Written by George Yancey

You may have heard of the professor watchlist put together by Turning Point USA, a conservative activist organization. As I understand it, the list is meant to point out unfair progressive or radical professors in the United States so that students can be forewarned before taking their classes. In some ways this is a brilliant move for Turning Point. It has attracted attention to a group that most of us had no previous knowledge about.

But I am not a fan of compiling lists of people who supposedly have something wrong with them. Some of the professors on the list have expressed dismay at this effort to stigmatize them. I don’t blame them. We should criticize individuals as individuals. This list stereotypes them as members of a group.

Perhaps I am also uncomfortable with this list because I know what it is like to be a professor. Every word is scrutinized. Anything I say or write can easily be taken out of context, to make me whatever kind of monster someone wants me to be: racist, sexist, homophobic, simple-minded or any other sort of social pariah. It’s all too possible that some very thoughtful professors have been mixed in with those who really do traffic in political bigotry and Christianophobia. (I have no idea how carefully the charges against the professors on the list have been investigated.)

The SPLC’s “Hate List”

But despite my general aversion to this watchlist, there is one thing that keeps me from totally dismissing it: the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) “hate list.” I have been a critic of the way that list stigmatizes the SPLC’s political enemies. At one time the SPLC served a valuable purpose in helping us to identify truly dangerous and violent groups. Now, it seems their major purpose is to tell progressives whom they should reject from polite company. Maybe now, though, they can learn something from Turning Point’s watchlist: there’s something basically wrong about developing and publishing lists of this sort.

Many of the professors on the Turning Point list have expressed their distaste for the list and the stigma it places upon them, and have understandably felt defensive. Colorado University philosophy professor Allison Jaggar said,

No one belongs on the Campus Watchlist because no such list should exist. The Watchlist’s claim “to fight for free speech and the right for professors to say whatever they wish,” while simultaneously aiming to chill any speech that it deems “un-American,” is a prime example of Orwellian newspeak.

Julio C. Pino, associate professor of history at Kent State University, told the New York Times,

What we are seeing with this site is a kind of normalizing of prosecuting professors, shaming professors, defaming professors.

But many Christians and Christian groups have also felt the shaming and defamation of being included on the SPLC’s list. Although I haven’t investigated the criteria used to include professors on the Turning Point watchlist, I do know the rationale for inclusion by which groups are included on the SPLC’s list, and I find it to be suspect. What they label as “hate” is bounded by their political and religious biases. Some groups on the list, perhaps many of them, would never have been included had their politics aligned with the SPLC’s.

In a very real way, then, the professors on the Turning Point list and many Christians on the SPLC list have concerns in common. They feel maligned by a group that has stigmatized them due to their political statements.

So whether it’s an accurate representation of the professoriate or not, the Turning Point list can have real value either way. Perhaps some of these professors, discovering what it’s like to placed on a list like this one, will reconsider the advisability of constructing lists that stigmatize political enemies. Rebecca Schuman, a Slate columnist who writes frequently on higher education, said it beautifully:

This is, indeed, a turning point in our country, a time of fear. … Fear of being placed on a list, targeted as undesirable, and subjected to whatever happens next. It’s a time to fight the impulse to create a watch list.

She went on to observe how unhelpful it is to be “placing targets on backs.” She was writing about the Turning Point watchlist, but it’s hard to see why her remarks wouldn’t apply to the SPLC hate list just as well.

It was easy for mostly-progressive professors to ignore the concerns of those labeled as “hateful” — or to assume the label must be justified — when it was mostly religious and political conservatives who were being labeled. Now, however, they could be a voice that points out the harm of such lists.

That’s my hope, though I am not naïve enough to think it will really happen. I know too well how easily people can justify inconsistent thinking.

The Usefulness of the Turning Point List

So rather than rely on professors to come to reach a helpful conclusion about the general unfairness of such lists, we need to be ready to hold them intellectually accountable. The same goes for everyone who criticizes the professor watchlist. Their criticisms of the Turning Point list should be turned back to the SPLC hate list.

Is the professor watchlist stigmatizing? So is the SPLC list.

Is the professor watchlist politically biased? No more so than the SPLC list.

Will the professor watchlist have the effect of silencing political and ideological opponents? What do they think the SPLC list has been doing the past couple of decades?

Perhaps being on the professor watchlist creates the possibility of being targeted for violence. Has anyone heard of Floyd Corkins and what he tried to do to a Christian organization on the SPLC list?

Criticisms of the professor watchlist can be very useful in dealing with the misuse of the SPLC list.

So despite my misgivings about the Turning Point list, I do find it to be useful for addressing the problems created by the SPLC list. It is not a list that I would personally endorse or work on putting together. But as long as others have done so, we may as well use it for what it is worth.

Article originally published at Stream.org.