SlimGhazi update: Eyes and ears of the Party

Those wacky college kids! What are they up to today, Fair 'n' Balanced Network?

A Wisconsin college professor warned her students they wouldn't be able to get all of their homework done because of the partial government shutdown, and put a partisan spin on the bad news.

And how do we know that?

At least one student in the online course reported the professor's political spin to the education blog The College Fix, which first reported the story.

And the e-mail's* political content?

“Some of the data gathering assignment will be impossible to complete until the Republican/tea party controlled House of Representatives agrees to fund the government. ... The Census website, for instance, is closed. Please do what you can on the assignment. Those parts you are unable to do because of the shutdown will have to wait until Congress decides we actually need a government."

When the College Fix speaks, administrators listen!

 “It would be inappropriate to use partisan politics in a class, so we contacted the professor in question,” Chancellor Joe Gow told FoxNews.com. “We want to be sure our students feel that they can have a different opinion from others on campus,” Gow added. “She can have a personal conversation with someone, but this e-mail was for an online class so the message is more in an official capacity.”
 
Dear Chancellor Gow: At right is a "spine." See if you can borrow one over at the biology department before the next time FoxNews.com asks you to throw your junior faculty to the wolves, all right?
 
Does going to college come with a right not to be offended? That depends. If UW-La Crosse was thinking about switching its team names from the Fighting Half-Nekkid Savages to the Fighting Eagles or something, you'd kind of expect Fox News to be leading the charge against. Sure, students ought to be comfortable in having opinions and in tossing them into conversation. But if in all your time on campus you never run into the idea that everything you know is wrong, then somewhere on some burning lake, Milton weeps.

And not to put too fine a point on it, but when the Komsomols can spin up a frontpage SlimGhazi story from one mildly angry and fairly accurate email in one online class at one Wisconsin directional, things have gotten a little out of whack in the political system.
 
* If Fox is just going to ignore the AP's verdict on "email," you have to wonder why they were so upset over the end of "illegal immigrant."