An Iowa State University English professor reportedly threatened to dismiss students from her fall class if they oppose abortion or the Black Lives Matter movement.
“GIANT WARNING: any instances of othering that you participate in intentionally (racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, sorophobia, transphobia, classism, mocking of mental health issues, body shaming, etc) in class are grounds for dismissal from the classroom. The same goes for any papers/projects: you cannot choose any topic that takes at its base that one side doesn’t deserve the same basic human rights as you do (ie: no arguments against gay marriage, abortion, Black Lives Matter, etc). I take this seriously,” professor Chloe Clark wrote in her fall syllabus, which was obtained by the Young America’s Foundation through an anonymous source.
Clark graduated from Iowa State in 2016 and now teaches in the school’s English department, according to the Young America’s Foundation.
“This is just the latest instance of leftists corrupting the practice of higher education YAF has exposed. Warning students that any opinion the professor may disagree with could be grounds for dismissal from the classroom is a gross abuse of power,” the report stated.
Universities across the country have developed plans in recent months to address racism and inequality following the death of George Floyd and the resulting protests and riots.
Earlier this summer, Rutgers University’s English department announced that it would alter its grammar standards to “stand with and respond” to the Black Lives Matter movement.
“This approach challenges the familiar dogma that writing instruction should limit emphasis on grammar [and] sentence-level issues so as to not put students from multilingual, nonstandard, ‘academic’ English backgrounds at a disadvantage,” Department Chairwoman Rebecca Walkowitz said in July. “Instead, it encourages students to develop a critical awareness of the variety of choices available to them [with] regard to micro-level issues in order to empower them and equip them to push against biases based on ‘written’ accents.”
