
NYU Professor Put on Leave for Expressing Anti-PC Views
A New York University professor has been forced to take a leave of absence after it was revealed that he was using an anonymous Twitter account to criticize the college’s approach to leftist ideals like safe spaces and trigger warnings.
Michael Rectenwald, who teaches liberal studies at NYU (and describes himself as a proponent of communism) said that university officials sent him out to pasture when they found out he was making the online comments.
“They are actually pushing me out the door for having a different perspective,” Rectenwald told The New York Post in an interview on Wednesday.
The controversy stems from a Twitter account Rectenwald began with the handle Deplorable NYU Prof. Using that account, the professor let the world know how he felt about some of the left’s more ridiculous social justice themes. From his perspective, these themes are not only laughable, they are actually setting the liberal movement back and giving ammunition to the alt-right.
“My contention is that trigger warning, safe spaces and bias hot-line reporting is not politically correct. It is insane,” he said in an interview with the school’s student paper. “The crazier and crazier that the left gets, the more the alt-right is going to be laughing their asses off [and] getting more pissed.”
Despite his online handle, Rectenwald does not appear to be a supporter of Donald Trump. He merely used the imagery to point out the left’s insanity from another perspective. But when he revealed that he was the man behind the account, he was summoned into the dean’s office.
“They claimed they were worried about me and a couple people had expressed concern about my mental health. They suggested my voicing these opinions was a cry for help,” Rectenwald told The Post. “Then they said I should leave and get help.”
In one way, Rectenwald’s story is one that should disturb anyone who thinks that academic freedom should be preserved. In another, however, it signals that the liberal PC culture is about to implode in on itself. These idiots won’t listen to the canaries in the coal mine who are telling them that their message is simply not penetrating beyond their own echo chamber. Yes, they are damaging young minds with this insanity, but their movement has reached the breaking point. You can get away with this nonsense for a while, but eventually you are going to run into the brick wall of collective common sense. The only way the left can succeed beyond this point is if they get the laws changed so that certain viewpoints are made illegal. In other words, if they manage to somehow erase the First Amendment from the Constitution.
Good luck with that.