Yet another story of academic liberals trampling all over basic decency and fairness today: Writing at Bradlee Dean's Reblogatorium For Stuff That's Too Stupid For Breitbart, Tim Brown shares a tale of gross discrimination against the straight community -- and for that matter, against those who are exclusively gay:
A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee teaching assistant decided he would offer students an extra credit assignment. The catch was that they had to identify themselves as “bi-sexual.”
Egads! A teacher is giving extra credit just for someone identifying themselves as bi-sexual? How shocking and un-fair! It's simply un-speakable, dis-criminatory, and dis-picable, not to mention a crime against pre-fixes.
So how is the Bisexual Gestapo imposing tyranny upon the hallowed halls of academe this time?
It seems that some very very dis-gruntled anonymous student sent rightwing "watchdog" group Campus Reform a copy of an email from their Communications 103 teaching assistant, Jonathan Dellinger, to the full class, with this introduction that clearly specifies that the extra credit assignment is racist against straight people:
"I’m just writing to inform you of another extra credit opportunity (3 points),” Dellinger wrote in the email obtained by Campus Reform. “To be eligible to participate in this study, you must identify as bisexual, so not everyone will be able to do this one.”
Well, if not everyone can get those three whopping points, then that is just plain UN-FAIR!!!!! Campus Reform does note that Dellinger "has allegedly offered extra credit to his students—around 25—a couple of other times in the past, but then the opportunities were open for all students." But not this time. Therefore, TOTALLY SCANDALOUS AND DISCRIMINATORY.
The actual extra credit assignment does involve just a little more than stepping forward and saying "Hi, I'm bisexual, now reward me for identifying myself as a pervert who's complying with your agenda of undermining American society":
It's pretty terrifying -- the participating students would have to take part in a survey on "hurtful communication in close relationship regarding one’s bisexual identity,” and would also participate in a 20-minute interview. Why exclude hets from that? Surely they could think of plenty of hurtful things to say about bisexuals!
One of Dellinger's students told Campus Reform, "I don’t mind that this opportunity was sent out besides the fact that an equal opportunity should have been attached to ensure the same chance for every student to earn the same amount of extra credit points” -- it wasn't clear whether this was the put-upon student who originally contacted the group, or another.
Is there much angst and pain and suffering over this? Why yes, yes there is!
Matt Sama, a UWM student not enrolled in the class, told Campus Reform that he saw the email and thought the assignment was “off-topic” for a communication class.“In addition, the fact that the survey is clearly discriminatory in nature to favor students of one sexual orientation over another is frankly everything that the left tries to fight against, yet they so blatantly act in this manner,” Sama, UWM’s Young Americans for Liberty president, said. “It’s disgusting. You can’t get more hypocritical than this.”
Yep, there's nothing more off-topic for a communication class than a survey about interpersonal communication. Shocking and horrible. And isn't any extra credit unfair to people who do everything that's required for the class, but don't do the extra credit? That's discrimination too!
The chair of UMW's communication department, Kathryn Olson, emailed Campus Reform to let them know that she'd look into the alleged human rights violations they'd identified:
“The practice is to offer an alternative equally weighted extra credit opportunity for students who do not meet the specific needs of a particular study's target population if participation carries extra credit,” Olson said.
So, fine, maybe, just maybe, there will be a solution for this that won't involve death threats and a GoFundMe drive to help restore the academic freedom of the hetero and exclusively gay students (we'll go out on a limb and guess that nobody in the latter category is griping, but hey, they are clearly hypocrites if they don't recognize that Dellinger has discriminated against them, too. Solidarity, man). Like maybe those who don't take the survey could write an essay examining how narratives of false equivalence and butthurt are employed in online communication to reinforce a siege mentality among majority groups who'd like to pretend they've been victimized. That would be worth three points.
In an especially nice bit of wingnut-on-wingnut violence, Mr. Brown gets all hissy at a spokesman for the Wisconsin Log Cabin Republicans, Devin Gatton, who said of the extra credit assignment,
The gay rights movement is not about special rights to privileges for the gay community but equal protection under the law...Offering extra credit to a student based off of their sexual orientation is against everything that should be taught in our universities today. This professor is bringing back to pre-1960s when separate but equal was an acceptable practice.
Nuh-UH, says Brown, and you, sir, are no conservative if you're a gay Republican!
Devin Gatton is speaking out of both sides of his mouth. The sodomite movement in America is all about special rights, as evidenced in their seeking to redefine marriage to demonstrate that and the push to force Christians out of business due to their own consciences. I agree that extra credit shouldn’t be provided per one’s sexual behavior, but then again, let’s be realistic here. “Sexual orientation” shouldn’t even be a part of university education.
After all, there is no such thing as "sexual orientation," so why would anyone do academic work on it? Everyone is heterosexual until they become a pervert, for heaven's sake. Brown adds, "Frankly, in today’s environment, it would not surprise me to discover something insidious going on beneath the surface of this assignment."
Like what? Homosexual recruiting? Buttsex? Probably buttsex. Hot sweaty buttsex is all those gays can think about. It's really disgusting how they spend every waking moment thinking about anal sex. And they do it so insidiously, too, by insidiously hiding their perverted desires in the form of a survey about hurtful communications. What they really mean is buttsex. And persecuting Christians.
Also, only a kooky conspiracy theorist would suggest that this rightwing spotlight on a University of Wisconsin instructor just might be very conveniently timed, considering Gov. Scott Walker's efforts to gut funding for Wisconsin's excellent university system. That's just crazy talk.
