OPINION
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Dartmouth Prof to Sue 'Fascist' Students
Furious that class questioned her 'ecofeminist' analysis
By Jonas Oransky
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Posted May 6, 08 5:37 PM CDT
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(Newser)
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A Dartmouth English professor enamored of trendy French literary theories recently got so incensed at students who “argue with your ideas” that she announced her intention to sue her class, charging that their “anti-intellectualism” violated her civil rights and caused her “intellectual distress.” The Wall Street Journal's Joseph Rago, a Dartmouth alum, recaps the story with some glee, right through the "snapping point" when the class applauded a student who questioned her “ecofeminist” analysis.
She accused the class of "fascist demagoguery," and emailed them her intention to sue. Rago notes that while most of his professors at Dartmouth were, unlike Priya Venkatesan, both professional and sane, the impenetrable theories she spouted were all too ubiquitous, making it "pathetically easy" for students to simply parrot back the rhetorical excesses of their instructors. He knows whereof he speaks, he adds, admitting that he personally got a A on a paper "deconstructing" the TV program "Pimp My Ride."