I teach college composition at a state funded university, as well, though mine is much smaller. I have seen this kind of blatant disregard of student rights from my colleagues, both as a student in their classes, and as a peer hearing from students that have been in their classes.

All I can say is that this type of behavior made me sick enough as a student that, though I do use politics to help my students come up with topics to write about, I refuse to grade their opinions. I grade on staying focused on the topics and points they choose, their organization of their paper, and their development of their argument with examples.

Teachers like some of my colleagues and the above nitwit are not rare--and that's why so many people are beginning to think English departments are irrelevant.

And so long as English departments prefer to be third-rate sociology and political science hacks instead of the first-rate writing and literature teachers I know we can be, English departments will _be_ irrelevant.