Conn. prof rebuked by GOP for calling conservatives “racist, misogynist”

They don’t call it liberal arts for nothing.

A part-time English professor at Eastern State Connecticut University in Willimantic is public enemy No. 1 in Republican circles — from the state GOP headquarters to the website of the William F. Buckley Jr.-founded National Review — for an anti-conservative lecture he gave to students in his Introduction to Creative Writing class.

Brent Terry characterized Republicans as “…racist, misogynist, money-grubbing people have so much power over the rest of us,” according to audio excerpts from his Monday morning class obtained by the website Campus Reform.

Conservatives “want things to go back—not to 1955, but to 1855,” Terry said. “There are a lot of people out there that do not want black people to vote, do not want Latinos to vote. Do not want old people to vote, or young people to vote. Because generally, people like you are liberal.”

Terry warned his students that the midterm elections could have dire consequences for his students.

“It’s absolutely possible that the Republicans will take over the Senate, as well as the House,” Terry said. “And we will live in a very, very, very different kind of country if that happens. I mean, colleges will start closing up if they, if these people have their way. They don’t think money should go to giving you people dangerous ideas about how the world should be run.”

GOP leaders rebuked Terry for his rhetoric.

“To refer to Republicans as ‘racist, misogynist, money-grubbing people’ is outrageous and offensive,” said Jerry Labriola Jr., chairman of the state Republican Party. “And to make such a statement as a public employee teaching a class on creative writing at a public university is wildly inappropriate. Professor Terry’s attempt to indoctrinate his students constitutes a clear abuse of his position as a professor at a public university.”

Said Elissa Voccola, executive director of the state GOP: “As a Republican woman who attended a Connecticut State University, I am deeply offended by Professor Terry’s comments. I encourage Professor Terry to sit in on a history class where he might learn that it took a Republican president to end slavery and a Republican congress to give women the right to vote.”

Neil Vigdor