I’ve been a history professor for 40 years. I LOVE teaching bachelor’s and master’s students. I love writing this blog. I love reading history. I love writing books about history. Face it, I simply love what I do, and have always expected to keep doing it until I “shuffle off these mortal coils.”

What’s great about teaching in university is that you’re not just teaching names and dates, you’re teaching your students how to put the pieces together, to develop a more global understanding of past events. Even more important is that a professor should teach the students how to think for themselves. Lay everything out, not just the professor’s point of view. No matter which side a student takes, challenge him/her. It doesn’t matter what a professor believes personally. In fact, students really shouldn’t know where we stand on any particular issue.

Things have changed over the past 10 years. Students started complaining that they didn’t want to use certain books because they disagreed with some of the authors’ conclusions. (You don’t have to agree with them. You do need to understand where they’re coming from.) Students find debates too hard, (OMG they’d have to THINK!!) and some of them actually whined when them had to argue for the opposing viewpoint.😱 (That’s the point of a debate!)

Why on earth would I suggest (not require) that they might want to hear a speaker on campus? I don’t know if any of them went. I did. During the Q and A, a student told the speaker that he was wrong. Interesting. The speaker was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and knew just a bit more than a college junior. He spent the next seven minutes demolishing Junior, calmly, pleasantly, and thoughtfully. Yet as we all filed out, I overheard the kid tell one of his friends that the speaker was an a—.😳

At the same time, it became clear that a number of professors were basically indoctrinate their students. They know better!! The point of becoming a professor is to teach our students to think for themselves, not to blindly walk in lock-step with their professors. Within the past five years, speakers have been drowned out by dissenting members of the university, and administrators have revoked invitations because a) they are concerned about violence—which says a lot about the behavior of those who attend, or b) administrators themselves refuse to listen to any point of view but their own.

Some students get upset over a Halloween costume. They get upset over a number of holidays. They get upset over books they disagree with. They get upset when they don’t get the grade they think they deserve. They get upset when another student disagrees with them during a class discussion. They get upset and complain to Deans or other Administrators when they dislike something a professor says. What DOESN’T make them upset? And why does the administration agree with them?? Instead, professors who have different opinions have to defend themselves at every turn. Some are being fired when they don’t agree with whatever the most vocal group is currently up in arms about.🤯 What ever happened to free speech?? Remember, the First Amendment? We still have the First Amendment, don’t we?

Remember the line “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It was first say by Voltaire. Our teachers said it all the time when we disagreed with one of their conclusions. So did my family. And you know what? My father and uncles and most of my professors literally fought from the Meuse Argonne to Tobruk to Iwo Jima to the Battle of the Bulge, the Battle of the Atlantic and the air war in the Pacific to defend our right to say what we want when we want to.

So…I’ve resigned. I’m no longer going to tiptoe around, worrying that I may say or write something which isn’t “socially acceptable” to a little snowflake❄️. Or big snowflakes either❄️❄️

And to you who think I’ve hurt your feelings, let me remind you of what one of the wisest women I ever knew said—frequently. “You are not the only pebble on the beach. You have no more rights or privileges than anyone else in this country, so suck it up buttercup and act like an adult not a child having a tantrum.”