University bosses have ordered a liberal professor at Michigan Tech to calm down after he launched into a furious rant about his freedom-loving students commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Dr Carl Blair was triggered when the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) staged a ‘Freedom Week’ on the Houghton campus to mark the 34th anniversary of the Cold War’s end.
Events entitled ‘Celebrating Our Veterans’ and ‘The Victims of Socialism’ prompted the archeology professor to lash out at students in class, seemingly unaware that one was recording him.
‘It was childish, stupid, homophobic, dumb, racist twits,’ he told them, ‘that’s the polite version.’
‘It was wrong, it was tacky, stupid, uncollegial, really bad taste, and it shows what a bunch of ying yangs they are,’ he continued.
Michigan Tech professor Dr Carl Blair lashed out at his conservative students, labelling them ‘childish, stupid, homophobic, dumb, racist twits’
The Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Michigan Tech also faced protests from other students when they tried to stage a ‘Freedom Week’ on their Houghton campus
They reproduced a section of the Berlin Wall to mark the anniversary of its collapse in 1989
‘You know, it’s too bad you all have to deal with things like that. Wasted half my morning dealing with things like that. It’s annoying.’
To promote their event the group constructed a model of the graffiti-splattered Berlin Wall erected by Communist East Germany in 1961 to stop its citizens fleeing to the West.
Its fall in 1989 was widely celebrated around the world and marked for many the end of the Communist threat to Europe.
But that too sparked fury at the former mining school where one student tried to destroy the group’s exhibit.
‘We stand by free speech on all campuses across the United States,’ the group said in a statement.
‘We do so in the face of insults from a professor and others who think First Amendment protections only apply to their worldview.
‘The student who vandalized our display has the right to free speech, but went too far, endangering people and damaging property.’
Citizens of East Germany took axes and hammers to the Berlin Wall as it came down in 1989 marking an end to 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 for being a white man’.
He demanded an apology from the college after it passed a resolution criticizing ‘anti-Blackness and systemic racism’ in both the university and society.
‘Simple statistical analysis will demonstrate that Michigan Tech’s hiring practices are biased against white males,’ he wrote.
‘At Michigan Tech, I have seen no signs of discrimination against women and people of color.’
Dr Blair, who specializes in Roman and Anglo-Saxon England, describes himself on the university website as ‘the most experienced experimental archaeology metal smelter in the world’.
But he has attracted mixed reviews on the student website ratemyprofessors.com with one describing him as ‘Incredibly pretentious and rude’, and another calling him ‘straight up insufferable’.
‘All he did was talk about how great socialism could be and was so confused as to why people fear communism,’ claimed a third.
Blair claimed his targets in YAF were deliberately being provocative to trigger a clampdown by university authorities.
‘There are, quite bluntly, certain faculty members who are hoping the students will be censored for this,’ he said.
‘Because then they can go off and say and pretend ‘Oh we’re victims, you’re restricting our, you know, freedom of speech, we should have, we have a constitutional right to be insulting, violent and threatening. How dare you restrict our speech?
‘That’s not what college should be about,’ he continued.
The group accused ‘leftist students’ of trying to destroy their exhibit
The university near the shores of Lake Superior was founded as the Michigan Mining School in 1885, and gained its current name in 1964
‘You know, it should be a place where you could learn, experience, do interesting things, have interesting opportunities – hint, hint, study away – uh, rather than wasting your time and having to address idiots.
‘They’re idiots out there. Sorry, that’s life.’
The university has refused to be drawn into the row, but it issued a barbed hint that Blair should mind his manners.
‘As a flagship technological university with a strong research focus, Michigan Tech vigorously supports freedom of speech and academic freedom,’ a spokesman told Fox News.
‘With this, we expect an environment of respect and civility, even more so within our classrooms.’