Dueling Viewpoints Over a Course at UW-Madison
Friday, January 25th, 2019 -- 11:14 AM
(WRN) -There's dueling viewpoints from the Assembly over a UW-Madison professor's modern politics course.The syllabus describes the current administration as broken and chaotic on purpose, prompting criticism from Republicans. Assemblyman Dave Murphy says the wording could have been better.
"The syllabus was somewhat over the top, and I'm somewhat concerned about how it would affect students and their feelings about taking the course."
The course syllabus says Trump "gleefully flouts the norms of governing" and describes a number of scandals he's involved in. Murphy says he's working for his constituents in raising concerns over the education of students.
"They pay taxes that go to the University to fund this. They have a right to be heard and we have a right to say something about this."
Democrat Assemblyman Jimmy Anderson says Republicans just passed legislation protecting free speech on campus, and this clearly qualifies.
"I hope that in the future Representative Murphy and Speaker Vos take more careful consideration when they are selectively applying what they determine to be free speech."
Anderson continued…
"A big showing of saying how important is that we have free speech on campuses, and that we allow our students and professors to be able to speak their minds, and it struck me odd that we were now criticizing a professor for doing exactly that."
Murphy says his concerns were over the wording of the syllabus, and that he doesn't have any desire to change the nature or content of the course. Anderson says this is a perfect example of the sort of protected free speech that Republicans championed last session, and they have no room to complain.
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