college] newspaper that replaced that good comic, the usual.

There is the unrelated material. But that's not enough. It has to be controversial, and this is. See, the Japanese number puzzle, new to the newspaper, replaced the comic strip Rubes by Leigh Rubin, which was the most popular (and by far the best) comic in the paper. Therefore, replacing Rubes with the number puzzle has caused some controversy. I weighed in and told the class I thought the comic strip was good.

I know, I'm an evil, dangerous professor.

[btw, the students knew I was joking about including the number puzzle on the exam]

[Dcdrac]

I had two professoers both politically extreme, one extreme right the other extreme left, i consistently got marked down by both of them by pointing out in my assignments the problems with the positions they presented. I appealed and got my marks revised upwards.

The point being it does not matter whether it is left or right whackos that are doing this, they are still whackos.

And i persoanlly think any list like this is detrimental and dangerous and of little value or use.

[BPScooter]

Somewhere in this discussion is an understanding that there is a "there" there and that a course defined by key ideas and illustrated through various exercises can be, but should not be, derailed by an instructor's personal eccentricities. I think Horowitz is probably saying that if our job (and student $) is oriented toward us all understanding more about xyz then let's get on xyz. If students need to know about economics, or literary devices, or musical rhythm, well sure--we can all think of a thousand bland ways to illustrate those notions, and probably a few personally interesting and quirky ways. I'm guessing that the wacky professors just lost their bearings on the idea of what is "mainstream" and accessible yet interesting.

[CFLarsen]

Accusations are that he is a communist

Why is that an "accusation"?