An Indiana University professor was removed from teaching a class on social justice for using a graphic that listed President Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan as a form of white supremacy.
On October 6, Jessica Adams, a lecturer in the university’s school of social work, was temporarily barred from continuing to teach the graduate-level class “Diversity, Human Rights and Social Justice,” after a student complained about the teaching aid to the office of Senator Jim Banks, a Trump ally.
The senator then forwarded the complaint to university officials, who initiated an investigation and warned that Adams may be violating a recently passed state law requiring “intellectual diversity” at state educational institutions.
Adams, in a news conference earlier this month, said the graphic, which is widely used, was being misinterpreted and that she was well within her remit given the subject-matter of her course.
“I was asked to teach on structural racism, and as you teach on structural racism in the United States, you cannot not discuss white supremacy as it is the ideology that emboldens racist behavior,” Adams said.
The visual features a list of behaviors and ideas in- and outside a pyramid, which bisected by a line separating “overt” white supremacy at the top of the pyramid and a far greater number “covert” white supremacist ideas and actions below.
In the graphic, the MAGA slogan is just outside the pyramid itself, at the top of the “covert” category, near the “overt” zone.
The Indiana University Bloomington chapter of the Association of University Professors accuses the school of mishandling the investigation into the incident and ironically using the state law to “stifle intellectual diversity.”
It alleged in a statement this week the school failed to fairly investigate the incident, denied Adams the right to have counsel, and saw the same administrators act as both investigators and complainants.
Indiana University has said it does not comment on ongoing personnel matters.
Banks, in a statement to The New York Times, criticized the professor.
“At least one student in the classroom was uncomfortable, and I’m sure there are more,” he said. “This type of hateful rhetoric has no place in the classroom.”
Adams is awaiting the results of a review of the allegations and still teaches three other courses at the university.
Earlier this year, a Bloomington professor was sanctioned under the law. The professor, Ben Robinson, claims a full investigation into the allegations at issue never actually occurred and that the punishment was aimed at “chilling other faculty” from speaking out on hot-button issues.
The Trump administration has put enormous pressure on universities to conform with its policy goals, sometimes cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding to top institutions in an attempt to force new intellectual diversity requirements, cooperation with immigration raids, and the elimination of diversity programs.
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