College educators included on the recently published “Professor Watchlist“ are criticizing the list as harmful to academic values. The list, which we reported about here, includes professors who “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

University of Pennsylvania professor Anthea Butler, who was included on the list says inclusion on the Watchlist is seen as a badge of honor:

I think a lot of professors are both upset about this, and some actually wear it as a badge of honor. It’s obviously an attempt to silence people.

“What this does is it makes it seem like you’re some kind of professor who doesn’t do good work. It makes it seem like you’re being seditious to the country, which is not the case.

According to Time, Butler is listed on the site because of a tweet in which she used a racial slur in response to former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson’s belief in the right to fly the Confederate flag.

Butler has it backwards. The purpose of the list isn’t to “silence people.” To the contrary its purpose is to stop the shaming and silencing of Conservative ideas by the the professors who advance leftist propaganda.

John Traphagan, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, was placed on the Watchlist because of a Dallas Morning News column in which he advocated for gun control measures, thinks the list is intimidating:

I don’t know what that has to do with anything I do in the classroom. I don’t know how that’s related to discrimination against conservatives. If you’re trying to harm other people, then that’s a different story, but if it’s just a political opinion, a policy position, that’s not discrimination, that’s voicing an opinion.”

It’s very poorly conceived. It accomplishes very little, if anything, and the one thing it can do is intimidate people who might voice their opinions.

Traphagan also doesn’t get it. The column was relevant to students with conservative beliefs who might now opt out of taking Traphagan’s class because he seeks to suppress our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

According to Charlie Kirk, the founder of TPUSA which created the Watchlist says it is intended to “shine a light on what we feel has been an unfair balance toward left-leaning ideas and biases in our universities”

Professor watch list is intended to expose document and organize radical professors across the country who have been engaged in anti-American and leftist behavior in their classes. These professors have a right to say whatever they wish, but we feel a responsibility to students, alumni, and parents to expose the radicalism that has institutionalizes our colleges and universities.