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A professor is forced to resign after making a racist remark: Is he more likely right-wing or left-wing?

"A political science professor at Murray State University has resigned after telling an African American student that she didn't show up early to class because slaves were always late."

I see that the first commenter there says: "Another asshole, undoubtedly a Republican/TeaPartier."

My guess is exactly the opposite. What would possess a professor to say something like that? From my long experience with  professors, I think it is the left-wing professors who: 1. Feel confident in their own goodness on racial issues, 2. Analyze events in terms of race, 3. Think up "critical theory"-type explanations that explore ideas about racial difference, 4. Imagine that it's clever to express these ideas out loud, and 5. Are capable of making the mistake of thinking that the students will know that they are good people who do racial critique that is supposed to be understood as an attack on white people.

A "Republican/TeaPartier" is much more likely to be strongly committed to color-blindness. Ironically, that's something that, in academic circles, can quite easily get you called a racist. (Try asking a lefty lawprof about Chief Justice Roberts's statement that "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.")

Anyway, the professor in this incident is named Mark Wattier. The school is Murray State University. I haven't checked into what his actual political propensities are or what he really had in mind when he said whatever he said that is being reported the way you see it in the linked article. My motivation to write this post was the commenter's reflexive assumption that Wattier displayed right-wing ideology. That is absurd.


I noticed that story because John McWhorter and Glenn Loury are talking about it on Bloggingheads. Their discussion centers on whether the student is "lowering" herself by requesting an apology.

Full post as published by Althouse on February 22, 2011 (boomark / email).