Indiana University ends employment of professor who taught that MAGA is covert white supremacy

An Indiana University professor who presented the slogan "Make America Great Again" as a form of white supremacy that is "worse than police killing people of color" is no longer employed at the institution. 

In a graduate-level course, "Diversity, Human Rights and Social Justice," instructor Jessica Adams showed a pyramid graphic listing statements and actions that she called overt forms of white supremacy, which included lynching and racial slurs. 

Alongside these acts was a list of what Adams calls covert white supremacy, which includes the Trump campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" and failing to challenge racial jokes. Kalea Benner, the dean of the School of Social Work, complained that the way the chart structures the hierarchy of acts, the slogan is listed as "worse than police killing people of color." Adams disputes that the chart makes that suggestion. 

In September, a student complained about the lesson to Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Banks contacted the university to say the lesson made the student uncomfortable, the New York Times reported. 

The university investigated Adams, who isn't tenured, under an Indiana law that aims to prevent students from being subjected to political views that are unrelated to the course. Critics say the law undermines diversity of discourse on campuses. In October, the university suspended Adams from teaching the course, and in May the university said it wouldn't reappoint her. Her employment ends this month. 

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free-speech group, represented Adams and criticized the decision to end her employment over the perspectives she shared in the course. 

“Universities should not bow to outside pressure to terminate faculty merely because others dislike what they teach,” Zach Greenberg, a lawyer with FIRE, said in a statement.