Today’s blacklisted American: Blackballed professor at NC State sues
Freedom of speech cancelled at
North Carolina State University.
Fighting back: Stephen Porter, a tenured professor at North Carolina State University, has just filed a lawsuit against the university and several of its faculty for blackballing him for simply disagreeing with them on issues of politics and policy.
The introduction of the legal filing [pdf] outlines clearly the actions of the university’s faculty, designed to destroy Porter’s academic career:
[I]n retaliation for Professor Stephen Porter’s protected expressions of opinion on important societal issues, Defendants have intentionally and systematically excluded him from departmental programs and activities that are necessary for him to fulfill his job requirements, effectively hollowing his job out from the inside. They have done this in a deliberate effort to set the stage for his eventual termination. … Defendants are gradually forcing Plaintiff into what is effectively a “rubber room” in retaliation for his criticisms of the so-called “social-justice” ideology that now prevails both in his department and in academia more broadly.
Read the whole complaint. It describes in ugly detail the efforts by his supervisors to isolate and ostracize him so it would be impossible for him to teach and maintain his job.
So, what exactly did Porter do to bring the wrath of these petty dictators down upon him? It certainly wasn’t the quality of his work. According to course evaluations, which Porter sent me, his class work was consistently considered both “effective” and “excellent.” Moreover, his scholarship was regularly cited by others, a sure sign that it was considered of high quality.
No, Porter’s crime was daring to dissent from the leftist ideology that the administrators and many fellow teachers were trying to introduce into the program. His first sin was questioning the inclusion of a “diversity” question in the student course evaluations, thus encouraging students to evaluate their professors not on their ability to teach but on whether the teacher made subjects such as race and ethnicity a component of their courses.
The department head at the time, Penny Pasque, decided to interpret his question not as a valid example of reasoned debate but as “bullying,” a tactic quite typical of the tyrannical left whenever anyone disagrees with them, no matter how civilly they do it. That false accusation was then used by Pasque to create a paper trail of lies that suggested Porter was abusive.
Porter was then condemned by Pasque because he dared criticize a university job search that ended picking as a finalist a known philander and embezzler who had been forced to resign from another university.
A faculty colleague, Alyssa Rockenbach, ran a faculty search that resulted in Terrell Strayhorn, a social justice scholar, as one of the finalists. He is widely regarded within the higher ed community as having defrauded Ohio State, slept with graduate students, and forced to resign his tenured full professorship due to his actions (you can read more about the faculty search here). Pasque wrote me up because I sent an email to a small group of faculty criticizing how Rockenbach ran the search.
From here the blackballing by Pasque and others in the school’s administration accelerated. They reshaped the program in order to exclude Porter from it. They shut him out of all meetings. They denied him the opportunity to advise new students, while creating circumstances that made it impossible to properly advise the students already under his wing.
They repeatedly tried to get him to resign. Then Pasque — with the apparent approval of the department’s dean — unilaterally removed him from a major component of the program while increasing his teaching load in a manner that was unprecedented for a tenured professor.
In all this, there was no hint that Porter’s actual work as a professor was at fault. Instead, it appeared his students continued to approve of his work and attend his classes. More important, Porter’s critics in the administration never raised questions about his work either.
Porter could have simply given up and left the university. Instead, he has decided to fight, taking a loan against his retirement funds while also refinancing his mortgage to fund the battle. (If you want to support him, you can do so by donating at his GoFundMe site here, or by donating to him directly at Paypal here.)
Though I have no idea if this lawsuit will work, I applaud Porter’s courage and determination to stand up to these tyrannical bullies and to defend freedom of speech. Such courage and a willingness to fight is desperately needed in academia, as freedom is under attack there everywhere. For example, Porter’s lawyer is also defending three other academics (see here, here, and here) who have also been blackballed by their universities for simply expressing dissenting opinions. I could have already devoted a blacklist column to each, but there are not enough days in the week to cover all these stories.
It seems to me that one of the best ways to exert influence on this state-financed university is for the North Carolina state legislature to take action. Unfortunately, though both houses of North Carolina’s legislature are controlled by Republicans, they do not hold a veto-proof majority and the governor, Roy Cooper is Democrat. He recently vetoed a bill that would have banned the teaching of critical race theory in elementary schools.
Of course, that bill was another example of Republican failure theater. If they had simply cut the funding for schools that taught critical race theory, the Democrat governor would have had much more limited options. If he vetoed such a spending bill, he would have been vetoing all school spending. Instead, the Republican gave him an easy out, while positioning themselves to falsely claim they “fought” to stop such bigoted teaching, when they did nothing of the sort.
The legislatures of both Idaho and Iowa have proved that cutting funding works. In both cases the legislature threatened school funding, and in both cases the school administrators quickly responded by suspending or changing their programs.
This needs to happen in North Carolina. I think it would be most approprate for the citizens of this state to contact their local representatives and make this point heard, very loudly.
Similarly, both parents and students must stop attending such schools. The faculty and administrators of North Carolina State University apparently do not believe in freedom of speech or critical thinking, and instead think it right and proper to use censorship, threats, slanders, and blacklisting as debate tactics.
Is that what you go to college to learn? I think not. It seems an utter waste of time, money, and the precious brains of any student to be exposed to such a intolerant culture, even for a second.
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This is reminiscent of what happened to the late Professor Mike Adams. I hope Professor Porter wins “bigly”. Most of these “academics” are worthless as their only goal is the Marxist indoctrination of our youth.
“He is widely regarded within the higher ed community as having defrauded Ohio State, slept with graduate students, and forced to resign his tenured full professorship due to his actions . . ”
There was a snarky comment about how this guy defines the Democrat playbook, but the fact is, the selection of such an individual for any responsible position demonstrates a brazen corruption, and not an organization I would want to be anywhere near.
North Carolina is the same state where Mike Adams fought all those battles against leftists in the university system. How the world misses him! It’s good to see another prof taking up the standard and fighting these battles. Mike eventually won big and received a big settlement from his university. These leftists infesting our higher education systems are evil and conscienceless.
Arizona, Maricopa country officials recorded talking about the 2020 presidential election.
And it ain’t good.
https://rumble.com/vmu05c-leaked-audio-steve-chucri-and-stephen-richer-concerned-about-dominion.htm
“In both a January phone call and a March meeting, Chucri expressed his doubts about Dominion software and his belief that it should never be used again. He said it was a “screw up” for them to use Dominion after Texas declined to use the software due to critical security concerns.”
And Friday the 24th the Arizona / Maricopa county forensic audit will be released that will back up their observations and concerns.
Its all going to roll down hill from there.
LOOK OUT BELOOOOOOW!
(But remember, there are no consequences in government)
If you bellieve in gentics/heritage, then the problems of the current African American population, which are the descendants of the tribal “defectives” sold into the Atlantic Slave trade should not be a surprise. At it’s core, the West African tribal society was based on a form of slavery. If an individual was “productive” and “useful”, he/she< and thus their descendants, were kept in Africa. The "useless", "hostile", etc. were traded for tool steel, pretty cloth and rot-gut rum. North America got the culls of tribal Africa..The powerful armies of the empires needed a productive source population for food, clothing and arms. "We" got the rest.. The "modern" imigrants from West Africa seem "normal". It isn't "race".
I have no idea if the (N-word) "Normals" or "Neighbors" were of a different population or if they are the result of comon genetic sorting. But we got them. It isn't "racism" v "Blacks", It is just the recognition that some of them "ain't right". Due to the "tribe" or "Jim Crow" background, it is hard to prove, for me at least. I'd go with the "cull" phenomenon plus some asortative mating . YMMV.
Sorry. Tomorrow, a new keyboard. "Doubling" (includiing the Delete) makes it tough on my "creative" spelling and limited editing ability.
Thee Boys (and Giirls) are looking too use CRT as aa way to “blame” Americann Soocieety and “Capitalism” for the failures oof the AA Community. That was their “battering ram” to use againstsociety without having to mentiion the discredited Marx, Freud, etc.. Ammerica used to have opportunities foor willing workers who could not deal with alggebra, calcuulus, or massses of paper. Many of those opportunities are gone, Those opportunities haave been “offshored” or automated.
The “Woke” have mostly never held a useful job and they despise actual “work”. They have been lured into a fantasy of word games that are expensive and useless. Like many of the early Bolsheviks, they anticapate a “career” of providing “wisdom” and “guidaance” to those working up a sweat or shuffling paper for dull hours. They haven’t realized how few “philosopher kings” are needed, or that “she” already has “tenure” and armed security. Oh, but it is so “noble”. And they will have alll those dim “red necks” and “Groids” to direcct along the path to glory. With their “wisdom” and “creativiiy”, how could it fail?
They’d probably come up with a brilliant solution if it wasn’t for the ice axe in their skull……….
Enjoy! And appologies, as before, for the editing..
Mike~SMO:
My counter-thesis: Those who stayed in Africa were also not particularly successful if we look at the current state of practically all black African countries. Compare it to Asia. And please do not come with European colonialism and exploitation now. Colonialism had indeed given them the opportunity to break free from the Stone Age in sub-Saharan Africa. But it seems like they don’t want to take advantage of this opportunity. See how South Africa develops after the largest population group (you know who I mean) took power there. Be honest to yourself.
“If you believe in genetics/heritage…” (corrected for spelling)
I do not.
I favor the Nurture part of the “Nature vs Nurture” argument. How else can you explain fine people of European decent raised to be good upstanding citizens, while at the same time, the skin-head,/KKK and actual white supremacist’s overtly racist crowd with their sick and perverted outlook on humanity.
Indeed, how a person is raised and the values they are taught before they can even speak show greatly, regardless of the color of their skin.
“They’d probably come up with a brilliant solution if it wasn’t for the ice axe in their skull”
Explain this statement.
Bob, this is your site, I will let you inquire as to what adjective MikeSMO is implying.
Take ten minutes and see, understand the insanity that is going on in Australia:
https://youtu.be/n89J9HHQx-s
The empowered politicians in this country have either lost their minds or they are in an active demonstration for the Globalist / “Build Back better” crew to see just how far you can push your people until they break at which point you shoot them for their own protection.
They have lost their minds. Where exactly does this go? Where and when does this end? Probably never?
And this is why you never give away your freedom for security.
This is a civilized Western civilization? I think not.
I will take the Covid risk.
And what are the adverse effects of the vaccine in Australia?
https://youtu.be/bZuRc4Mad50
Donated.