Liberal Law Professors on Watchlist for Being Liberal

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Summary: A conservative group has compiled a list of liberal professors to watch.

There are watch lists for everything–Sex offenders. Terrorist groups. Inappropriate TV shows. Now, according to The National Jurist, there is a watch list of “radical” liberal professors, and no surprise here, eight of them teach at law schools.

  

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The “Professor Watchlist” was compiled by conservative site, Turning Point USA. The creators of the list hunted for liberal professors who openly had expressed their political views, and based upon the left-leaning of law schools, it made sense that eight would make the list (Surprised there weren’t more!) In 2010, The National Jurist conducted research that showed law schools hired more openly liberal professors than conservative ones. Another study concluded that more lawyers had left views, and this was based on analysis of political donations.

According to the website, the group looks for professors “that advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.” The organization said that were not intending to stifle the professors’ free speech, but they wanted to create a database for conservative students and families to be aware of who they were taking classes from.

So what does a professor have to do in order to be considered “radical” by Turning Point? Harvard Law professor Mark Tushnet made the list for writing a blog post which analyzed how red states lost the culture war. In his post, he wrote, “For liberals, the question now is how to deal with the losers in the culture wars. That’s mostly a question of tactics. My own judgment is that taking a hard line (“You lost, live with it”) is better than trying to accommodate the losers, who – remember – defended, and are defending, positions that liberals regard as having no normative pull at all.”

Tusnet told The Harvard Crimson that he was okay with being targeted because “It comes with the territory.”

While Tushnet showed no signs of worry, critics were concerned the list would stifle academic freedom and free speech, even if the group said that was not it’s purpose. While there has been no report released yet on harassment of the named liberal professors, it is unclear whether or not the website could facilitate that action in the future.

In addition to Tushnet, Regina Austin, Gloria Browne-Marshall, Joshua Dressler, Gary Peller, John Powell, Fran Quigley, and Jonathan Zasloff were deemed “radical” liberals.

Regina Austin of the University of Pennsylvania allegedly “is a chief indoctrinator” because she promotes “social justice” and “views white racism as the cause of most societal problems.” She teaches critical race theory in her law courses.

John Jay College of Criminal Justice professor Gloria Browne-Marshall was put on the Watchlist because she wrote an essay about how “Southern white radicals” such as Tea Party members fought against Obamacare. In the work, she implied that the group may have been open to affordable health care if the initiative had not come from a black man.

Law professor Joshua Dressler of Ohio State University was put on the conservative Watchlist because he criticized Senator Ted Cruz’s comment about “New York values.” Dressler believed that Cruz was making an allusion to Jews in New York, and he found Cruz’s comment to be negative and anti-Semitic.

Georgetown University law professor Gary Peller once wrote a memo after the death of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He stated people should not “praise” the deceased judge because he was a bigot.

University of California–Berkeley law professor John Powell attended the White Privilege Conference, which despite the name, was not a meeting for white pride. Instead, it was a discussion about race and privilege, which are “liberal” topics. Powell gave a talk stating that the George W. Bush administration did not protect levees in New Orleans because those structures only protected black people.

Law professor Fran Quigley of Indiana University got into a war with the Tea Party. In the local newspaper, he wrote a scathing opinion piece that said Indiana Republicans thought that Haiti was a “fantasyland” because it had low minimum wage, deforestation, and nonexistent government health care.

University of California–Los Angeles law professor Jonathan Zasloff got into trouble with conservatives over his views on social media in 2015. He released on the internet that he believed Republicans were catering to the KKK with reactionary views on race. Considering David Duke’s praise of Donald Trump, it doesn’t appear the Zasloff was incorrect there; but that makes him a liberal to be watched anyway.

Overall, appearing on this list is either a smudge or a badge of honor depending on whether you prefer red or blue.

Source: The National Jurist

Photo courtesy of Qedge

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What do you think of the Professor Watchlist? Let us know in the comments below.