Controversial UW prof offers ‘HipHop and Social Justice’ course
“Professor D.us,” the artist formerly known as “Professor Dee” who goes by “Damon Sajnani” professionally, is offering a “HipHop and Social Justice” course that requires students to purchase his own album.
The University of Wisconsin, Madison professor, henceforth referred to by his stage name of “Professor D.us” (pronounced “Professor D dot U.S.”), first drew national media attention for his course called “The Problem of Whiteness.”
This semester, he will also be teaching a “Global HipHop and Social Justice” course, the course description for which features a segment from a Senegalese television program in which rappers report and comment on the news. In one segment, Professor D.us is shown rapping apologetics for the North Korean regime’s nuclear program while labeling President Donald Trump a “psycho.”
[RELATED: UW: ‘Problem of Whiteness’ course ‘not designed to offend’]
According to the MacIver Institute, Professor D.us has also delivered classroom lectures while wearing a T-shirt with the words “Not My President” and an image of a Republican elephant with a wig.
“Professor Sajnani made it clear on one of the first days of classes that if you had a problem with his teaching that you should just write it on the teacher evaluation form at the end of the semester,” an anonymous student in the class recounted.
“Don’t write about how I’m forcing my liberal views on you–I’m a radical socialist. At least get that right,” he allegedly instructed students.
[RELATED: University sponsors ‘Hip Hop and Social Justice’ conference]
A syllabus for the course explains that students “check out HipHop songs and videos from around the world” and “compare and contrast them in their respective social and cultural contexts.”
Additionally, the class covers “important concepts in Black studies and social theory such as race and colonialism, imperialism and hegemony, structure and agency, identity, and strategic essentialism.”
[RELATED: Prof claims ‘there is no such thing as black racism’]
The course also requires students to complete reading and listening assignments each week, but ProfessorD.us only asks students to purchase one piece of media for the entire course: his own rap album, Third World Warriors Volume 1.
Moreover, one week’s assignment calls for students to watch an anti-NATO episode of the professor’s own rap news channel in which he claims that America is a dangerous country, but that the reason “has nothing to do with Arabic terrorism.”
Professor D.us was again under media scrutiny in December for tweets celebrating the murder of cops and leveling scurrilous accusations against President Trump.
Professor D.us did not respond to a request for comment from Campus Reform.
Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @SFarkas48
