A San Diego State University course that was titled “Trump: Impeachment, Removal or Conviction” has undergone some cosmetic changes since it was given a national media spotlight earlier this year, as the “Trump” and Conviction” references have been removed.
Students at the California institution may still take a two-day course for credit on how a president can be impeached for “racism,” “false statements” and “nepotism,” but the professor has decided to drop overt linkage to President Trump in its billing.
SDSU’s newly-advertised “Impeachment, Removal, and Special Counsel” comes in the wake of a Feb. 28 story by Fox News headlined: “Trump’s removal from office sole focus of college course.”
Professor John Banzhaf, who teaches public interest law at George Washington University, looked at a syllabus obtained by the education watchdog The College Fix and called much of the content “patently absurd.”
“The content listed in the course description seems to be almost the same,” he told the website via email for a story published Monday. “Although the grounds for impeachment are vague and malleable, it is clear beyond any doubt that climate change, racism and religious bias are not sufficient grounds for impeachment.”
The College Fix was required to file a California Public Records Act request to complete its story because SDSU did not return emails and phone messages regarding the document.
Some of the topics that lecturer John Joseph Cleary, a former attorney, plans to cover include Mr. Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey, special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and indictments of those tied to Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“In retrospect, we realize the title of the course, ’Trump: Impeachment, Removal, or Conviction?,’ is inconsistent with the course content described,” a school spokesperson told Fox in February.
The class, part of SDSU’s College of Extended Studies, is open to the public.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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