Vanderbilt class uses philosophy to examine Ferguson

"The students have been very well organized and thoughtful about their response to Ferguson," she said. "I wanted to respond to this historical moment in the class."

Students will pair philosophers such as John Locke with contemporary blog posts discussing issues of how police use deadly force.

But the course, titled "Police Violence and Mass Incarceration," drew the ire of the blog Daily Roll Call earlier this month, which called it an "anti-police course."

Nashville's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police took notice of the blog post and called Vanderbilt to investigate. Sgt. Mark Woodfin, vice president of Nashville's FOP, said he wanted to ensure students in the course would include police-friendly perspectives in their studies.

Community members, including police officers, will be brought in for class discussions, Guenther said.

"I don't think it is just a simple issue with two sides," she said. "It's a complex issue with a history. We will explore that history in class from multiple perspectives."

In a statement, the university stood by Guenther and her course.

"Universities have historically been places where the most troubling issues facing society can be discussed and where many points of view are respected," Vanderbilt's statement read. "This elective course is an example of that sort of discussion, in which students will be exposed to many perspectives, including those of police. Our support of intellectual freedom exists to encourage reasoned dialogue and debate of the issues facing us all."

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/

Piers, Marc Lamont Hill, Ben Ferguson Battle over Seinfeld: Why Must Comedy Be PC-Pleasing?

Piers Morgan found himself Wednesday night in complete agreement with Jerry Seinfeld‘s recent remarks that rather than being fixated on racial or gender diversity in comedy, his number one concern is finding people who are funny. Morgan and conservative guest Ben Ferguson battled Marc Lamont Hill and The Blaze’s Amy Holmes over the issue of whether forced diversity is necessarily “anti-comedy,” as Seinfeld put it.
Hill argued that Seinfeld’s “relying on a corrupted assumption,” that affirmative action and making a field more diverse means bringing in untalented people of different races when, in fact, it’s all about giving talented minorities a chance to be in the big leagues and impress people with their talents. Morgan insisted that it’s still a bad precedent for what’s supposed to be a free-wheeling, creative field.
“If you sit down with your American pie chart of cultural diversity in the country and divide up your humor quota for the show in a very specific, scientific PC-pleasing way, I got his point that in the end, you’re drifting away from what humor should be, which is spontaneous funny stuff.”
Holmes pointed out that humor comes from different cultural perspectives, ones that Seinfeld might not be personally aware of, while Ferguson rolled his eyes and said “not everything has to come down to race.” Morgan added that there shouldn't be this “compelling pressure of ‘you must be diverse in this manner.’”

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