Response Essay to Flaherty’s Article “Bigoted Views vs. Bigoted Teaching”

Answer

Response Essay to Flaherty’s Article “Bigoted Views vs. Bigoted Teaching”

Flaherty’s article provides a discussion of the various issues surrounding the actions of Indiana University’s professor; Eric Rasmusen, of positing not only racist but also misogynistic tweets. In specific, the author argues that although the Indiana University condemned the professor for his comments, it argued that words alone as opposed to action could not be used as grounds to fire him. In one of the posts that Rasmusen made in his social media account, he quoted and shared an article published by unz.com titled “Are Women Destroying Academia, Probably.’ Rasmusen’s favorite part in their article was on the aspect that stated that “geniuses are overwhelmingly male” simply because of the outlier IQ coupled with higher levels of low agreeableness as well as moderately low conscientiousness compared to men.

This article discusses the views presented by the critiques of Rasmusen’s social media statements as well as ways those of that Indiana University has relied on to justify its failure to fire him from his post. In specific, according to Flaherty, the justification provided by the university not to fire the professor is that they could not relive him of his duties only based on his posts as a private citizen irrespective of how vile and stupid they are because of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides every person with the freedom of speech.  On the contrary, the University provided that for students who are apprehensive of Rasmusen not giving them a fair grade due to his discriminative posts against women and people of sexual and racial minorities, he (Rasmusen) was going to be using double-blind grading to prevent the professor’s prejudices from affecting his grading of students based on their gender and race.

Based on the various racist and prejudicial statements and posts made by the professor, I think that he should be relieved of his duties as a professor in Indiana University. In specific, I hold the view that although the professor is free to express his views on matters that he had interests in, he should not be allowed to spread his racist and misogynistic views to the learners. In specific, I do not think that it will be good for the professor to be allowed to infect the students with his racist views which might be spread to the rest of the society. Additionally, with such toxic views about the minority in the society, it is not expected that the professor would act impartially and fairly while teaching and even grading students from sexual and racial minority groups.

The protection of the First Amendment rights of the professor should not outweigh the need for Indiana University to protect the rights of the minority groups. The professor had made it clear what he perceives. In specific, he has argued that he sees men as intellectually superior to women and that people from certain races are not intellectual enough to be admitted to some of the elite learning institutions. From the onset, allowing such a person to continue to promote his bigotry views in the learning institution is akin to agreeing with them. The University should act with speed and prevent the professor from turning his words into action and ruining the otherwise good reputation of Indiana university.