Missing the (Turning) point

Abstract

On August 25, 2017, student members of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a right-wing conservative organization who advocates for smaller government and free market enterprise, recruited on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) campus. Members of the UNL community protested nearby. Part of the protest was recorded on video and released to social media leading to harsh public criticism that accused the university of restricting free speech and being an unsafe environment for conservative students. Drawing on cognitive linguistics (e.g. metonymy, framing) and multimodal critical discourse analysis (MCDA), this paper explores how the TPUSA incident at UNL was recontextualized in local and national media discourse, the ways in which the social actors and events were framed, and its consequences. The authors show how these representations reinforce dominant neoliberal discourses (which correlate with right-wing discourses) that negatively impact public education, providing a necessary counter to a populist political climate in which anti-intellectualism reigns.

Googly eyes and yard signs: Deconstructing one professor’s successful rebuffing of a right-wing attack on an academic institution

“…Nonetheless, organizations such as the AAUP strongly contend that ‘where questions arise concerning the propriety of conduct of a faculty member, the matter should be referred to appropriate faculty bodies at the faculty member’s institution’ (Tiede, 2017, sixth para. ), something that did not happen in the case at UNL described above (Fucci and Catalano, 2019).…”

“…In the case of Kohen, who merely ‘liked’ a humorous photograph on Facebook, and did so as a private citizen, not as a faculty employee, the First Amendment does clearly protect his actions (Stein, 2013). And, unlike the events of the previous year described in Fucci and Catalano (2019), university administrators did not act on Kohen’s situation in any way, since it did not involve the university (other than his being employed there). However, social media situations are not always this clear, and it is important to note that much work still needs to be done in clarifying the First Amendment and its relation to university faculty’s use of social media as it connects to free speech.…”

“…Moreover, speech has become a ‘weapon’ of the Right (Scott, 2017: 3). One example of this can be seen in Fucci and Catalano (2019), in which politicians accused faculty of being hostile to conservatives and arguing that political actions of professors are not protected by free speech. This is true also of this article, in which conservative politicians argue that a professor’s ‘likes’ on Facebook constitute negative actions against a conservative politician and the criminal act of vandalism itself.…”

“…a professor makes a comment publicly or in class that demonstrates his or her left-leaning political views which is filmed by a conservative student and then shared to viral effect on social media; cf. Fucci and Catalano, 2019). Conservative politicians and groups weigh in on the situation, and the actions of one professor are then highly publicized and extrapolated to represent the university as a whole.…”

“…Social media coverage then led to harsh public criticism (including from conservative state senators) that publicly accused the university of restricting free speech and being an unsafe environment for conservative students. Initially, the graduate student/teaching assistant was put on leave for her own ‘safety’, but after pressure from three state senators, she was removed from her position as a teacher, which resulted in UNL being censured by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), a status it currently still holds (for more on this, see Fucci and Catalano, 2019).…”