A part-time lecturer allegedly offered students extra credit for attending a Tesla protest.
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While many professors across the U.S. have protested federal funding cuts and other attacks on higher education by President Donald Trump and his campaign donor and aide Elon Musk without incident, two faculty members are now facing sharp scrutiny for their actions on and off campus.
At the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire, José Felipe Alvergue, who chairs the English Department, is on leave after he allegedly flipped a table Tuesday set up by the College Republicans to encourage support for Brad Schimel in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. A video posted by UW–Eau Claire’s College Republicans chapter showed the aftermath of the incident and accused Alvergue (who had not yet been identified when it was uploaded) of being a “violent” supporter of Susan Crawford, the Democratic-backed candidate who later won the race Tuesday.
“I am deeply concerned that our students’ peaceful effort to share information on campus on election day was disrupted,” UW–Eau Claire interim provost Michael Carney wrote in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “UW–Eau Claire strongly supports every person’s right to free speech and free expression, and the university remains committed to ensuring that campus is a place where a wide variety of opinions and beliefs can be shared and celebrated. Civil dialogue is a critical part of the university experience, and peaceful engagement is fundamental to learning itself.”
Carney added that campus officials are working with the Universities of Wisconsin system and its Office of General Counsel, “which is conducting a comprehensive investigation of this matter.”
The incident prompted broad criticism, particularly from conservatives, many of whom called for the professor to be immediately fired.
“Outrageous. Yet sadly what many conservatives [sic] students deal with every day on so many campuses,” Scott Walker, a former Republican governor of Wisconsin, wrote on social media.
Alvergue did not respond to a request for comment.
On the other side of the country, a part-time lecturer at California State University, Fresno, has prompted outrage in conservative quarters over her social media posts, FOX26NEWS reported. Katherine Shurik, who teaches anthropology, allegedly posted an image of Trump in a casket with the caption “I have a dream for this to happen much sooner rather than later” and another of a gravestone with his name on it and a caption reading, “and take Musk and the rest of the Nazi (Republican) party members with you too!” Additionally, in a video of Shurik circulated by conservative influencers, she said students will “get extra credit for coming to the protest.” Some local news sites reported the extra credit was for protesting Tesla, owned by Musk.
The university was quick to distance itself from Shurik’s posts this week.
“While Fresno State firmly believes in the principles of free speech, we strongly condemn the abhorrent social media posts and comments made by one of our part-time instructors,” Fresno State officials wrote in a Tuesday statement. “As these views were published by the employee as a private citizen, they do not represent our university in any way. Fresno State firmly denounces wishes of death against any elected official, particularly the President of the United States—these go against our core educational values and are not consistent with our Principles of Community. As Americans and educators, we pride ourselves on democratic dialogue, not words of derision and contempt about the most important political figure of our country.”
Shurik did not respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.
Multiple social media users called for Fresno State to fire Shurik ,and local officials have also weighed in, including Gary Bredefeld, a member of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors.
“This is a professor at Fresno State posting about her longing for the deaths of President Trump, Elon Musk and Republicans. These are the unhinged radicals teaching our young kids at schools and universities across the country,” he wrote in a Sunday post on Facebook. “People like this are hate-filled, radical lunatics and have no business teaching anywhere. I would expect the President of Fresno State to address this immediately and denounce these postings.”
Even Musk himself noticed the uproar.
“Calling for the death of the President is a serious crime,” he wrote in a reply to a post about Shurik.
