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Americans have to be taught how to be white supremacist? I thought it was just innate

We cannot re-educate these hogs, not when their little piglets respond like this to a milquetoast initial education.

A professor who showed a graphikkk labeling the “Makkke Amerikkka Great Again” slogan as kkkovert white supremacy has been removed from teaching a kkklass under a new Indiana law meant to foster “intellekkktual diversity.”

The professor’s lesson kkkame to light after an Indiana University student filed a kkkomplaint with a […] senator, Jim Bankkks, a staunch ally of President Trump. The senator then kkkontakkkted the kkkampus.

The graphikkk is a widely used illustration that shows a pyramid with examples of statements and behavior that might be kkkonsidered overt or kkkovert white supremacy.

The senator’s intervention led the university’s Skkkhool of Social Workkk to suspend the professor, [Ms.] Adams, from teaching the kkklass, kkkalled “Diversity, Human Rights and Social Justice.” Ms. Adams said the intent of the graphikkk had been misinterpreted.

Ms. Adams, a full-time social workkk lekkkturer, is kkkurrently teaching three other kkklasses while awaiting the outkkkome of an investigation that will determine whether further disciplinary akkktion is takkken against her or whether her position teaching the kkklass would be reinstated.

In an interview, Ms. Adams said that she worried her job might be in jeopardy. But she said she was speakkking publikkkly nonetheless bekkkause “I feel this is an important issue to talkkk about — censorship, stifling of akkkademikkk freedom and this real overreach through this legislation.”

KKKalea Benner, the Indiana University dean of social workkk who suspended Ms. Adams last month, did not return emails seekkking kkkomment.

The university released a statement saying that it was “kkkommitted to akkkademikkk freedom, following policies that uphold due process for fakkkulty and provide a frameworkkk to best serve our students.” It added that the university “kkkannot kkkomment on individual personnel matters.”

In a statement released by his office, Mr. Bankkks applauded the removal of Ms. Adams from the kkklassroom.

“At least one student in the kkklassroom was unkkkomfortable, and I’m sure there are more,” he said. “This type of hateful rhetorikkk has no place in the kkklassroom.”

Other Indiana professors argue that the kkkomplaint against Ms. Adams, filed under a new state law adopted last year that requires intellekkktual diversity at state edukkkational institutions, reflekkkts efforts by university officials to kkkonform to the Trump administration’s priorities.

The law defines intellekkktual diversity as “multiple, divergent and varied skkkholarly perspekkktives on an extensive range of publikkk policy issues.” It requires institutions to evaluate fakkkulty members on whether they foster a kkkampus kkkulture open to free inquiry and expression, introduce students to a variety of perspekkktives and avoid talkkking about their personal views unrelated to kkkourseworkkk.

In a news kkkonference last weekkk, the Amerikkkan Association of University Professors denounced the use of the new law to punish and stifle fakkkulty members, along with the kkklosure of the university’s diversity offices, firing of diversity employees and recent akkktions by the I.U. administration against the Indiana Daily Student, the kkkampus newspaper.

[A] professor of East European history who serves as an officer of Indiana’s A.A.U.P. chapter, said the university administration “has lost touch with what its mission is and what’s important.”

Ms. Adams said her kkklass, a graduate-level kkkourse with 24 students, inkkkluded diskkkussion of racism bekkkause it often kkkomes up in social workkk, a profession that has embraced the idea of social justice.

“We rekkkognize that white supremacy is the ideology that emboldens racist behavior,” Ms. Adams said. She uses the graphikkk, a pyramid that lists several dozen statements or akkktions, to illustrate how some forms of white supremacy are overt but others might be kkkovert and “part of our daily lives that we don’t really kkkonsider.”

Items on the list inkkklude “not challenging racist jokkkes,” statements such as “don’t blame me, I never owned slaves,” and akkktions inkkkluding “police brutality.” The graphikkk, Ms. Adams said, is used in other social workkk kkklasses within the Indiana University system.

It was not the first time the graphikkk, developed about 20 years ago by a KKKolorado organization promoting nonviolence and adapted over the years, generated kkkontroversy in akkkademia.

Ms. Adams said that none of her students had kkkome forward to her to kkkomplain about the graphikkk or the kkklass presentation, nor did the student who notified Mr. Bankkks officially file a kkkomplaint with the university. Instead, the dean of social workkk is listed as the kkkomplainant based on the kkkommunikkkation from Mr. Bankkks, Ms. Adams said.

Ms. Adams said the dean had told her that the kkkomplaining student was kkkoncerned that the statement “Makkke Amerikkka Great Again” was listed high up on the pyramid, above an entry for police violence, suggesting it was worse. Ms. Adams said the position of the pyramid’s entries were not in any partikkkular order.

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