A professor called Trump’s election an ‘act of terrorism.’ Then she became the victim of terror. (Washington Post; Dec 27)
“Now, at 66, I’m paranoid,” [targeted instructor] Cox said. “It doesn’t feel good at all to be looking over my shoulder and wondering when an unfamiliar car pulls up across the street whether they’re going to take a picture of me or something worse — but that’s my life now. I feel like I’ve been attacked by a mob of people all across the country,” she added. “If they’re telling me over and over again that they want to shoot me in the face, how am I supposed to know if they’re going to do it or not?”
. . .
Cox’s comments were recorded by a conservative student in her class who found her statements offensive and decided to share the video with the Orange Coast College Republicans, according to Joshua Recalde-Martinez, a political science major and president of the campus Republican group.
. . .
“Go out in the middle of the football field, pull out a handgun, put it to your temple and shoot yourself,” Jim Ernst wrote [to Cox]. “Or better yet, douse yourself in gasoline and set yourself on fire.”
. . .
The harassment crested when Cox received an email from a man named Tim White that showed her home address, phone number and salary and threatened to spread the information “everywhere.” The email referred to Cox as a “libtard, Marxist, hatemonger, nutcase.” It was then, Cox said, that she could no longer stand to be in her home and decided to flee.
The professor turned her final week of class this semester over to a substitute, but Cox said her ordeal continued after the controversial video appeared on the O’Reilly Factor. The host referred to her statements as “gibberish” and “slander” and labeled the professor part of “the totalitarian left.”
“That woman needs a psychologist,” he said.
. . .
The Orange Coast College Republicans have filed a formal complaint with the school and hired an attorney, said Shawn Steel, a former chairman of the California Republican Party.
Steel told the Orange County Register that Cox is using her power as a grade-determining instructor to “basically scare and shame students.”
“It’s alarming,” he said. “It’s scaremongering. It’s irrational. It’s a rant. And it doesn’t belong in the classroom.”
. . .
[Cox's] name has been added to a controversial website called “Professor Watchlist,” which lists the names of about 200 academics across the country accused by a conservative group of advancing “leftist propaganda” and discriminating “against conservative students.”
“This is a very carefully planned plot to attack college professors that they don’t like and disagree with,” she said. “This is being done all around the country. It’s not my fault, and I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Rob Schneiderman, president of the Coast Federation of Educators/American Federation of Teachers Local 1911 that represents Cox, agrees that the problem is not what Cox said, but the fact that she was recorded, a violation of the student code of conduct that was expressly stated in the professor’s syllabus. Schneiderman said the short, edited clip fails to provide viewers with any context for Cox’s statements and could warrant punishment.
“She’s known as an open teacher,” he said. “There’s a petition going around on campus to nominate her for teacher of the year. She’s very well respected on campus, and this was an absolute violation.”
Schneiderman said the union plans to work with school officials to strengthen its free speech policies to keep students and professors safe from “Gestapo tactics.” Many professors on campus, he said, have vowed to resist any attempts by the campus Republicans to dictate classroom discourse.
. . .
“My parents left Cuba so we would not have this kind of harassment and so we would have access to free education,” [Cox] said. “They made sacrifices to bring us here, and I’m proud to be an American.”
“It’s just hard to believe that this is happening to me,” she added, “and if this is what America is turning into, we all need to be afraid.”
* * * |
