My college requirements for graduation include taking one elective involving politics. I blindly chose Public Policy Formation, completely unaware that any amount of research would've told me it was the worst possible choice out of the entire catalog if I wanted to just coast. And yet, it ended up being the most fun I had in college thanks to the professor who ran this clown show.
He was a black libertarian prosecution attorney with very... interesting ideas on how to teach his political courses. Every class begins with a discussion on the most recent news, which was basically A&H lite as everyone under the political spectrum argued over each other, with discussions almost always eating into over half of the school period. He would often participate in the squabbles as well with his libertarian opinions, which were borderline sociopathic at times (such as his belief that everyone has a right to destroy themselves with drug addiction and consequently be left on the wayside for their choices, or that it's completely within reason for rich people to argue that they should be taxed less). Once we get to the actual class material, there's so little time remaining that most lectures are just left midway, often without ever being resolved before we moved onto the next material. He didn't seem to really care about the lessons himself anyway, treating both the midterms and finals as more of an afterthought - they were online quizzes with only 10 questions to prove we read the small textbook.
His true love was for group projects - on the first day of class, everyone was required to take a Myers–Briggs personality test and send him the results, to which he'll sort us into groups that will provide the most, uh, "chemistry". We were required to work with this same group until we the end of the semester, so you're stuck with whoever you get. He also happened to be a tough grader, so if your first assignment gets a certain grade, you
know you might as well have that stamped across the board for all future assignments. I was put into the same team as a chubby girl, an African-American fellow, and a white nationalist.
Yeah... that's a story for another day.
At the end of every group assignment, he required us to rate each other's performance and not be afraid to snitch, proudly relating this to his time in law school when he sold out one of his teammates who repeatedly failed to uphold their share of the workload. He was also maddeningly vague when I asked for help on defining whether or not a "court-ordered restitution" counts as a federal debt or a private debt; he told me the teacher-friendly equivalent of "figure that shit out for yourself". I also remember him kicking me out of class once, though I've forgotten the specifics on why.
Even so, I and everyone in class (white nationalist included) were fond of him. He was enthusiastic and was full of entertaining stories, of which these are just the few I can remember:
- He sold his classmate out because he considered his GPA to be like his money, in that he wanted to build it up as much as possible and have it not be messed with by outside factors.
- His firm focused on investigating prostitutes so he can build up a good enough case to put their pimps behind bars.
- Even though he was black, he regularly invited himself into white supremacy meetups so he can keep an eye out for any potential trouble brewing.
- He boasted about his NJ-issued gun permit and how he currently has two guns in his car, which he will not hesitate to use to defend the class in the event of a school shooting (very big talk, but was an appreciated sentiment since Sandy Hook was still fresh at the time).
- He was open about how he and his mother were the white sheep of the family, with the rest being various flavors of thieves and drug peddlers.
- During one case where he got a hefty paycheck out of it, his mother (who works as his secretary) accidentally leaked the amount to another family member. Various cousins proceeded to leave their jobs and knock on his door, hoping he'll share the bounty. He refuses to.
- He was once asked by a black kid looking to become a lawyer about why he's a prosecutor and not a defense attorney. He responded that it's to make sure the right people end up in prison, instead of forever fighting to keep another person out of one.
One last thing about him - at the last day of class, I missed the deadline for submitting the final exam, leaving my grade at a "C". He called me up to the front and asked if I was satisfied with it. I told him no, so he recommended that I later send him a formal request by email to temporarily restore the exam back online. I walked away with a solid "B" to my transcript, and he with a higher ratio of passing students with >80 scores.