State Lawmaker Criticizes U. of Wisconsin Professor’s Syllabus Over Characterization of Trump

Updated (1/25/2019, 9:39 a.m.) with a statement from the university’s chancellor.

A political scientist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison is being criticized by a Republican state lawmaker for how his course syllabus characterizes President Trump.

Michael P. King, AP Images

Rep. Dave Murphy, chairman of the state Assembly’s Committee on Colleges and Universities, sent a critical letter to Kenneth R. Mayer, a professor of political science, on Wednesday.

“I am a fierce advocate for academic freedom, and it is your right to include such statements in your course syllabi; however, your choice to include such a statement cannot go without criticism, and including it is a disservice to your students and the University of Wisconsin-Madison,” Murphy wrote in the letter, which was first published by the Wisconsin State Journal.

Murphy singled out a part of the syllabus that describes Trump as “a president who gleefully flouts the norms of governing and presidential behavior” and, to some, as “a spectacularly unqualified and catastrophically unfit egomaniac.”

Murphy sent a copy of his letter to the state Assembly and Senate committees on higher education and to officials in the University of Wisconsin system, including members of the Board of Regents, the system’s president, and the Madison chancellor.

The flagship campus issued a statement in support of Mayer, saying that he is an award-winning professor who “leaves his political opinions at the classroom door and asks his students to do the same.”

“Universities’ greatest value to society is that they are places where any idea is thinkable and debatable,” said the university’s chancellor, Rebecca M. Blank, in a statement. “Ideas should be dismissed only after research and debate proves them inadequate, rather than being dismissed out of hand because they challenge perceived wisdom or offend current beliefs.”

Faculty advocates see intervention into university policies and courses by politicians as a sign of academic freedom’s erosion.

While Murphy emphasized the value of academic freedom, he said professors should not be beyond criticism from state officials. “My responsibility as chairman of the Committee on Colleges and Universities is to speak up when I see something at UW that I don’t think is serving the student and the state as well as it could,” Murphy told The Chronicle. “I wanted to bring it up and make it something for discussion. I think a syllabus like this does not improve the educational situation at the university.”

This is not Murphy’s first dispute with the university over its course material, and it “won’t be the last,” he said. In 2016 he called for the university to cancel a course titled “The Problem With Whiteness,” stating that it was offensive to “taxpayers who are expected to pay for this garbage.” Murphy also threatened to withhold university funding if the class was not dropped. The university defended the course.

Mayer declined to comment to The Chronicle.

Follow Terry Nguyen on Twitter at @terrygtnguyen, or email her at terry.nguyen@chronicle.com.