Lake Ingle, a student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, got an unexpected lesson recently — in academic intolerance.
Ingle (pictured above) recounted his experience in challenging a religious studies professor in a class called “Special Topic — Self, Sin, and Salvation.” He said Friday on “The Laura Ingraham Show” that the professor was leading a classroom discussion about gender issues, which included showing a video by a transgender minister.
At one point, Ingle said, the professor asked only the female students — at first — to discuss systemic male privilege, sexism and “mansplaining.”
Ingle said he pushed back.
“I just objected to her use of — her misuse of her intellectual power in [the] classroom and said, ‘You can’t use anecdotal evidence to push something in class as if it’s inarguable,'” he said. “And then I refuted the gender wage gap that was alluded to in the video, the systemic male privilege, etc., as well as the 72 gender [referring to the supposed number of genders] statements that she makes in class fairly frequently.”
The result, Ingle said, is that he found himself kicked out of the class and brought up on academic integrity charges for violating the classroom disruption policy. A hearing board will deliver a verdict on Monday.
Ingle said he was on the defensive during his hearing.
“She even tried to implement a struggle session for my first round of punishments before trying to have me permanently removed,” he said. “She wanted me to stand in front of the class and apologize for my quote-unquote ‘outburst,’ and then I had to sit there in silence while they could then berate me with any comments about what happened.”
Ingle said he has heard from other students who have had similar experiences with the professor, who “bullies the contradictory views out of the conversation.”
Ingle said most of his classmates that day were mum.
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“No one was really interested in the argument or the conversation at the time,” the student said. “But I think people have just gotten desensitized to this type of behavior from professors. A number of them were, like, rolling their eyes because of the fact that it’s so ludicrous.”
Ingle said one of his classmates testified at the hearing.
“I think it helped me more than it did her,” he said. “I hope it works out for me.”
Ingle said he actually enjoyed the hearing.
“It was three hours, but I wanted us to keep going,” he said.
PoliZette senior writer Brendan Kirby can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter.
(photo credit, homepage and article images: Lake Ingle)
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