Daily Archives: June 12, 2017

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Last month, I gave my Intro to Journalism class a lecture on free speech. We talked about our rights, power, and responsibilities as members of a free and independent press. The lecture ended with a lively discussion, but the part that sparked the most engagement involved the term political correctness.

The class came to define it as engaging in discourse in a way to minimize pushback or controversy. It was the best way of fitting in with certain politics. When I asked what type of politics a politically correct person usually has, the class pretty much unanimously answered liberal. But my follow-up question threw a wrench in their assumptions.

What is something conservatives are politically correct about?

Crickets.

After moments of silence, one student answered that maybe a PC thing on the right would be on the topic of abortion. He mentioned conservative media darling Tomi Lahren getting suspended from The Blaze for her pro-choice comments. I asked the other students whether they considered that an example of political correctness on the right, but their replies were generally more in the realm of umI guess. I could see some were having light-bulb moments, but other students were still struggling to reconcile an idea they found logical yet did not feel to be true.

Why do we act as if President Trumps accusations of fake news arent just PC ways of attacking news outlet that give him any modicum of negative press?

If my students (most of whom are generally progressive) understand that people can have diverse politics, why was it difficult for them to conceive that non-liberals can be PC as well?

ICYMI:Headlines editors probably wish they could take back

The blame could be placed in large part on conservative media for using the term as a go-to attack on the left. But looking deeper, the mainstream news media as a whole bears some responsibility, mainly as more left-leaning publications took on a greater burden of balance than their right-leaning counterparts. For example, as reporters and commentators debate whether avoiding the terms radical Islamic terrorism or illegal immigrants is politically correct, many within the mainstream media have tacitly accepted the rebranding of white supremacists and white nationalists as alt-right.

But who is acting out of political correctness is this case? The left out of a fear of alienating certain audiences by calling out racism, or the right and its instinct to deflect any accusation that the bigotry on its fringes is moving toward the center? The prevailing idea is that political correctness comes from the left, but it can come from the right as well.

Why was there bipartisan condemnation of comedian Kathy Griffins picture with a bloody Trump head, but no such furor when folks lynched and burned effigies of President Obama?

Upon Trumps election, why did pundits ruminate over the lefts identity politics, as if being white or working class is not an identity? Why is there a continued debate over the use of the phrase radical Islamic terrorism while white male extremism is seldom used? Why was it okay to debate whether former president Barack Obama was a secret Muslim but not whether our current president, who mispronounces books in the Bible and appears to not know that Protestants are Christians, is truly a man of faith?

Why are generally liberal, centrist, or apolitical news outlets scrambling to hire the Megyn Kellys of the news world, though Fox News isnt exactly shopping for a Joy Ann Reid? Why was there bipartisan condemnation of comedian Kathy Griffins picture with a bloody Trump head, but no such furor when folks lynched and burned effigies of President Obama? Shouldnt the same people defending Bill Mahers racist joke defend Stephen Colberts homophobic satire of President Trump? Why do free speech absolutists scurry out of the woodwork to defend Milo Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, and Ann Coulter, but not Linda Sarsour, George Ciccariello-Maher, or Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor? Have we made up our mind on whose opposing views are okay for college students to hear?

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Why do we act as if President Trumps accusations of fake news arent just PC ways of attacking news outlets that give him any modicum of negative press? And when the media do call out his dishonesty, why dont they get a pat on the back for telling it like it is? Why didnt conservative media call out the presidents political correctness when he didnt say radical Islamic terrorism during his summit address to the Arab and Muslim world? If a free and independent press is paramount within our democratic society, why isnt all media up in arms about the GOPs anti-media strategy for 2018?

You will get different answers to these questions from different people, but that is precisely the point. Each persons answers are informed by their own ideas, experiences, and viewpoints. Their answers will either be PC or telling it like it is, depending on the politics the speaker subscribes to.

The problem with the discussion on political correctness is that it accuses liberals and progressives of doing something that people of all political leanings do. Groups tend to mediate which politics are acceptable within the group, so if liberals can have political correctness, conservatives can as well. If its the issue many assert it is, then it cant exist in isolation. So who decides that one view is PC and another is forthright?

As long as the mainstream media surrenders the right to define and frame specific issues and not others, it enables the weaponization of language, and allows right-wing politics to directly and indirectly set the terms for what discourse is legitimate. And it makes journalists complicit in promoting a glaring double standard when it comes to issues of free speech.

The PC-charge does seems to be losing at least some of its potency. Many news outlets have been more open about calling things as they see them, such as President Trumps lies, or his supporters willingness to defend virtually anything he does. But the lure of wanting to appeal to the anti-PC crowd persists. As more liberal journalists fight against the idea of liberalism as feelings over facts, a whole news industry on the right fueled grievances, fears, attacks, and false equivalencies. Its also why outlets like MSNBC can have scholars and activists on to explain why black-on-black crime is a racist term, and also get political commentary from former reporters of Breitbart, a site with tags dedicated to black crime and black-on-black violence. If this is the type of balance news outlets need to have, then the burden should be equally distributed, not just for the liberal media.

Shouldnt the same people defending Bill Mahers racist joke defend Stephen Colberts homophobic satire of President Trump?

There are few things more political than language, so a critical-thinking press should not allow itself to be exploited in political arguments. Journalists have too often allowed the accusation of political correctness to skew the way they think about and cover topics. If the press is going to engage in this type of discourse, it either needs to be critical of both sides along the political spectrum for being PC, or it needs to eliminate the term from its lexicon.

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Time for equal media treatment of 'political correctness' - Columbia Journalism Review

Political correctness has been taken too far

Dynamite the Washington Monument. Bulldoze the Jefferson Memorial. Anything named for these slave-holding traitors in the eyes of the British in the 1700s should be erased immediately!

This is the obvious next step in the opinions of recent letter writers advocating removal of more Confederate monuments and statues. Does political correctness make them feel better about themselves or are they merely liberal lemmings?

History is primarily written by victors, but cherry-picking chapters of our nations saga to make a point is beyond mindless. The Stars and Stripes is our flag, one writer stated. Some Founding Fathers had slaves. Since our national banner waved over most of them in some form, I guess we need a new flag, too, huh?

These folks should get busy renaming the myriad streets, buildings, schools, towns, counties and other entities across the South that honor Confederate heroes. That deed done, they can focus on cleansing some U.S. military installations and Navy vessels of these despicable Americans names. Every town with a Confederate monument on the courthouse lawn better hire a wrecking ball. Where does this insanity end?

As a proud South Carolinian living in Buffalo for nearly two decades, Id never condone the Confederacys role in slavery. But to ignore Americas overall complicity in this shameful practice is gross ignorance and denial at its worst. And if Southern pride and heritage are garbage, as one local stated, I suggest he get over it, to put it very mildly. Let the labeling begin.

Derek Smith

Williamsville

Original post:

Letter: Political correctness has been taken too far - Buffalo News

The war of words between LSU and a former tenured education professor fired by the university in 2015 is heating up in Baton Rouge federal court as a judge considers a civil rights lawsuit filed against the school.

Teresa Buchanan claims she was fired for using vulgar language, saying her free speech and due process rights were trampled by LSU Chancellor F. King Alexander and other top administrators, and she wants monetary damages and her old job back. She worked for LSU for nearly two decades.

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A former tenured LSU education professor fired last year for, among other things, using vulg

"This is a case of political correctness run amok," Buchanan's attorneys argue in a recent court filing. "The defendants at LSU fired Dr. Teresa Buchanan ... for 'sexual harassment' based on speech having nothing to do with either 'sex' or 'harassment.'"

LSU contends its termination of Buchanan was appropriate and necessary to protect students from her verbally abusive behavior.

"This case is not about salty language; students and others observed aggressive and bullying behavior by (Buchanan) in the classroom," attorneys for Alexander, Damon Andrew, A.G. Monaco and Gaston Reinoso argue. "(Buchanan) cannot hide behind the shield of academic freedom while creating a hostile learning environment for the students she was hired to teach."

Andrew is dean of LSU's College of Human Sciences and Education. Monaco is associate vice chancellor of the Office of Human Resource Management, and Reinoso is director of the Human Resource Management office.

Robert Corn-Revere, one of Buchanan's attorneys, declined Thursday to elaborate on the court documents filed on her behalf and instead said he would let those filings "do the talking for us for now." The attorneys for Alexander and his colleagues did not respond to a request for comment.

Buchanan, who specialized in early childhood education and trained elementary school teachers, alleges in her January 2016 lawsuit that her "occasional use of profanity" was part of her teaching approach and "was not directed at nor did it disparage any student."

LSU has said Buchanan was fired in June 2015 for "documented evidence of a history of inappropriate behavior that included verbal abuse, intimidation and harassment of our students."

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Attorneys for LSU Chancellor F. King Alexander and other university administrators are askin

A five-member faculty had recommended that Buchanan not lose her job, but the LSU Board of Supervisors unanimously agreed to fire her.

The American Association of University Professors came to Buchanan's aid shortly after her termination, criticizing her firing and pledging money to assist her legal defense.

In addition, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a group that advocates for free speech on college campuses, put LSU on its list of worst offenders early last year. The university was featured on the list largely due to Buchanan's termination.

A group that advocates for free speech on college campuses has named LSU to its list of wors

Buchanan's controversial comments included saying "f*** no" repeatedly in the presence of students, using a slang term for vagina that implies cowardice, and telling a joke that the quality of sex gets worse the longer a relationship lasts.

Buchanan has said she's proud of the job she did at LSU and doesn't regret anything she did.

In recent court filings, Special Assistant Attorneys General Sheri Morris and Carlton "Trey" Jones III, the lawyers representing Alexander and his colleagues, say Buchanan's conduct clearly violated LSU's sexual harassment policies, which mirror a blueprint for campus anti-harassment policies promulgated by the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice.

But Buchanan's attorneys claim LSU's sexual harassment policies are "defective" and unconstitutional, and that her firing also was unconstitutional.

"It's absurd for (Buchanan) to claim that defendants' recommendations to enforce policies consistent with federal guidelines are unreasonable," Morris and Jones argue.

Buchanan's attorneys, however, insist that the speech for which she was fired "falls squarely within the First Amendment's protections.

"The First Amendment ... does not permit university officials to equate offendedness with harassment," they argue.

But LSU's attorneys disagree that Buchanan's "embarrassing, humiliating and intimidating speech" toward a captive audience of classroom students was a valid part of her teaching approach.

U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick, who is presiding over the case, has not ruled or scheduled a hearing on LSU's and Buchanan's dueling motions for summary judgment, which ask the judge to rule in their respective favors.

Follow Joe Gyan Jr. on Twitter, @JoeGyanJr.

See more here:

Ex-LSU prof: firing "political correctness run amok"; LSU: she created "hostile learning environment" - The Advocate

A Facebook post by a Republican congressman on the growth of Islam in Europe has drawn condemnation from the Council on American-Islamic Relations among others but the lawmaker, after deleting the post, did not apologize.

U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina last week posted an image of a white-masked man (Europe) with a noose around his neck holding a watering can above a small tree (Islam) to which the other end of rope is attached. The takeaway being that one day Islam will grow tall enough to hang Europe.

Chew on this picture a little, Duncan wrote in his Facebook message. The tree, IMHO, is much taller today..

Indivisibles chapter in the 3rd Congressional District which Duncan represents posted a screenshot of the Facebook post after 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, the Post and Courier reported. Indivisible is a national organization against Republican President Donald Trumps administration, the paper said.

The Indivisible chapter on Twitter called the image a white supremacist meme, the Post and Courier said.

Bakari Sellers a CNN contributor who served in South Carolinas legislature as a Democrat tweeted, Jeff I know youre not racist. Lets put that to the side. But this is bigoted, ignorant and embarrassing.

While the Post and Courier said Duncan deleted his Facebook post hours before Sellers called him out, the paper characterized Duncan as bullish about the whole thing in his statement Wednesday.

Ive never been politically correct, nor do I care to be, Duncan told the Post and Courier. The truth is that Europe has allowed radical Islam to grow unchecked for too long, which has led to their current predicament. I want to keep America safe. Sometimes that means having to shove political correctness aside, being honest about the threats facing our country, and taking precautions like the ones President Trump has tried to implement.

The Post and Courier said Duncan didnt address why he deleted his Facebook post.

A Duncan spokesman told the paper that the congressman figured the media would probably choose to sensationalize something this trivial, instead of engaging in an actual dialog about how to keep America safe, which has always been his goal.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nations largest Islamic advocacy group, on Thursday called on Congress to rebuke Duncan.

Rep. Duncans clearly racist and Islamophobic message is unworthy of a member of the United States Congress and he should be rebuked by his colleagues of all political stripes, CAIR government affairs director Robert McCaw said, according to WYFF-TV.

Duncan supports Trumps proposed travel restrictions to the U.S. from some Muslim-majority countries, the Post and Courier said, adding that Duncan introduced the Terrorist Deportation Act, which would deport any non-citizen whose name appears on a terrorist watch list.

The United Kingdom has suffered from 3 Islamic terrorist attacks in the past 3 months, and has prevented an additional 5 from taking place. For the past several years, I have called for us to put political correctness aside and do what is right for the country to keep our citizens safe, Duncan wrote on his Facebook page June 4, the day after the deadly London Bridge terror attack, for which the Islamic State has claimed responsibility.

Duncan continued, Our borders and broken immigration system are the soft underbelly of our country. We must take the necessary and appropriate precautions to prevent the war against radical Islam from spreading to our shores. To my colleagues who have obsessed over a warped notion of political correctness, I ask that you put politics aside and do what is right for the national security of the United States.

This story has been updated.

See the rest here:

Islam post by GOP congressman blasted by critics. He replies, 'I've ... - TheBlaze.com

Only months ago the world noted the passing of a great astronomer. Dr. Vera Rubin was an esteemed scientist. For the millions who were apprised of her death last December she was touted as the supposed "discoverer of dark matter," the strange mass that were told constitutes by far the real stuff of the cosmos. Vera Rubin didnt discover "dark matter" though; no one has. It is unknown if it even exists or not. She herself repeatedly corrected those who seemed determined to anoint her as its discoverer, refusing to acquiesce to the knee-jerk inclination to consider "settled" yet another dispute in science, and holding firm to something else the scientific method.

What she did uncover doesnt require exaggerations that actually demean her work by misconstruing it. Indeed, her achievement is more than sufficient to stand on its own with other monumental findings of the great titans of science.

Dr. Rubin found that the Andromeda Galaxy is spinning too quickly. She is the astronomer who discovered that the periphery of that galaxy is revolving at such an accelerated velocity that it should be rending the galaxy asunder, flinging the outlying stellar systems into the void. Andromeda doesnt possess sufficient mass to account for the gravitational power that is somehow managing to hold the galaxy together.

In effect, she has caused science to wonder if Newtonian physics and the whole of classical celestial mechanics might be in error in some way that, or else some very important, unknown nuances must be currently beyond our understanding at this point. As it turns out, all galaxies are rotating too quickly based on their masses.

It was left to others to try to explain what Vera Rubin had discovered, the invention of others that a halo of "dark matter" must envelope galaxies so as to make sense of their dizzying rotational velocities. Dr. Rubin had little to do with that. When she was asked if "dark matter" was at the heart of solving her enigma she answered as any reasonable scientist would who had no verifiable proof, "If I had my pick, Id like to learn that Newtons laws must be modified in order to correctly describe gravitational interactions at large distance. Thats more appealing than a universe filled with a new kind of sub-nuclear particle."

Heeding Dr. Rubins own words though might require decades of careful study and observation, so its hardly surprising that those who demand that science get to the point and be done with it brush off such silly conservatism and simply stamp this whole matter "case closed."

Such impatience with the truth though produces a society in which an obituary for a great woman becomes just another public speech to praise someone, one imprecise rather than adhering to fact. So its fair to ask what would impel those to insert "dark matter" into Vera Rubins mouth, especially now that she cant speak for herself.

Politics certainly might, especially the kind running amok in a balkanized nation obsessed with identity politics. Dr. Rubins gender might actually have worked against her in this instance, giving rise to the unnecessary and patronizing aggrandizement. Activists, obsessed with ferreting out victims everywhere, cant imagine a more bountiful hunting ground than the unfair, iniquitous, male-dominated scientific community. And, its not beyond them to put politicking and crusading above the lifetime of work and stellar accomplishments of those same great female scientists whom they supposedly champion.

Then again, this might just be yet another example of what happens when one of the forces most dangerous to science political dogma masquerades as its cheerleader. It is those insisting they are "with science" who comprise the segment of society most likely to assume the term "alpha constant"to be the name of a rock band their understanding of physics and chemistry are slightly more sophisticated than the comprehension of a cargo cult.

Since flipping a switch and having light appear seems like magic to those neophytes who have never struggled with circuits or Maxwells equations, it is hardly surprising they think science can, should and does solve everything and right now. The idea that we simply arent sure about dark matter could seem impossible and outrageous to them, since it implies "unsettled" science.

Our world viewed from the perspective of those who despise the rigor of the scientific method is a bizarre, meta-Orwellian place, afflicting society with more than just blundering obituaries, but with such psychoses as the recently published thesis on "intersectional quantum physics to fight the oppression of Newton."

This lunacy wasnt broadcast on Comedy Central, but was instead printed in the Minnesota Review.

Science has no gender, nor race, nor political affiliation. And, science can never be settled; it only pauses, and then moves forward again.

David Nabhan is a science writer, the author of "Earthquake Prediction: Dawn of the New Seismology" (2017) and three previous books on earthquakes. Nabhan is also a science fiction writer ("Pilots of Borealis," 2015) and the author of many scores of newspaper and magazine op-eds. Nabhan has been featured on television and talk radio all over the world. His website is http://www.earthquakepredictors.com. To read more of his reports Click Here Now.

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Excerpt from:

Political Correctness Won't Change Ever-Changing Science - Newsmax