Professor Watchlist

Alicia Chavez is an Assistant Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. In her classes, Chavez forbids her students from using the term, “illegal immigrant.”

 

Censorship

As reported by Campus Reform, Chavez taught a course called, “America, the Frontier, and the New West.”  The course description states that the class is an “Introduction to an interdisciplinary study of American political, cultural and social life with a particular emphasis on the Western United States as a region.” According to USC’s course description, the course also qualifies the satisfaction of the core curriculum requirement for undergraduate students.

According to Campus Reform, Chavez sent an email to her class, via her teaching assistant Julia Chea, ordering students to refrain from using the term “illegal immigrant” on the course’s final exam. The email reads as follows,

 

According to the Washington Examiner, Chea then discovered that students who received her email were sharing it on their respective social media accounts. She then sent out an additional email to the students in her class that read as follows,

“Dear students, NONE of you have my permission to screenshot emails sent to the class so that you may post them on Facebook. Not only is it in bad taste, but you would do well to avoid violating classroom and university policies regarding confidentiality. Your friend has ratted you out.”

In a statement given to Campus Reform, an unnamed student who shared the initial email called the decree “just one of the many instances of anticonservative bias” at USC and represents an “attack on intellectual freedom and free speech.”

The Professor Watchlist Team reached out to Chavez for comment but has not received a response by the time of publication.

 

Students and Parents May Contact the University of Southern California at (213) 740-2311

Updated – Spring, 2021