…must be tempered by the knowledge that the only reason this happened – University of Missouri professor Melissa “Poster Child for Moral Constipation” Click, was fired earlier this week – was that her little meltdown was caught on video:
(Looking at the “Students” in this video may be the most deeply depressing thing I’ve done lately. Fascism is alive and well and drinking latte on a thousand university campuses)
How many professors out there commit the same, and worse, crimes against free expression and critical inquiry every day, unrecorded and, thanks to the outdated practice of academic tenure, utterly untouchable?
In a just world, every one of those “students” will have this video hounding them throughout their “lives”.
Additional Question: Any bets on whether Click gets hired at one of the Twin Cities’ surplus crop of mediocre colleges?
Imagine the academic culture that would embrace and encourage such a creature. What is a “professor of mass media” anyhow? BTW, I’ve heard a rumor that one of the bigger social science scholarly publishers is trying some new rules: All research must be pre-submitted, with thesis and methodology, and what the expected results are. They are then required to submit the paper for publication. The idea is that in real science, you can learn from unexpected results. They want to stop people from submitting only the research that agrees with their thesis.
From Univ of Missouri web site, this is what she was teaching: (yes, every time I pay my $462 monthly student loan pmt, I think about colleges subsidizing this shiiit) “Her work in this area is guided by audience studies, theories of gender and sexuality, and media literacy. Current research projects involve 50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming.”
Want to see some scary fascists? See yesterday’s Ben Shapiro appearance at CSULA (I think I have that right, Cal state Univ at LA). I know Nazi references are always bad, but the term “brownshirts” does come to mind.
Well, that was appalling, Chuck.
These days the definition of a fascist to college students is “someone I disagree with.”
I know Nazi references are always bad, but the term “brownshirts” does come to mind.
I’ve been reading about the early days of the Nazi Party, when the real “brownshirts” (the Sturmabteilung, or SA) served as what “Professor” Click would call the Nazi Party’s “muscle” at demonstrations, explicitly charged with bullying, intimidating and beating the crap out of the opposition…
…not a whole lot different in concept than what most of those “students” were doing.
I’m sure Hamline University is already talking about endowing a Chair in her honor.
And, these students of mass media studies are calling on CSU-LA president to resign for letting Ben speak on Campus. 1984 called, it wants its year back. [ cue REM’s It’s the end of the world… ]
I’ve assumed her next chair would be on “The View.”
I have a liberal arts degree. I know what they teach in those humanities courses. “Everything that’s wrong with the world is the fault of conservatives. It is your duty, as a privileged college student, to defeat them. And here is how you do it: here is a list of NGO’s you can volunteer for, here are the legal aid societies that will give you free legal advice, here is a list of all the university policies that can be used to drive your political opponents off of campus and make them shut the Hell up.”
Fascism is alive and well and drinking latte on a thousand university campuses.
And it has been for almost 40 years now. Even 30 years ago, though, it wasn’t the controlling influence in academe.
The problem is particularly bad in liberal arts where you can “justify” your social signally with papers that at best be laughed at when objectively considered. It’s not good in the hard sciences, but it’s pretty tough as an engineer to get an audience for a paper celebrating reading Native American gay feminist thoughts on loop stability analysis so there’s less ability to signal your virtue that way (and less reward).
Click is pre-qualified to be the Dean of Journalism at most major universities. Now all they have to do is change her name.
Maybe she can catch Prof Kreapy on the rebound and share his heap of rotting trash bags, feces and #deadcats.
It would be a true meeting of the mindless.