Professors should be voicing their political preferences this election

It’s considered an unwritten rule that professors shouldn’t channel their political beliefs into their teaching, as students should not have to worry about their possibly conflicting opinions having a negative effect on the rapport between them and their educator.

There have been a few instances in my university experience thus far in which politics has trickled into classroom discussions, even if the subject doesn’t necessarily pertain to it. It doesn’t particularly peeve me, as as an international student, I’m always eager to understand more about America’s political system, but to some of my peers raised in the States, it can have an impact on their perception of their professor.

It’s also no secret that NYU is a predominantly liberal school. Around this time last year when he was still a possible contender,  I noticed a distinctive number of Bernie Sanders stickers plastered to the bags of students as we made our own race to our next class. I caught most of his speech in Washington Square Park in April, and the animated rally-goers around me clung onto his words about diminishing inequalities between classes and his efforts to quash the more unpleasant rhetorics of people like Republican candidate Donald Trump, who has built his campaign on highlighting the shortcomings of his opponents instead of presenting plausible and efficient policies.

While I perceived students to be less enthused about the idea of a Hillary Clinton presidency back then, with a friend of mine at NYU telling me that she had a professor who outrightly claimed to know the Clintons but still mistrusted them (also an opinion worth noting), the current political climate has convinced more students to vote for her over the alternative.

As we draw ever closer to  one of the most contentious elections in modern America, more and more people have felt like it is their duty to speak up about who they will be voting for on November 8^th. Specifically, many famous figures that declared how crucial it was to register on time and exercise one’s right to vote, while refraining from stating their presidential favourite so as to not be accused of swaying the public, have now breached that line, too aggravated to stay silent.

Although the Obama Administration has been vocal about their support for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama’s speech a week and a half ago that emotionally admonished Donald Trump’s comments about groping women (while never actually identifying him) was a perfect example of addressing someone head on when enough is enough. Another would be Vogue magazine collectively and publicly endorsing a presidential candidate for the first time in history, their backing of Hillary Clinton announced last week. It has come to the point where a lack of discussion feels like a disservice.

And where better to cultivate a legitimate discussion than a university classroom? University is that stage when most of us are living independently for the first time, and having our homegrown ideas about the world expanded on and challenged. Some teachers are more respectful and holistic in their beliefs than others, but that’s going to be the case in every community we’re a part of. Plus, it’s interesting when your English teacher points out in a class on feminist theory that Geoffrey Chaucer described a vulgar man grabbing his wife by her genitalia in The Canterbury Tales: “And prively he caughte her by the queynte”, the last word being a precursor for “cunt”. Sound familiar?

So, maybe don’t get mad if your professors choose to speak up at this point. Someone needs to.