A short thread about right-wing movements in different countries setting up ways to "report" teachers and academics accused of being too left-wing.
In the Netherlands, this is making a few headlines at the moment. The FvD was the biggest party in the recent regional elections.
https://twitter.com/alexandreafonso/status/1111382442416328704
In Switzerland, the SVP had also set up a website where you could report your left-wing teachers.
20min.ch/schweiz/news/s…
20min.ch/schweiz/news/s…
In the United States, an organisation called Turning Point USA has a "Professor Watchlist"with the names and pictures of academics accused of being too left-wing.
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland also had its own delation portal (thanks @kai_arzheimer) spiegel.de/lebenundlernen…
In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi said that "left-wing teachers were destroying family values".
lastampa.it/2011/04/16/ita…
lastampa.it/2011/04/16/ita…
Same practice in Brazil; an MP of Bolsonaro's party asked students to send videos of teachers 'indoctrinating' them into leftist ideologies.
oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/educ…
oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/educ…
Here's Bolsonaro himself sharing one of these videos.
https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1023972440517615616
See also this piece by @donmoyn on how "left-wing academic craziness" is manufactured in right-wing circles heterodoxacademy.org/academic-freed…
This episode of @ThisAmerLife was excellent on this: thisamericanlife.org/645/my-effing-…
By the way, the organisation that set up the "Professor Watchlist" is coming to the UK
https://twitter.com/TPointUK/status/1110507452053839876
In Austria as well. The FPÖ is now in government.
https://twitter.com/laurenzennser/status/1111663201064759298?s=19
Hungary, of course.
https://twitter.com/RostovanyiA/status/1111631056015409159?s=19
My humble opinion: First, if you believe in free speech, whatever your political beliefs, I don't think a climate where anything you say may be "reported" or shared with mobs of anonymous Twitter users is conducive to it.
It is quite symptomatic that all the replies saying this is a good thing come from anonymous accounts.
Second, you really don't understand how education works if you think teachers can "indoctrinate" students into anything. I really wish I could indoctrinate students into reading my syllabus or doing my readings.
Third, students are aware that teachers have political opinions. This doesn't mean that students shouldn't voice opinions that they think the teacher will disagree with.
I tell students that I strongly prefer (and give higher grades to) an argument that I disagree with but is coherently argued, backed with facts and original than something that slavishly reproduces what I said in class, or that I would agree with but is unclear and lazy.
Fourth, I think that some advocates of "free speech" confuse the freedom to voice certain opinions and the right to have these opinions unchallenged.
This lecturer at the Free University of Amsterdam was informed by a student that there was a discussion on the student WhatsApp group about reporting him to the "left indoctrination" line set up by Baudet's party, and that he "should be careful".
https://twitter.com/jaap_o/status/1112989196418011136?s=19
The AfD tried to censor an academic paper studying their parliamentary practice.
wzb.eu/en/press-relea…
wzb.eu/en/press-relea…
Similar thing happened in Italy.
https://twitter.com/AriannaGi/status/1116972257006501888?s=19
On the Lega seeking to ban a monograph analysing the Lega:
independent.co.uk/voices/italy-f…
independent.co.uk/voices/italy-f…
Data shows a surprising campus free speech problem: left-wingers being fired for their opinions
vox.com/platform/amp/p…
vox.com/platform/amp/p…
In the United States, more left-wing professors have been fired for their political speech than right-wing ones.
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