Professor Watchlist

Professor Watchlist was a website run by conservative advocacy organization Turning Point USA. The website listed academic staff which Turning Point believed "discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom." It was launched in 2016 and had listed about 200 professors by December of that year. Responses to the site include the American Association of University Professors and The New York Times raising fears that it threatens academic freedoms by harassing and intimidating staff, conservative magazine National Review describing it as an "irritable gesture" of victimhood by conservatives, and concerns about the safety and welfare of staff following a trend of threatening behavior and communication, including rape and death threats, being sent to listed faculty. In December 2016, 1,500 professors and faculty from across the globe petitioned to have their name added to the list in solidarity with academics who had been targeted and intimidated following their listing, with the message that the listed are "the sort of company we wish to keep." Turning Point UK also maintained a similar site, Education Watch, which has been described as "McCarthyism in the UK", gaining support from Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg and Home Secretary Priti Patel. The Council for the Defence of the British Universities has also called Education Watch "populist rightwing propaganda".