By Chayan Garcia
Staff Writer
On the first day of school last semester, the professor in my Political Science 101 class introduced herself as Dr. Brooke Mascagni. She was high energy, passionate, very well-educated and intense in the best of ways.
Little did I know just how much of an inspiration she would be by the time the semester ended.
On that first day, she encouraged us all to stand up and fight for our rights, that they were never to be taken for granted. The conversation then shifted to into a more political direction and she passed out her syllabus, which was written to resemble a newsletter.
While most syllabi I have encountered in my eight years of college are formal and to the point, Mascagni’s was filled with the same passion that she projected personally. It was filled with often colorful language about the political party in power and focused greatly on President Trump. It was clear she didn’t think too highly of him, with phrases like “white supremacist,” “failed businessman,” and that he was elected due to “appealed to bigotry and hatred jumping out.”
I had no problem with the language. I had heard it all before. In fact, it felt like what I had been thinking. I felt empowered, that my voice, and the voices sitting next to me, were not alone.
But not every student agreed. That syllabus soon went viral online as, apparently, one student contacted a website called www.campusreform.org, which exists for students who feel they are in classes taught by professors not friendly to conservative values, to basically rat out those professors. The story was picked up by other outlets, including LifeZette, Twitter, FOX 11 Los Angeles, Fox News, and News One. By week two, the class was nearly at half capacity. She said some students and their parents did not agree with what they called her “agenda.” But it didn’t stop there. Throughout the semester, she kept us informed about how she was threatened via social media platforms, harassed on personal levels and required undercover security while she was on campus.
The class didn’t understand the caliber of what was happening until midterms. The mental and physical health of Mascagni was affected by the chaos surrounding her, but she refused to fall back. She stood passionately and determined to kick-start our engines to ask questions and stand up for what we believed in, not what she believed in.
By the end of the semester, I was worried for her health, as she was doxxed. Her personal email, contact numbers, class locations and times were all over the internet, as they were included in her syllabus. Mascagni was the showrunner for an internet smear campaign that took a toll on her well-being.
Yet, I was also inspired, not only by her ability to withstand the torrent of online abuse, but by our university. The CSUDH administration stood by Mascagni. Instead of buckling under the negative publicity and doing something to penalize her it issued a statement defending academic freedom and stated “part of an education is exposing students to differing positions and opinions on a topic, in an effort to encourage critical thinking. At all times, students at California State University, Dominguez Hills are encouraged to exercise their right to free speech, free inquiry, and freedom of expression.”
Seeing that our school stood behind a teacher in the crosshairs of such online harassment made me feel proud to be of this university. Sometimes doing the right thing is hard, and sometimes it is easier to do something to just make it all go away. But, along with the students in the class who stayed enrolled, the university stood for freedom of expression.
Her ordeal, my experience in watching her go through it, and the university standing beside her, made me realize standing up for what is right, and supporting people who believe in their passions, is more important than our personal feelings about their opinions. For the first time, I knew what it meant to be a Toro; and that is something I will always be proud of.
