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University bosses have told a liberal professor at Michigan Tech to calm down after he delivered an angry rant about his freedom-loving students in commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Dr. Carl Blair was triggered when the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) organized a ‘Freedom Week’ on the Houghton campus to mark the 34th anniversary of the end of the Cold War.
Events titled “Celebrating Our Veterans” and “The Victims of Socialism” prompted the archeology professor to lash out at students in class, seemingly unaware that anyone was recording him.
“They were childish, stupid, homophobic, dumb, racist jerks,” he told them, “that’s the polite version.”
“It was wrong, it was tasteless, stupid, uncollegial, really bad taste, and it shows what a bunch of ying yangs they are,” he continued.
Michigan Tech professor Carl Blair lashed out at his conservative students, labeling them “childish, stupid, homophobic, dumb, racist jerks”
Michigan Tech’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter also faced protests from other students when they tried to organize a “Freedom Week” on their Houghton campus.
They reproduced part of the Berlin Wall to mark the anniversary of its fall in 1989
“You know, it’s a shame that you all have to deal with things like this. I wasted half my morning doing stuff like that. It’s annoying.’
To promote their event, the group built a model of the graffiti-splattered Berlin Wall, which was built by communist East Germany in 1961 to prevent its citizens from fleeing to the West.
Its fall in 1989 was widely celebrated around the world and, for many, marked the end of the communist threat to Europe.
But that also led to anger at the former mining school, where a student tried to destroy the group’s exhibition.
“We support freedom of speech on all campuses across the United States,” the group said in a statement.
“We do this despite the insults of a professor and others who think First Amendment protections apply only to their worldview.
“The student who vandalized our exhibition has the right to freedom of expression, but went too far, endangering people and damaging property.”
Citizens of East Germany took to the Berlin Wall with axes and hammers when it fell in 1989, ending the Cold War
The university was the scene of a furious row two years ago when computer engineering professor Jeffrey Burl claimed he had been “systematically discriminated against for 40 years because he was a white man.”
He demanded an apology from the college after it passed a resolution criticizing “anti-blackness and systemic racism” both at the university and in society.
“Simple statistical analysis will show that Michigan Tech’s hiring practices are biased against white males,” he wrote.
“At Michigan Tech, I saw no signs of discrimination against women and people of color.”
Dr. Blair, who specializes in Roman and Anglo-Saxon England, describes itself on the university’s website as ‘the most experienced metal smelter in the field of experimental archeology in the world’.
But it gets mixed reviews on the student website ratemyprofessors.com with one describing him as ‘incredibly pretentious and rude’, and another calling him ‘downright insufferable’.
“All he did was talk about how great socialism could be and he was so confused about why people are afraid of communism,” a third claimed.
Blair claimed that his targets in the YAF were deliberately provocative to trigger a crackdown by the university authorities.
“There are frankly certain faculty members who are hoping that the students will be censored for this,” he said.
“Because then they can say and act like, ‘Oh, we’re victims, you’re restricting our, you know, freedom of speech, we should have that, we have a constitutional right to be offensive, violent and threatening.’ How dare you limit our speech?
“That’s not what college should be about,” he continued.
The group accused ‘left-wing students’ of trying to destroy their exhibition
The university near the shores of Lake Superior was founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School and was given its current name in 1964.
“You know, it should be a place where you can learn, experience, do interesting things, get interesting opportunities – hints, hints, study – uh, instead of wasting your time and having to talk to idiots.
“They’re idiots out there. Sorry, that’s life.’
The university has refused to become involved in the row, but did provide a tantalizing hint that Blair needed to mind his manners.
“As a flagship university of technology with a strong research focus, Michigan Tech strongly supports freedom of speech and academic freedom,” a spokesperson told Fox News.
“We expect an atmosphere of respect and civility, especially in our classrooms.”