Recently the College Fix found a conservative college professor.
I will expand on this, but I’d like that first sentence to sink in a bit – a conservative college professor. They are as rare as the critically endangered northern hairy-nosed wombat, of which there are only 163 known.
Now that I think about it, there may be more northern hairy-nosed wombats.
But the College Fix found one. His name is Professor Duke Pesta. He’s an English professor at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. And how about that name – “Duke.” He has to be conservative.
About a year and a half ago, Duke felt the need to draft a two-page contract, “to counter the trend of infantilizing college students when it comes to academic debate and the free exchange of ideas on campus.”
His class involves the study of literature from days gone by, and as such, may contain content that today’s students may find offensive.
But instead of redaction or watering down the material to make it more palatable, he requires each prospective student to sign the contract. Thus far, every student has complied. If ever one does not, “they will have to meet with me sometime during the first week of classes to discuss the contract and make sure we’re on the same page.”
Just two examples are as follows:
“Please drop the class immediately if you are triggered by free speech, the free exchange of ideas, or people who express and defend ideas or opinions that differ from your own.”
“Please drop the class immediately if you are triggered by recurring encounters with heterosexuality, traditional gender identities, sympathetic representations of Christianity (or religion in general), positive examples of free markets or capitalism, or unapologetic encounters with patriotism, hierarchies, or meritocracy-based institutions or attitudes.”
It is brilliant and spot-on. Good for him for having the courage of convictions. It’s not very common in Academia today, or frankly anywhere.
He created the contract to avoid having to place trigger warnings on all the material he covers.
For those unfamiliar with trigger warnings, I found its meaning on the University of Michigan website, “Inclusive Teaching.”
“Content warnings are verbal or written notices that precede potentially sensitive content. These notices flag the contents of the material that follows, so readers, listeners, or viewers can prepare themselves to adequately engage or, if necessary, disengage for their own wellbeing.”
This got me thinking about the rest of us conservative commentators, writers, etc.
Since we can’t have everyone signing contracts, perhaps we should preface our work with trigger warnings, lest we offend those more sensitive.
So I came up with the following trigger warning suggestions that must be heeded by anyone reading this article, or listening to the audio version. Of course, it’s only applicable to Caucasian men, although can easily be modified for conservative babes. Ooh – sexist trigger warning!
WARNING:
The following article is written and narrated by a white man.
This way the reader/listener knows going in that the article was written by, more than likely, a racist and thus, should be avoided.
The following article is written and narrated by a Constitutional conservative.
First, this confirms the reader’s/listener’s suspicion that the author is indeed, 100%, a racist, as one cannot be white and conservative without being inherently and even subconsciously racist, and thus should be avoided.
Second – it further alerts the reader/listener that the article is certain to contain offenses against women, the entire LGBTQ community, as well as extreme acrimony for all immigrants other than Western Europeans. Oh, and unyielding jingoism, and should be avoided.
The following article may be deemed by some as critical of liberal ideology, which may cause intense physiological and psychological symptoms in snowflakes that are incapable of reading, listening or otherwise digesting any information for which they do not already agree.
This is self-explanatory, but just further proof that they should avoid it.
And if you’ve gotten this far, you are either a conservative or an unafraid free-thinker.
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