The American Association of University Professors has documented more than 100 incidents of harassment—including death threats—targeting college professors for expressing viewpoints that included Trump criticisms while in the classroom. According to CNN, some of the professors have been forced to teach remotely via video conference:
-- A California professor at Orange Coast College who was captured on video in the classroom criticizing President Donald Trump got death threats, according to The Washington Post.
-- CBS News reported a Princeton professor received death threats after giving a commencement speech in which she called Trump a "racist and sexist megalomaniac."
-- A University of Iowa professor was targeted after discussing white supremacy in the context of ancient statues and their use of white marble, InsideHigherEd.com says.
"There's an entire cottage industry for reporting on controversial things that faculty members say,” said Ari Cohn of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, “which then riles up Internet outrage mobs, who then start to tweet at schools, or post on Facebook, and try to get schools to get rid of people who they disagree with.” Among those riling up those mobs is a right-wing activist that Trump praised on Twitter:
One of the websites, called Professor Watchlist, was started by Charlie Kirk.
"Our goal is to expose and really profile professors that have engaged in outward radical behavior," said Kirk. "We're not saying these professors should be silenced. Instead, we're pointing out what has become a systemic problem in our universities, where professors are able to say things that are completely outrageous."
When it comes to the harassment and death threats that professors face, Kirk says it's not his website but the professors themselves who bear responsibility for the consequences of their words.
"We do not call for any that sort of harassment. We don't condone it, we don't try to facilitate any sort of cyberbullying or harassment, and just because you put up the words, or another article that's been written about a professor in an aggregated format, does not mean we should be held responsible for what other people do."
Right, no facilitating done here, other than allowing people to search for professors by name or school and then washing their hands clean of them from there. “What we are seeing with this site is a kind of normalizing of prosecuting professors, shaming professors, defaming professors,” Julio Pino, an associate professor of history at Kent State University told the New York Times last year.
Twitter, for example, has still not done enough to combat online hate targeting women and people of color, in particular. When it comes to this classroom harassment, “professors have essentially the same legal options as any person targeted by online harassment—which is to say, few and mostly ineffective”:
While threats and harassment are technically prohibited by both federal and state laws, and there are a variety of civil laws that could also apply. ... They are rarely used except in the most extreme cases, and often only after some physical harm has already occurred," Franks told CNN in a statement.
In general, law enforcement does not take complaints of online harassment and threats seriously, Franks said. Police departments often lack the resources and technological competence to investigate, she said, and many departments believe online speech doesn't lead to real-world action.
But Franks thinks the increasingly toxic environment will eventually demand closer scrutiny from the authorities.
"Given the nature of online anonymity and the sheer volume of threats and abuse, it is clear that law enforcement must not only start taking threats and harassment more seriously, but that we also need to implement large-scale solutions against the sites and social media users who incite online mobs," she said.
Classroom harassment hasn’t solely been targeted at educators, either. A Southern Poverty Law Center survey found that bullying targeting immigrant and minority students surged following Trump’s entrance to the 2016 race.
Earlier this year, Trump supporter Tayler Ragg tried to get his undocumented classmate expelled after posting her photo with the caption, "everyone go report this illegal at my school.” The young woman fought back by publicizing and reporting the hate she received from the online mob Ragg organized:
The girl he harassed, Paola Garcia, has made a video describing what she went through. She was sent abusive messages like, “I can’t wait till your f****** c*** ass is gone,” “You and your n***** boyfriend need to leave” and “Hope you enjoy your visit back to the dirt floors of your homeland, stinky ass.”
“At the time she posted the video, administrators said they couldn’t do anything about the posts, but it looks like they changed their minds. The Grio reports a spokesperson from Transylvania University confirmed that he is no longer a student.”