What It's Like to be a Conservative Professor

[Geee]

American Thinker:

It would be too easy to begin by quoting the famous line from DuBois's Souls of Black Folk, "what is it like to be a problem?"

So pretend I didn't just quote that. Let's start somewhere else.

Like here, for instance: An April 4, 2012 article in The Blaze reports on Bill Ayers commiserating with Occupy Wall Street protestors:

We've got a militarized society and its become so common sense that, getting on the airplane coming out here [...] uniformed military get on first and thank you for your service [...] let's let the teachers and nurses get on first and thank them for their service.

What a bind. I am both a teacher and a soldier (Army reserves). Self-proclaimed conservatives thank me for my service whenever they find out that I am military. Only two or three have ever thanked me for serving as a teacher.

In truth, teaching is a lot harder. I would rather be beaten senseless in combatives by a 240-pound meathead (again) and waterboarded than forced to go through a tenure review.

I suffered a closed head injury while in uniform, hurt my shoulder, got stitches over my eye from laceration, and burned a permanent scar into my leg while sliding down a rope in training. Heat stroke, suicide watch, tear gas, whatever. Other soldiers would scoff if I tried to make a big deal out of such inconveniences because that's life in the Army. Those scars heal eventually. Pills and doctors can do wonders, especially if you have the stamina to deal with Tri-Care paperwork.

Coming home from active duty to my English department office and finding my door vandalized by anti-military leftists was far worse. I stood looking closely at the grooves carved into the door, guessing whether it was a knife or a screwdriver the vandal dragged over the flag and Army stickers. That imaginary knife hurt more than an actual stab wound could have. Even worse were the emails calling me "vendido," "asshole," and alluding to the murder of women and children.

Snipers threatened me less than snarky liberals. If shunned from the tenure track, I lose decades of academic investment and have to spend half my life in miserable poverty and humiliation. Snarky liberals delight in nothing more than provoking conservatives and then getting them fired.

Your comrades may lose their heads and assault you in a moment of pique, but students will smile at you for a semester and then sabotage you on course evaluations. I always have to worry about the ones smelling of marijuana smoke with big O buttons on their backpacks, who Google gossip about me posted by liberal provocateurs while I am trying to lecture about Poe.