Left Wing Hate Speech Against Mitchell Langbert's Blog III: My Courses Fill at a Faster Rate Than in Prior Years

Within the past two months, a small-but-vocal group of radical students have engaged in hate speech.  Supported by a small-but-vocal group of left-wing alumni and the fake-news media, they have called for my sacking from my teaching job at Brooklyn College.  The calls for my sacking received a moral salute from the college president and provost, who sent around emails (carefully omitting mention of my name) condemning my eminently valid claim that the Kavanaugh investigation was baloney.   

A petition to fire me for disagreeing with and offending the Democratic Party bosses--who decide on the college budget--was posted on  the Action Network.  To date, more than a month after the news stories subsided, 447 students and professors have signed the petition.   

The total enrollment at Brooklyn College is 17,803, and the total number of full-time and part-time faculty is 1,480, so about  (447/18,250) or 2.5% of the active Brooklyn College community have signed, a proportion statistically not all that much greater than zero.  If you add the alumni, of whom there are at least 300,000, the proportion is minuscule. If you add the entire population of left-wing extremists in New York (the petition was not limited to those associated with CUNY), the proportion is smaller still. 

Yesterday, a student in one of my classes sent me this email: 

It's [name omitted], hope all is well.

What are my chances of getting into one of your online wait[-]listed classes for Spring 2019? [O]r do they generally stay full?

I would be willing to try online considering I'm familiar with who you are.

Let me know.

Thank you,

Usually, my classes reach wait-list status around Christmas, so the publicity has been of little concern to the majority of students who take my classes. In fact, my classes have filled earlier rather than later than usual.  Perhaps the vast majority of students at Brooklyn College simply do not care about the left-wing president's and provost's emails, the small-but-vocal group of left-wing demonstrators, or the left-wing, fake-news publicity.  Perhaps more students agree with me than disagree with me.

Neither the fringe students and professors who demonstrated against me nor  the media, administrators, and professors who supported them were interested in putting the sacking demands into perspective.  This contrasts with earlier free-speech controversies at Brooklyn College in which left-wing speech was called into question.  Then, the administration and media emphasized freedom of speech and the First Amendment.  These included a controversy about a speaker from BDS and a controversy about students who entered a faculty council meeting and made anti-Semitic remarks.  

The students who wrote pieces about me in the student newspapers likely represent the the more articulate among the demonstrators.   The chief rationale that they present in their opinion pieces calling for my sacking is that they disagree with me and do not believe that people with whom they disagree should be allowed to teach at Brooklyn College. Their logic does not extend much further.

For example, Assibi Ali complains that "Langbert had the outlandish idea to pen a satirical piece that proudly and openly supports Brett Kavanaugh, whose hearing he claimed to be a 'travesty.'" Ali contends, "What students would feel comfortable reaching out to a rape apologist? A man who empathizes with Kavanaugh because of the “defamation that he has suffered at the hands of the media…” 

In other words, according to Ali, the 38% of Americans who supported Kavanaugh's appointment (according to left-biased Time Magazine) should not be permitted to teach at Brooklyn College. As well, Ali didn't bother to check how many students I have taught (likely in the area of 5,000) and how many have complained about not being able to reach out (none).  Perhaps Ali's prejudices have been learned at the college because, according to my own data, conservatives have been consistently excluded from teaching posts by the same left-McCarthyite faculties who have trained Ali.

Another student, Kevin Limiti, claims that my blog is a threat to safety.   In contrast, Limiti is unconcerned by the violent threats I received from his classmates or the five campus police officers whom the administration saw fit to post outside my classroom.  I add that while the administration saw fit to complain that my blog post was outside the supposed "community standards" of Brooklyn College (thus claiming to arbitrate the speech standards of a publicly funded university), the same administration saw no need to complain about left-wing students' threats of violence. 

Like Ali, Limiti is unaware of how university personnel decision making ought to work, how university decision making works in reality, what the First Amendment says, and how the Supreme Court interprets the First Amendment.  At a phone meeting of the National Association of Scholars yesterday, several professors noted that the far left has frequently eliminated or subverted K-12 civics teaching so that students are unaware of how basic American institutions work.   Ali and Limiti are the result.

CUNY's bylaws state the following:

The City University of New York (“CUNY” or “the University”) is committed to academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas and expression of all points of view for members of the University community, including individual students, faculty, and staff and recognized groups of those constituencies. Such exchange is at the core of the mission of higher education. The ideas of different members of the University community will often conflict, but it is not the proper role of the University to attempt to shield individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable or even offensive. Although members of the University community share in the responsibility for maintaining a climate of mutual respect, concerns about civility can never be used as a justification for closing off discussion of ideas, however disagreeable or offensive they may be to some members of the University community. The appropriate response to false or offensive speech is not to prohibit it but to respond with more speech.

The bylaws give some caveats, which entirely depend on the speaker's presence at the college, which was not the case with a blog written off campus and with no purpose of addressing campus-linked issues.  Limiti's claim that my blog perpetuates violence is characteristic of the kind of intolerance in which college students are increasingly indoctrinated.   

False Accusations of Sexual Assault Skyrocket

I just received this press release from Margaret Valois of SAVE Services

PRESS RELEASE

Contact: Rebecca Stewart

Telephone: 513-479-3335

Email: info@saveservices.org

Surging Public Support for Due Process and the Presumption of Innocence

WASHINGTON / November 13, 2018 – Several non-partisan, national surveys point to widespread public concern about the erosion of the presumption of innocence and due process in our country, the problem of false allegations, and a pressing need to reinvigorate these bedrock principles of fairness in our legal system.

Public concern was first spotlighted in a 2011 SAVE survey that reported 9.7% of persons report they have been falsely accused of sexual assault, domestic violence, or child abuse. One in six of the respondents personally knew someone who said he or she had been falsely accused of domestic violence, child abuse, or sexual assault.¹

A 2013 survey commissioned by the Center for Prosecutor Integrity found that 66.8% of respondents believe the presumption of innocence is becoming lost in our legal system. In addition, 42.8% of persons say prosecutorial misconduct has become widespread.²

A 2017 YouGov poll revealed strong support for the restoration of due process in campus sexual assault cases. The survey queried whether “Students accused of crimes on college campuses should receive the same civil liberties from their colleges that they receive in the court system.” Among the 1,200 persons responding, 65% of Democrats, 77% of Republicans, and 67% of Independents expressed agreement with the statement.³

A poll by Ipsos/NPR found 80% of men and 73% of women believe that those who are accused of sexual harassment should be given the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. The survey was conducted October 22-23, 2018 with a sample of 1,003 adults.⁴

Much of the shift in public perceptions can be linked to the controversies associated with the #MeToo movement.

Morning Consult recently found 57% of U.S. adults say they are equally worried about men facing false allegations of sexual assault as they are about women facing sexual assault. Overall support for the #MeToo movement has dropped 2% over the last year, the survey found.⁵

A survey conducted by YouGov and the Economist in October revealed 18% of Americans now think false accusations of sexual assault are a bigger problem than attacks that go unreported or unpunished, compared with 13% one year ago. These shifts in public opinion against complainants have been stronger among women than men, the Economist noted.⁶

SAVE has developed a Due Process Statement that urges members of Congress to “speak out in support of Constitutionally rooted due process rights on campus.” Over 285 law professors, scholars, and state lawmakers have signed the Statement. SAVE invites additional state lawmakers to become co-signers. For more information, contact mvalois@saveservices.org .

Writing Centers Do Not Work

I help my student to learn writing and English grammar, which is neglected in New York City K-12 elementary schools and in college.   My students write a page, which I correct; then, I have them rewrite the page.  Often there are more than two dozen corrections.  In making them rewrite the assignment, I refer them to web pages that discuss the grammatical reasons for the error.

The college has a writing center to which the students can take their assignments.  I do not encourage them to use it because they will not learn if someone else makes the corrections. The writing center is like a bicycle center to which people go to learn to ride a bicycle by watching others ride.  It replaces basic skills instruction with administrative therapy.

Higher education replaces math and English skills with therapy and social advocacy.  The students are badly educated but taught to nurse their feelings, to feel wronged, to lash out at others, and to identify supposed oppressors. They view their expensive, dumbed-down college experience as the financial  obligation of their oppressors, who in their view ought to be subjected to violent compulsion at their hands.  Higher education is a narcissists' and totalitarians' training process.

I am trying to figure out whether I should forbid the use of the writing center.  A student, who was unable to make the indicated corrections, just emailed that he would like to go to the writing center and have them rewrite the paper for him and then resubmit it a second time to get a higher grade. This is an episodic example of what education has become: feeling good and avoiding learning.  I can't reject the system, but I have done what I can to do so.

Another student, who took me in 2012, while I was still perfecting my current approach to writing instruction, recently wrote me the following email:

I don't if you remember me. I am a former student. You might recall I cried in your class in 2012. The truth is, I was going through a lot(Manic Depression and all the Jazz), and in retrospect- Your class was the single most important moment in all of my years at college. 

I remember like it was yesterday. You, critiquing all my work. The red ink all over papers. Talks of socialism, freedom, individualism, and self-esteem. During that time I didn't understand it all. I was young, and very naïve. I couldn't even read at a 12th grade level, but I tried my best. You gave me a C+ in that class, and in retrospect that was the most important grade I have ever had. 

The thing is, I have over the course of my years been torn between Capitalism vs Socialism, Individuality vs Collectivism, and having Freewill vs being guided through Determinism. I read, read, and read. I read many books, watched many lectures, and had many debates. It wasn't until I realize during all this debating that all this exploring I was doing and mass confusion was merely making me more aware. Yes, I said it. It was increasing my understanding of the world. Of the polarity which is associated with everything. 

I can't say I agree with you on everything. But I do want to formally thank you for "putting the battery in my back" as is often said.You are an amazing teacher, and at one point my arch enemy. I hated how you made me dislike Obamanomics, and found vested interest in Billionaire tycoons like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

Thanks for your inspiration!

Your former student,

By 2012 I had already discarded the twin assumptions in higher education: (1) the educator's job isn't to teach writing and other basic skills, and (2)  we should replace basic skills with administrative therapy.