Lauren Duca’s Feminist Journalist Class Criticized By NYU Students
Lauren Duca – most known for a viral 2016 Teen Vogue column blasting President Donald Trump and a viral on-air spat with conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson – is used to facing criticism, but criticism from her own students is likely not something she anticipated.
The sometimes-controversial Duca taught a course at New York University this summer called “The Feminist Journalist.”
Duca often takes to Twitter to espouse her liberal politics. As The Inquisitr previously reported, Duca even tweeted in late August an offer to provide an organ to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The revelations about her NYU summer course come in a profile of Duca published Tuesday by BuzzFeed News. Students leveraged several complaints about Duca’s NYU course in the expansive article, which included many past criticisms of Duca.
BuzzFeed News reporter Scaachi Kaul, who wrote the September profile, said the Twitter-star-turned-professor allowed her to sit in on the final day of her NYU summer class. Kaul described the class, which was taught outside in Washington Square Park, as “exactly what Tucker Carlson would envision a liberal journalism class might be.”
Five of 10 students who contacted the reporter following her interaction in Duca’s class agreed to speak on the record about Duca’s course. The students claimed that the atmosphere of the class was largely unprofessional, and often involved Duca talking only about herself and her own career. Students also claimed that Duca never read the work that they submitted to the former Teen Vogue columnist, though Duca denied those claims to BuzzFeed.
Students also claimed Duca did not stick to the course syllabus, which itself faced criticism when it surfaced online earlier in the year. The syllabus indicated that 20 percent of a student’s grade for the course would be determined by their presence on Twitter.
But the biggest complaint alleged against Duca was that the Twitter personality targeted one student in the class based on communication issues she had with the student, who was an exchange student visiting New York to study. The students claimed this was the final straw that caused them to speak out against her and to file a complaint with New York University, per BuzzFeed News.
In the BuzzFeed article, Duca defended herself and her course, and reminded the journalist writing the profile that she was not perfect.
Exactly one week until I get to give birth! ?????? ?https://t.co/U9lbMYGfcb pic.twitter.com/ozAGYKqkWd
— Lauren Duca (@laurenduca) September 17, 2019
Still regardless of the many criticisms of Duca present in the BuzzFeed News piece, Kaul took to her Twitter account Tuesday afternoon to remind followers that valid criticism of Duca was not a reason to harass the 28-year-old on Twitter.
hi, yes, my profile of a public person is not excuse to harass her endlessly or to will others to harass her, regardless of whatever valid criticism you might find within the piece. grow up, you little weeners.
— scaachi (@Scaachi) September 17, 2019
The interview comes just about a week before Duca is anticipated to drop her first book, Equality Is Not Radical. According to BuzzFeed News, Duca is already at work on a second book.
Duca shot to internet fame in 2016, just about a month after President Donald Trump won the election that year for a piece she authored as columnist at Teen Vogue titled “Donald Trump is Gaslighting America.”
As BuzzFeed reported, the piece has racked up more than a million views since it was published nearly three years ago.
Duca’s fame only rose when she made an appearance on Fox News, in which she quarreled with the host of Tucker Carlson Tonight over whether it was acceptable for people to bother Ivanka Trump, first daughter and advisor to the president, on an airplane. The segment famously ended with Carlson telling Duca she “should stick to the thigh-high boots,” adding that she was “better at that.”
As Fox News cut Duca’s microphone and her video feed faded away, Duca could clearly be seen mouthing the phrase “you’re a sexist pig” in response to Carlson’s boot comment.
