Oh stop acting like you’re the only person here who has sex with the lights on for God’s sake.
This is type of argument that puts tenure at jeopardy. In stead or protecting true academic freedom, people are trying to protect the rights of professors to just due obnoxious things because than can. And it gets painted with the same brush as every think else.
Is there anything you think professors should be prohibited from doing in the classroom?
They do not have the right do whatever they damn well please. That is a complete fallacy. They DO have the right to pursue unpopular research, with the understanding that if the results do not stand up to peer-reviewed scrutiny sooner or later they will be called in on the carpet. Not for the content, but for the lack of results.
Am I OK with their research? I have not had a chance to review. Am I OK with their teaching? Would have to check ratemyprofessor.com for some information, since the formal reviews are not generally made public.
Am I OK with the payout that Duke was forced to make? Sure - I don’t know what the true, final result was - but a $100 million cost to Duke no doubt got someone’s attention:
The knee-jerk advertisement was a minor issue, IMHO, when compared to the actions of the DA’s office for example.
Tenure is under threat because a human sexuality professor made an optional, voluntary presentation to adults on the topic of sexual stimulation? That makes sense to you?
It was a damn stupid and hateful thing to do. And you sit here all smug and go “I am ok with their research”. They lead a damn lynch mob against those boys or dont you see that?
Professors need to set an example of civility, restraint, and morals. As I said every damn one of them should have been fired but instead - they either kept or gave them tenure or they got jobs at other colleges which game them tenure.
Professors should not be able to throw students’ papers in the trash out of frustration, which is what I would be tempted to do if I had to grade yours. Good grief.
Hell if proffs had their way they would get long sabbaticals so they can have long vacations (oops, I mean study) in some foreign country, they would never have to teach undergrads or grade an exam, they would get a big fancy office, they would have impunity to make fun of or kick out any student who disagrees with them, and as the Gang of 88 showed, they can incite violence and lead lynch mobs against anyone they damn well please without repercussions.
Basically they want tenure so they can be untouchable, get any damn thing they want, and answer to nobody.
Your inability to read or reason perhaps is a hint about your issue with tenure.
I said that I have no statement about the quality of their research - which is the primary measurement for tenure. That was not a smug statement, it was a statement that I am not qualified to judge their scholarship. You misquoted me, changing the order of my text to make it appear that I said something that I did not.
Their advertisement was one part of Duke’s settlement I would assume. Again though, it was the actions of the DA’s office that triggered that entire episode. This was a witch-hunt plain and simple, with far too many people jumping in on it.
Just to add something a bit more analytical, the piece below is from a faculty member who is a a fairly conservative economist about why tenure is needed and a fair trade-off between the employer and the employee:
It should. Why shouldnt something which is clearly wrong and stupid to do play a role in their evaluation when clearly their actions caused pain and suffering to the students and a bad name to the whole college? One signer even failed 2 of the students in her class.
BTW, you mention “research”. Well why didnt those 88 do any damn “research” on the case before signing their names and going along with this witch hunt? To me signing their names shows just how bad of “researchers” they are.
A donor is free to put his tax-deductible donations wherever he wants, right? If he’s stupid enough to give it to a university that does research he objects to, it’s hardly the university’s fault. You wouldn’t expect General Motors to cave in to an investor who complains that his money is contributing to air pollution. I assume you’d tell him to take his money elsewhere. Why would you give a university donor a pass on stupidity?
The proper analogy would be the state forcing the janitor to work in a way that prevented him from cleaning the office. Not only would the janitor likely quit in frustration, the university would also then have trouble finding good janitors.
That has been pointed out multiple times to be a fallacy, yet you keep repeating it like a talking doll.
That would be Kim Curtis. She now works in Arizona. Looking at her “Rate my Professors” page she has been known to abuse her classroom authority and to put her personal and ideological agendas ahead of the well-being of her own students.
Some comments:
"Exceedingly narrow within her own political situatedness, which, as others have observed, is quite to the left. She took my head off several times although my politics largely line up with her own. I smell a faint hint of man-hater on her. "
“Prof. Curtis does not possess enough emotional distance from her subject matter to teach it properly. She punishes students who disagree with her views and fails to offer a constructive environment. She should not be allowed to teach classes at any university, since she is a propagandist, not a professor.”
Now this comment is interesting:
“preaches all the discredited leftist ideals. openly grades on student’s looks and political position. disregards “inconvenient truths” that dismantle her arguments.** just regurgitate what she says in class and you’ll pass.** typical leftist professor - bitter, used up, incapable of independent thought”
EVERY college has these professors.
This is what I learned in college - pretend to go along with Profesor FullofShit and they will give you a good grade.
Well maybe but then she still is working in higher education and there were 87 others who nothing was done to them and have since gone on to get tenure. Curtis only got in trouble for flunking an accused student which lead to a lawsuit.
But getting back to the OP, I still say tenure laws protect too many asshole proffs. While I know the proffs on this board have a right to be angry at Governor Walker, they also need to get angry at their own kind for the Kim Curtis’s, the Gang of 88, and the professor Fu**saw’s in their midst. Quit shoving leftist and politically correct propaganda onto your students, dont get drawn into issues until police have done their jobs, try being open minded, do legitimate research, treat students with respect, give grades impartially, and support free speech.