As soon as Christine Blasey Ford went on the record, it became known that she was a professor in the field of psychology at the Palo Alto University who also taught at Stanford University. Recent reports circulated on Twitter and Facebook of how students brutalized Professor Ford in their reviews. However what garnered an equal amount of attention was the censorship of this article. And perhaps Rate My Professors is also guilty of censorship.
TWITTER CENSORING
article about
Christine Blasey Ford
WATCH AS IT BLOCKS ME
FROM TWEETING#ConfirmKavanaugh #MAGA@parscale @RandPaul #QAnon pic.twitter.com/euMkzEiqYo— ?? Miguelifornia ??KEEP AMERICA GREAT?? (@michaelbeatty3) September 17, 2018
The article in question was published on TheFederalistPapers.org by the site’s ringleader, Steve Straub. However Miguelifornia was unknowingly tweeting fakenews. It’s understandable how someone who believes is QAnon would so willingly overlook critical details, mainly that this isn’t the Christine Ford that is accusing Brett Kavanaugh.
She’s currently a professor in the Social Work Department at California State University – Fullerton.
Christine Blasey Ford does not teach at Fullerton. Meaning, this article is connecting the wrong person to the Kavanaugh accuser. This is a case of shoddy journalism. Now the issue of Twitter censorship is real. It also appears Twitter does not like Mr. Straub’s site.
What do the reviews actually say?
Christine Ford has been a professor so having taught students, its more than likely she has true reviews that can actually be found. Except she doesn’t. The two pages on Rate My Professors, the gold standard website for professor reviews are both void of reviews.
No reviews could be found on lesser competitors or indirect competitors. Stephanie Dube Dwilson of Heavy noted:
It’s not known if they never had reviews or if reviews were removed, but there are no reviews on her two pages.
Key Questions
So how do reviews just not exist for a professor. It’s understandable how the Stanford page may be blank, but the Palo Alto page should, in theory have some reviews. So this invites speculation as to whether Rate My Professors wiped her page clean after she went public and before the internet could vet her page for curiosity. If she had a 4.5 would her review still be up there? If they were worried about spam posts to smear Ford, why not simply lock her page. It does a disservice to students who are deciding to take her to censor information that could be used in a class scheduling decision. Why does Rate My Professors even care to intervene on Christine Ford’s behalf? It’s completely understandable to lock the page, like Wikipedia often does on controversial topics.
Final Thoughts
It is unlikely any student ratings would have been germane to Christine Blasey Ford’s accusations against Brett Kavanaugh. However, they could have undermined her character. Suppose more than one student rated her and their reviews said that she was a liar. Or what if a review said that she sexually harassed a student. This information could have undermined her accusations against the Supreme nominee, as opposed to her being a tough grader or even a poor educator. However the issue here has less to do with how the reviews impact the situation at-hand and more about how Rate My Professors likely wiped reviews in an effort to minimize scrutiny in regards to Ford.
