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Opinion: When adjuncts attack: GOP paranoia on display in ECSU professor flap

Republicans, meet the face of everything that scares you: an adjunct professor in a public university classroom giving an unfocused, rambling speech about how awful you are.

Recently a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University named Brent Terry decided to inform his creative writing class that Republicans would “close colleges” if they took over the Senate in the upcoming election, that Republicans were all a lot of rich jerks, and that “…there are a lot of people out there that do not want black people to vote, do not want Latinos to vote. Do not want old people to vote, or young people to vote. Because generally, people like you are liberal.” It goes on from there. A student recorded the rant, and a conservative website called Campus Reform picked it up.
Republicans were quick to denounce Terry. “I find it offensive as a Republican, as a parent, and frankly as a citizen of the state of Connecticut that we would have in our public universities a professor who would make such a comment,” said House Minority Leader Larry Cafero. GOP state chair Jerry Labriola Jr. said that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy should investigate this “clear abuse of a taxpayer-funded position,” and called Terry’s remarks “indoctrination.” John Rowland would doubtless have spent several days talking about it—if he still had a radio show.

So let’s unpack all of this.

Susan Bigelow is an award-winning columnist and the founder of CTLocalPolitics. She lives in Enfield with her wife and their cats.

See the complete story at CT News Junkie.

 

Comments

3 responses to “Opinion: When adjuncts attack: GOP paranoia on display in ECSU professor flap”

  1. anonymous

    Bigelow says the ECSU professor was wrong and that higher ed by some view as ‘the academy is a bastion of liberalism that stifles conservative opinions. I’ve worked in education for my entire adult life and there is something to that…’ and then she questions why local leaders called foul when a tape of such silly partisan, bigoted rant, paid for by public dollars, goes public from a Student in the class.. what?

    The overwhelming availability of 24/7 audio/video within and behind the walls of academia, recorded by students for any number of reasons, will do much to keep higher ed as institutions of learning and independent thought, as they should be, and not institutions of indoctrination.

  2. Casey Smith

    It’s sad to see such petty politics especially from a university professor who, one would hope, would actually believe in the free expression and exchange of ideas.

  3. Missy Conrad

    I am sorry that that professor gave into the frustration that many of us feel & gave a diatribe against Republicans. We have just shown at our Friends/Quakers Meeting House a film by the economist Robert Reich, “Inequality for All,” one of whose points was that the University of California was originally free for in-state students. Then, in the 1960’s, tuition was $700 for them. Now it is $15,000.
    Those who want to cut government spending, except for the military & spy agencies, have made these allocations.

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