Professor Fired for Teaching Shakespeare -- 10/16/1998

Professor Fired for Teaching Shakespeare

16 October, 1998

By Intercollegiate Studies Institute
CNS Information Services

Inetercollegiate Studies Institute Announces the "Pollys" The Top Five Politically Correct Campus Outrages

Just how bad are things on the American campus today? So bad that you can be fired for teaching the plays of William Shakespeare. So bad that the administration of an Ivy League School can actually encourage the burning of newspapers. So bad that a major New York university can subsidize a series of workshops degrading women. So bad that a Big Ten university can use race-based admissions policies to achieve a political end. And there are many more examples, the most outrageous of which earned a "Polly" from the 1998 Intercollegiate Studies Institute's (ISI) Campus Outrage Awards.

The Awards are designed to highlight how the promise of the best in American higher education is being sacrificed to political correctness. Students nationwide were asked to nominate their campus' most outrageous examples of PC. The $1,000 grand prize, hands down, goes to a law student in Arizona who detailed how a professor in the Department of Theatre at Arizona State University was fired for teaching Shakespeare. Four $500 runner-up prizes were also awarded to students who nominated other instances of PC madness.

The five winners were chosen by a panel of judges at ISI. And the winners are:

1. Arizona State University Department of Theatre: For the dismissal of Professor Jared Sakren. For the dismissal of Professor Jared Sakren. Sakren, a graduate of Juilliard, taught at Yale for 12 years before he was hired to head the Graduate Acting Program at ASU. His former students include Val Kilmer, Kelly McGillis , Annette Bening, and Oscar-winner Fran McDormand. Sakren incurred the wrath of his tenure-review panel for teaching plays by Shakespeare, Aeschylus, and Ibsen. A memo from the department head complained about his "selection of works from a sexist European canon that is approached traditionally." The department considered plays by Shakespeare sexist and required instead the use of a play entitled "Betty the Yeti: An Eco-Fable," the story of a logger who has sex with a Yeti and is transformed into an environmentalist.

2. Cornell University: For protecting and encouraging the burning of student newspapers. In April of 1997 campus militants stole bundles of the Cornell Review, a conservative student publication , because of an article they deemed offensive. The vandals burned the issues in the center of campus where they protested for hours by blocking traffic. Rather than affirming free speech, Cornell administrators instead attacked the Review and did nothing to punish the arsonists. Then, on October 27, vandals again stole and torched hundreds of issues of the Cornell Review while campus administrators and security officers looked on. Cornell administrators received an announcement of the burning beforehand, yet did nothing to prevent it. Cornell's Vice-President for University Relations, Henrik Dullea, stated that Cornell will not punish the theft and burning of newspapers: "Destroy them, burn them, tear them apart. It makes no difference, burning any campus newspaper is protected at Cornell, much like burning draft cards."

3. SUNY-New Paltz Women's Studies Program: For sponsoring the "academic" conference entitled "Revolting Behavior: The Challenges of Women's Sexual Freedom." The one-day conference took place in November and consisted of workshops with such scholarly titles as: "How To Get What You Want in Bed"; "Sex Toys For Women"; "Safer Sex For Women Who Partner With Women"; and "Safe, Sane and Consensual S&M: An Alternate Way Of Loving." The taxpayer-supported conference included the demonstration and sale of sexual paraphernalia, and live demonstrations of masturbation and whipping.

4. University of Michigan: For its race-based admissions policy. After filing a Freedom of Information Act request, a UM philosophy professor unearthed confidential admissions documents containing charts and grids the university uses for admissions. The top-secret documents revealed that the university uses different criteria for different racial groups. Several students with outstanding qualifications were rejected due to the color of their skin while other, less qualified applicants were accepted for racial purposes. Several rejected white students filed suit in October, 1997 in a battle that will surely end in the elimination of UM's affirmative action practices.

5. Yale University: For continuing to dumb down its curriculum , particularly its Women's Studies Program. The Yale Women's Studies Program consists primarily of an amalgam of courses from other departments. Significantly, it passes over borderline fields such as women's health and nutrition and delves into the most radical issues of militant feminism and homosexuality while completely ignoring traditional female roles. The program's courses include readings entitled: "Toward a Butch-Femme Aesthetic"; "Male Lesbians and the Postmodernist Body"; and assigned materials by militant Angela Davis. These indoctrination courses fulfill requirements for the Yale degree.

Thor Halvorssen, ISI's Director of University Affairs said "The 'Pollys' were created to focus national attention on the outrageous excesses of politically correct students, faculty, and administrators in higher education. The national spotlight on PC is dimming but the situation is worse than ever. College administrators at top universities not only ignore or condone such actions, but charge students more in tuition and fees every year to support the subversion of the traditional college experience."

He added: "By shining some light on the outrages of the past year, we put administrators on notice that their actions will be publicized and this information widely disseminated to prospective students, parents, and alumni."

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