"Handout Hysteria"

There is a debate raging at Inside Higher Ed (‘Handout Hysteria’ or Insensitivity?) over the academic witch hunt involving a professor who included an (optional) article on the Zebra Killings in his reading list.

Apparently, his dean also instructed the TAs that they need not complete the semester with the professor under attack. All because of an article:

Jonathan Bean is a popular professor at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale — even though his libertarian politics don’t always coincide with his students’ views. A historian, he was just named Teacher of the Year in the College of Liberal Arts.

But in the last two weeks, he has found himself under attack in his department — with many of his history colleagues questioning his judgment for distributing an optional handout about the “Zebra Killings,” a series of murders of white people in San Francisco in the 1970s. His dean also told his teaching assistants that they didn’t need to finish up the semester working with him, and she called off discussion sections of his course for a week so TA’s would not have to work while considering their options.

The comments are particularly interesting since they give insight into the cravenness of some of the professors.

I also like the new (or perhaps not so new) definition of "racism" given by one poster:

One of the things that must be understood is that old-fashioned racism no longer exists in the USA. Instead, you have attacks on affirmative action, street crime, illegitimate children, etc. If one cannot grasp this dimension, then one will not understand the nature of racism in this country today.

This is fascinating. Opposing so-called "affirmative action" (a code word for racial discrimination) and being against street crime of all things is "racism" in the mind of these leftist hallucinating ideologues. In other words, deviating from leftist dogma is "racism".

What's next?

Perhaps voicing concern over the yawning racial academic achievement gap is also "racist".