Prof. apologizes for mocking Sen. Tom Cotton

A professor at the University of Houston is apologizing for a controversial email he sent to students mocking the 47 Republican senators who signed a letter to Iran.

Cyrus A. Contractor, instructional assistant professor at the University of Houston’s political science department, sent the email Wednesday evening last week to students in his Politics of the Middle East and North Africa class. The email contained a mock draft of the letter from Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and the other Republican lawmakers.

The email, sent from the professor’s university email account, included an attachment depicting a fictitious "1st draft of Sen. Cotton's Letter."The “letter,” clearly fake, has a childlike scrawl and is littered with misspellings and grammatical errors.

Breitbart Texas received a copy of the email message from a student in Contractor’s class who wished to remain anonymous.

The email was intended to help students prepare for midterms, but on Item 5 of the email the professor wrote, “I’ve just very recently come across a rough draft of Sen. Cotton’s letter to the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. I believe it can be useful for our understanding of what is really happening here. Please find it attached.”

The student alleges that Contractor told his students in class that the forty-seven senators who signed the letter to Iran committed an act of treason.

Campus Reform reached out to the University of Houston, Professor Contractor, and Susan Scarrow the chair of the Political Science Department. Scarrow forwarded Contractor’s emailed apology in which the professor lamented his own “ill-conceived attempt at humor.”

Contractor’s university bio says that he regularly teaches two political science classes: one on U.S. and Texas constitutional politics and the other on federal institutions. His research interests include the “politics of the Middle East, particularly the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as the congruence of state and society.”

The student who brought the letter to the attention of Breitbart Texas said they felt this particular message from the professor was “over the top” and that’s why they publicized it.

“He normally comes across as non-partisan and as not having an agenda,” the student told Breitbart Texas.

This isn’t the first time a professor has used a university email account to carry out personal political attacks against Republican politicians.

In February, Campus Reform reported on a Vanderbilt University Law Professor who used his university email address to threaten to silence a pro-Israel rally in Nashville, Tennessee.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @CRDees