A new conservative website is taking aim at professors for supposed liberal abuses in classrooms across the country.
The site, Professor Watchlist, launched Nov. 21 as an initiative of the conservative grassroots organization Turning Point USA. The website’s mission is to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
According to its website, Turning Point USA is a nonprofit that organizes conservative leaders on college and high school campuses nationwide. The organization says its mission is to educate and organize youth leaders to promote free market values.
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote in a blog post that some of America’s professors are out of line, and he frequently hears accounts of professors pushing liberal agendas in the classroom.
“Turning Point USA is saying enough is enough,” Kirk said. “It’s time we expose these professors.”
The website aggregates its material from previous news reports, and though it accepts submissions, all incidents must have appeared previously online or in another publication. The website currently features roughly 200 professors for a range of incidents, from referencing the patriarchal constructs of Christmas in an academic paper to disrupting a campus appearance by alt-right conservative Milo Yiannopoulos.
Despite targeting liberal professors, Turning Point USA asserted that it fights for professors’ right to free speech. However, students and parents should be aware of professors advancing radical agendas in the classroom, the website said.
Physics and astronomy professor Bradley Schaefer is currently the only University professor included on the site. Schaefer was listed for a 2010 incident in which he was accused of mocking conservative students during a lecture on global warming.
The claims were later refuted by both Schaefer and the University. In a post on the University’s Facebook page, administrators said video of Schaefer’s lecture was misrepresentative and selectively edited to cast his lecture in a certain light.
Reactions to the site have varied. A number of academics and organizations, including the American Association of University Professors, have criticized the site for impeding academic freedom.
Others have mocked the site on Twitter by submitting parody reports and publishing them under the hashtag “trollprofwatchlist.” Submissions included Charles Xavier from the “X-Men” film saga and Jesus Christ.
Political science professor James Stoner said the content of the website is less concerning than the presence of partisanship in the classroom as a whole. Targeted websites of this kind often fail to highlight the importance of removing all partisanship from academic speech, he said.
There is a difference between partisans and professors, Stoner said, and professors can’t pursue truth if they’re allowing partisanship to overshadow their teaching. While professors can have partisan views, it’s important that they remain open to diversity of opinion and engage viewpoints contrary to their own, Stoner said.
The mission of a university is to pursue truth through the free exchange of ideas, he said.
“The fundamental aim is to get to the truth about things, and that requires a free exchange of ideas,” Stoner said. “We come toward the truth through dialect, exchange back and forth, recognizing difference and seeking to repute one another.”
Stoner said his main concern is how the website will be used.
Students may reference the website when choosing courses and avoid professors who have views contrary to their own. This poor guidance could deprive students of learning from a good professor, he said.
Avoiding professors based on perceived partisanship is also dangerous because if students avoid contrary viewpoints they may not develop an ability to think critically about partisan issues. Students develop best when their views are challenged and they are forced to think deeply, Stoner said.