The situation in Maine of an anti-gun professor attacking a student for her pro-gun views, essentially calling her a hypocrite because she'd previously talked about being a Christian, is insane. It never should have happened, and I can't help but wonder how many times she'd done something similar previously, only for it to remain out of the news.
Yes, I talked about this before, including the fact that the professor isn't teaching the class going forward.
It turns out that part of the reason we likely know this may be that the student in question's mother is the president of Gun Owners of Maine, meaning there were people around who knew not just how wrong the professor's actions were, but how to get the word out about it.
Lawmakers in Maine have demanded disciplinary action for the professor, according to The College Fix.
State legislators in Maine share her concern. Forty-eight Republicans in the Maine House signed a letter calling for Lewandowski’s termination. They argue she allegedly made inappropriate comments, attempted to intimidate and silence students, and mocked a student’s Christian faith.
That certainly seems appropriate to me.
However, not everyone agrees.
Graham Piro, lead counsel for faculty legal defense at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said the professor’s actions are a “pretty extreme situation.”
Outlining the case, Piro said “the student completed the assignment within the parameters set by the faculty member, and then the faculty member turned around and said ‘I disagree with the topic you chose based on the viewpoint you’re taking.’”
Even though “faculty have a significant amount of leeway over the control of their classroom,” the professor’s refusal and attack on Parker “raise serious questions,” he said.
Piro cautioned against the calls for termination, saying “lawmakers should be very wary when they are making statements calling for disciplinary action.”
...
“It is not … the responsibility of professors to shield their students from upsetting materials, but to give them the critical thinking skills and ability to encounter that material,” Piro said. “That is part of the objectives of a college classroom.”
Now, I don't disagree with Piro on that last part, nor the opening statements in his quoted portion. Professors shouldn't be shielding people from upsetting material--which is why I absolutely loathe "trigger warnings" in classrooms, particularly for things that some students just won't like, versus stuff that involves actual trauma--and this is a pretty extreme situation.
Yet the disciplinary action isn't because the professor failed to shield a student from a contrary point of view. It's not because the professor had a contrary point of view, either.
This was in response to an assignment, which Piro acknowledges was completed and met the parameters of the assignment, which amounted to a personal attack on pretty much everything the student said and believed, including bringing up past assignments in order to belittle her Christian faith.
This isn't an academic freedom issue, but a behavioral issue. What happened was uncalled for. It was a personal, targeted attack by a professor on a student. It attacked her political views and her faith, and did so in a situation where there was an unbalanced power dynamic, where Parker, the student, may well have felt she had no alternative but to accept such treatment or risk a failing grade or some other form of retribution.
What Lewandowski did was out of line for any teacher, regardless of their opinions. This wasn't some socratic method of teaching, after all. This wasn't questioning her position and asking why the seeming contradiction existed. This was straight out blasting her for daring to have a different opinion.
That is wrong, and that is why people are outraged.
FIRE tends to defend academic freedom, as it should.
This is the wrong hill for them to die on.
Editor's Note: It seems to me the real issue is that Professor Lewandowski is the one who wants to be shielded from "upsetting materials", which makes her unable to do her job in an effective manner. I'm all in favor of academic freedom, even if it goes against my own beliefs, but if Lewandowski can't be objective enough to grade a paper if she disagrees with the argument presented I don't think she belongs in the classroom... at least a professor.
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