A total of five New Jersey college professors have been named to the nonprofit conservative group Turning Point USA's Professor Watchlist.
In the 1970s, Richard Nixon unveiled his infamous "Enemies List," a compilation of people the beleaguered president found objectionable in one way or another.
The official purpose, according to the White House legal counsel's office, was to make life difficult for Nixon's political opponents. Those "lucky" enough to be included - more than 500 strong at one point - would be fair game for tax audits, law suits and the denial of federal contracts, among other punishments.
Forty years later, a nonprofit conservative outfit calling itself Turning Point USA has assembled a list of its own, one whose purpose is equally chilling.
But rather than going after journalists and Hollywood actors, as the disgraced president did in his desperation, the nonprofit is targeting academics - and academic freedom.
Turning Point has singled out nearly 200 professors - among them five from Princeton and Rutgers - who the organization says "discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom."
On its website, the four-year-old group claims its watchlist is not designed to censor college professors. But it also encourages users to submit names of other potential candidates - an invitation that sparks fear in anyone who treasures open dialogue and give-and-take in lecture halls.
5 N.J. professors make conservative's watch list
The best way to take a stand against such examples of "us versus them" is to not remain silent.
Some have taken to trolling the list, such as #trollprofwatchlist, where those who have submitted fake college professors, such as Dr. Indiana Jones or Professor Albus Dumbledore, to the watchlist, can share their submissions.
It's a humorous way to push back against the list.
But more powerful are the stands being taken by some of those named to the list, such as Professor Heather Cox Richardson of Boston College, who was put on the list and presented a powerful defense against its small-minded ideals. After posting about being added to the list, her name was removed.
Perhaps in another, gentler era, the list would have prompted no more than raised eyebrows, or at best a few nervous laughs.
But in these weeks since the presidential election, when racist, xenophobic, anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents have soared, the very existence of such a document threatens the future of free speech on our college campuses.
Indeed, Turning Point launched its list just days after 200 white nationalists massed in front of the White House to celebrate their newfound acceptance at the highest levels of government.
As columnist Rebecca Schuman noted in Slate, at a time when Donald Trump's supporters point to Japanese internment camps as a positive model, a watchlist of any sort is worrying.
"One that targets outspoken intellectuals with views that oppose a mercurial future president who spent the weekend tweeting petulantly at the cast of a Broadway play?" she writes. "Abjectly terrifying."
The list provides the names, locations and so-called "offenses" of the chosen academics, and in some cases their pictures.
Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, who spoke at the Republican National Convention last summer, says his mission is to identify, train and organize students to promote principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets and limited government.
All worthy goals, until you get to the subtext of limiting the free exchange of ideas long cherished by our nation's institutions of higher learning.
Lists do not generally end well - just ask the Americans whose lives were ruined under the tyranny of a zealot named Joe McCarthy.
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