Update: Former Professor Says Southern Maine IS Funding Kavanaugh Protest Trip, Contradicting School’s Statement

  |  
Oct 3, 2018

Earlier Wednesday, Big League Politics wrote a story about the University of Southern Maine offering a “pop-up” course to students that would give them a free credit hour at the taxpayers expense to protest Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in Washington D.C.

Shortly after publication a statement from the university president Glenn Cummings was relayed to BLP denying that a free credit hour would be given to the students:

“This pop-up course was hastily arranged in the past 24 hours, without the knowledge of the Provost or myself. It was not appropriately reviewed nor went through proper channels. As soon as the Provost and I were apprised of the course, we immediately pulled the one-credit offering. We also made sure that no USM monies were being used for the trip. University policy makes it absolutely clear that our public, taxpayer funded institutions must be non-partisan in terms of political activity and institutionally impartial in all political, religious and social matters that are unrelated to our universities’ core mission of education, research, and public service.”

Now, a former professor at the school is contradicting Cummings, saying that “pop-up” courses are specifically funded by the university for events like the Kavanaugh confirmation process.

“Yes, that credit hour was being offered for participating in an absolutely historical moment in United States history for women to get a full and just hearing around allegations of sexual violence,” said former USM Women’s and Gender Studies professor Susan Feiner on local news in Maine.

When the news anchor asked about the university’s statement above, which distanced itself from the event, Feiner said the school’s statement was “not 100 percent correct.”

“The social justice pop-up program at USM has been fully endorsed by the University, [the university] has been more than happy to take the more than $500,000 to fund the social justice program – we have a minor now – and this course is called a ‘pop-up’ on purpose,” Feiner said. “History unfolds rapidly and so when an event like this happens we marshaled all our resources to be able to give students a wonderful learning opportunity.”

So Feiner says the “pop-up” course is for credit, meaning that it is paid for by the taxpayers of the state of Maine, which the USM explicitly denied earlier.

The university did not comment for this story.

WATCH: (via Mason Carson)

https://twitter.com/masoncars74/status/1047617146300387329

 

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