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NYU, Talia Lavin and a Course in Failure

A class on reporting on the far-right taught by a disgraced journalist: What could possibly go wrong?

Only leftists deep in the belly of the American academic biosphere could dream up an undergraduate course designed to teach college kids how to hammer conservatives. The brain trust at New York University’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute conceived of this fallacious enterprise, only to have it crash and burn.

Talia Lavin Gets an “F”

It takes a good deal of hubris to formulate such a class, but even more to hire a hardcore lefty like Talia Lavin to teach it. Lavin worked for The New Yorker until she falsely accused an ICE agent of having a Nazi tattoo. When it turned out that Justin Gaertner’s ink was a “Titan 2” symbol left over from his days serving as a Marine in Afghanistan, Lavin had quite a bit of egg to remove from her face. Oops. Talia apparently forgot to take Fact-Checking 101 in J-school.

One would think that would be about enough for Ms. Lavin – but no. Following the ICE agent debacle, Lavin tweeted, “some vets said this ICE agent’s tattoo looked more like a Maltese cross than an Iron Cross (common among white supremacists), so i deleted my tweet so as not to spread misinformation.”

A stereotypical leftist, Lavin managed to maneuver perfectly into not taking responsibility for her actions (some vets said) and being a victim of the malevolent right. This is how she finessed her way through the firestorm of negative public sentiment. Saying she was issued “death threats” and called nasty names by all those evil conservatives out there in Deplorable-land, Lavin tried to re-cast her image as a professor.

And New York University took the bait. Thus a journalism elective – which was hastily canceled when only two students signed up – advertised the following, according to a deleted course description:

“In an era when hate is on the rise, this course will provide student journalists with a thorough grounding in far-right and white-supremacist movements in the United States, briefly examining their history and delving into their sprawling present incarnations …”

In addition, Professor Lavin was poised to teach her students “how to track and identify online extremism.” Goodness, hasn’t all that hate been deleted yet? Well, there does appear to be a lot of internet scrubbing going on at NYU. Along with the deleted course description, Lavin’s bio that pitched her as a social justice/extremism expert has also miraculously disappeared and, lo and behold, so has Lavin’s tweet about the Nazi – er, American Warrior.

Talia Lavin

Thank heavens for those low IQ Deplorables (sic) out there who managed to archive a few of these, which we happily provide for your reading pleasure here and here. She’s a piece of work, this one. And without doubt another social justice warrior on a mission to brainwash your children.

For the 2017/18 academic year – room, board and tuition for the average NYU student crested $71,000. As one commenter put it, “What kind of top tier institution of higher learning hires someone to teach ‘reporting on the far right’ who resigned in utter disgrace for false reporting?”

And now you know the answer.

~

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