Because my English professors at Yale are largely liberal, the political message in my classes is always the same: Trump is a demagogue, American society is doomed, and English literature is our refuge. The liberal domination of the classroom is one problem, but even if the Academy reached political equilibrium, the imposition of politics into everything we read would still remain an issue. The real victim of Trump’s presidency may turn out to be a generation of adults whose liberal arts educations were hijacked by political debate.
Excerpted from Heterodox Academy by a center-left student who voted for Hillary and dislikes Trump.
From Heterodox Academy:
“Professors who comment on white racism and white supremacy are likely to have their statements misrepresented on sites like Campus Reform and The Daily Caller, writes sociologist Matthew Hughey, and these misrepresentations elicit harassment, intimidation, and violent threats.”
Weasel words. What does “elicit” criminal violence mean? Is it illegal? I thought Heterodox Academy stood against the SJW campaign against freedom of speech which slyly implies opinions cause violence.
Not really sure why this is a phenomenon of “Trump’s presidency.” Perhaps as an undergraduate the writer is too young to remember any features of the political, cultural or academic landscape pre-dating January 20, 2017. As someone whose undergraduate years occurred in the early 1980s, I can assure him that the politicization of all culture–literature included–within the Academy was already well under way. I knew many many students whose bylines read, in effect, “a center-left student who dislikes Reagan.”