Kind of foolish to pull this in the era of smart phones.... but a UW-Oshkosh prof is caught enflagrante using class time to push for the recall of a state senator and Governor Walker. Would have been nice if someone from the MSM was hounddogging this sort of story, but the release comes from the state GOP:
"A recording released by the Republican Party of Wisconsin exposes Professor Stephen Richards using class time to actively campaign for the recall of State Senator Randy Hopper, encouraging his students to sign recall petitions offered by circulators present in his classroom.
"In the tape, recorded during a criminal justice class,Richards can be heard encouraging a female student to sign the recall petition even though she thinks she lives outside the district, and instructing students to sign using their campus address instead of their parents’ home address. He also tells students to look for petition circulators all around campus and “in the bars.”
“This incredible misuse of power by a person in a position of authority cannot be tolerated,” said Mark Jefferson, Executive Director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin. “Professor Richards used valuable class time to actively campaign to his students, over whom he has influence. The incident goes way past poor judgment - this is egregious professional misconduct.”
"In the recording, Richards openly discusses his involvement in the recall effort, detailing organizational meetings he has attended, and using the term “we” to describe recall organizers.
"As the Professor discusses the various reasons he supports the recall efforts, he promotes several falsehoods about the effects of the budget repair bill, saying at one point “It will be a lot less, um, rewarding to be in law enforcement, because they're gonna cut all the police unions.”
“Either he’s purposely lying to students in an effort to provoke them to sign the petitions, or he is woefully misinformed and spreading severe inaccuracies along to students who rely on him for factual information,” says Jefferson. “Teachers and college professors have a responsibility to their students and to their communities. We trust them to deliver facts and stay above the political fray - at the very least when they are at the head of a classroom. This Professor has seriously failed his students. One has to wonder if this is an isolated incident or a more common occurrence in our state's classrooms.”
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The full audio recording is available for download here: http://www.wisgop.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Professor-Richard-Audio.mp3
Full transcript of audio recording:
PROFESSOR: Um good afternoon. [Inaudible]...begin the class.
I have two students here, who are from the Committee to Recall Republican Senator Hopper.
Hopper is uh, a Republican State Senator....so if you live in his district - his district is um, oh all the way up, to a, Neenah-Menasha, all the way down to
Fond du Lac, out to um, Waupun, uh, and around the bottom of the lake.
So it's a Fond du Lac County, uh parts of Dodge County, um and all of Winnebago County.
And um, if you're reading the newspapers, we're um...we're um...there's an effort, I think there's about one hundred faculty that are doing this on this campus.
But we uh, our effort is to recall this Republican Senator.
And by signing this sheet, all it's saying is that you um, you'd like, you're signing it to have him recalled.
Um, the recall effort started March first.
We have sixty days in which to collect fifteen thousand signatures. And then on May first, um, if we have enough signatures, they then will schedule a recall election. And there'll be an election, um, where they'll stand for election again.
So, this isn't saying who you want to vote for, this is just saying that uh, if you sign this that you uh, you're signing to have a new vote, a new election, so.
Um...any questions about this?
I
'm not gonna do this in the classroom, but uh, these two students are gonna stand outside. And if you want to sign their clipboard..
STUDENT: [Inaudible]
STUDENT: I live in Menasha and from what I understand Senator Ellis is who, is representing [inaudible].
PROFESSOR: Um, I think you can sign it and if it doesn't, if you are in that district then your signature just won't count.
Um, if you sign this you should sign this you should sign it uh, with uh, um your campus address. You know like if you, instead of your parents' address sign it with the address here on campus.
Um, I’m not asking you to do it you're not required to do this, it's a free country, you can sign it or not sign it.
Um, I'd prefer to have people do it outside cause that way, you know it's not like I'm watching who's signing and who's not signing.
Um...and so if you want to you can go outside and sign it, if you don’t want to then well just, just stay in class.
You'll probably get this in different classes, and I should tell you as I [INAUDABLIE]..there is a recall of eight Republican state senators, and then there's, I think there's a recall six Democratic state senators.
So you can, you know, you'll be seeing a lot of these petitions.
You'll see ‘em at the student union; you'll see ‘em in the bars. You'll see em, um, uh, there's people standing on the street corners outside with these petitions. And, um it's happening all over the state, so, in the different state districts.
And uh, and then there's gonna be a recall of Governor Walker, uh, which won't start till next January.
As I understand it, uh, what the law says is that you can't recall an elected official until they've been in office one year.
And the reason you see this on campus a lot is that, um, the effect of the, of Walker's budget on this university is number one, will be an eight percent pay cut for all faculty and staff, eight percent pay cut.
Um, there'll be um, there'll be a legal [inaudible] to be, belong to a union. And you should know that, um all the faculty, janitors, maintenance people secretaries, they all belong to a union, they're all in a union right now. So there union will be decertified.
Um, that um, and this affects teachers, professors, parole officers, corrections officers, and a lot of police and fire. Police and fire are not exempt from this.
Um, all public employees. So the uh, big salary cuts, uh is eight to ten percent of their wages are cut, um, not just one year but from here on out, um and, um um, they'll make it so that we won't be able to belong to unions.
Which once that's done then all the wages will get lower and lower, so.
Just give an example, I had a nurse, she was seventy five years old, she walked up to me last week, and um, she told me that she was Republican and that she voter for Walker. And that she was a nurse at Taycheedah, the women's prison, and that when she retired she made twelve thousand dollars a year.
Now Taycheedah, after she retired they got a union, and now those nurses make like sixty thousand a year.
So what it means is without union, all police and fire are in unions. Without unions those occupations are going to be reduced in wages, benefits, um, its will be a lot less, um, rewarding to be in law enforcement. Because they're gonna cut all the police unions.
I was told today that um, uh the Winnebago um, mental health units here in Oshkosh, that they're gonna close ‘em. That's gonna put thousands of Oshkosh people out of work.
And they closed, uh, two juvenile prisons this week, um, laid off four hundred people.
So it's just beginning, and uh, um, so anyway you're gonna see these petitions everywhere, because.
I went to a meeting last week in Fond du Lac two hundred people showed up to take these petitions. And there was here on campus, um, in the student union, four hundred people showed up to get copies of these petitions, so.
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