Conservative professors have a tough time just existing on campus, but liberal professors who make anti-Republican remarks receive pay raises, The College Fix reported.
On the first day of classes for fall 2013, Professor William Penn at Michigan State University claimed Republicans “raped” the country, bashed the Romneys, and bullied a student who disagreed with him.
“If you go to the Republican convention in Florida, you see all of the old Republicans with the dead skin cells washing off them. They are cheap. They don’t want to pay taxes because they have already raped this country and gotten everything out of it they possibly could,” Penn told his creative writing class.
The video sent to Campus Reform went viral and the university responded they would “be looking into” the situation. Penn admitted “some of his comments were inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive and may have negatively affected the learning environment.”
He was placed on paid leave.
Penn returned to the classroom the following semester. According to Michigan Capitol Confidential, his salary increased from $145,800 in 2011-2012 to $152,310 by 2015.
There was no answer if his raises were for cost-of-living adjustments or merit-based, which are given to “build academic competitiveness at the college level.”
University of Michigan Professor Susan Douglas wrote an op-ed for In These Times, “We Can’t All Just Get Along.” According to an editor’s note, Douglas opposed the title “It’s Okay to Hate Republicans,” despite “I hate Republicans” being the first sentence.
Her op-ed referred to Republicans as “legions of blowhards” and said the party hates certain groups of people.
“Obviously, my tendency is to blame the Republicans more than the Democrats, which may seem biased. But history and psychological research bear me out,” she wrote.
Douglas was not reprimanded. University spokesman Rick Fitzgerald said that Douglas’ views were her own and not the university’s. “Faculty freedom of expression, including in the public sphere, is one of the core values of our institution,” he said.
After making $186,000 for 2014-2015, Douglas made $190,650 the following year. At the university, “meritorious performance is the most important consideration in recommending individual increases.”
Conservative professors are not so lucky. In certain fields they barely exist at all, despite how they could benefit the social sciences, according to Passing on the Right by Professors Joshua Dunn and Jon Shields. Conservative professors have a tougher time obtaining tenure and promotion; most tend to keep their heads down or risk punishment.
Professor John McAdams of Marquette University was suspended for his blog post which defended a student’s stance on traditional marriage and called out a graduate TA. McAdams has sued the university.
