While a political candidate has used 18 victims of discrimination to re-litigate how terrible Seth Bodnar is in order to score political points, UM’s identity as a liberal arts university was destroyed this spring and barely anyone noticed.
Here’s how this major change, which gutted a century-long legacy at UM, was reported by a Helena-based media outlet:
The University of Montana’s decision to terminate its literature master’s program has some faculty members concerned about the future of other liberal arts programs at Montana’s flagship public university and how academic program cuts are made.
Other cuts over the last decade have given some faculty and students the perception that university leadership is struggling to uphold UM’s liberal arts identity, several staff members told Montana Free Press. But the decision to end the literature master’s has also raised concerns about downstream consequences for other programs.
“Apart from our own sort of personal sense of loss as literature faculty, one thing that stands to be a grievous loss here is the way it’s going to degrade the interdisciplinary focus on language and literary arts on campus and in the department,” said Eric Reimer, the director of literature graduate studies, in an April interview.
Reimer said the literature program is one of the oldest on campus, with the first master’s degree awarded in 1915.
“It’s been central to the branding of the institution for over a century,” he said.
This branding appealed to me 26 years ago when I started attending classes at UM to finish my English degree, graduating in 2003 with a double-emphasis in literature and creative writing.
But that was a different world, the one that existed before social media destroyed everything.
When I saw the Truthout article on my X feed (the irony!) I recognized the campus immediately. What would this national publication say about UM killing its identity with barely a peep from locals?
In April, the University of Montana eliminated its master’s degree program in English, focused on Literature and Ecocriticism, raising serious concerns about the university’s identity. “English is such a fundamental core subject within the humanities, and it’s almost like the heart of the humanities is being cut out,” said English Department Chair Louise Economides.
The University of Montana is not the only university where the “heart of the humanities” is being cut out with little to no conversation. The attack has been relentless nationally. Eric Hayot and Matt Seybold have described this crisis as “a crisis of civil society writ large.” They write:
There is no condition in which the humanities are under attack in which the whole university is not under attack. There is no condition in which the university is under attack that the whole of educational infrastructure, public and private, from pre-K up, is not under attack. And there is no condition in which education is under attack in which civil society can remain unimperiled.
Can this country claim we still have a civil society when the latest hero for women in America is a psychotic mother who murdered her three children? I’ll return to this question later in the post.
Last night I ran into one of the professors quoted in the first article outside the Good Food Store, where we briefly chatted. When I brought up Camille Paglia the professor quickly called the author of Sexual Personae a “fucker” because Paglia is considered an “anti-Feminist”.
A similar sentiment of women criticizing women for not blindly following other women popped up in a piece bashing Seth Bodnar’s campaign amidst claims Alani Bankhead’s minor child has been politically targeted, which is worse than being murdered by your own mother, apparently.
One of the women getting flak for breaking ranks with other women is Carol Williams, wife of the late Pat Williams, and a political powerhouse in her own right. Why is Carol Williams beholden to privileged white men, the author asks? Alani Bankhead has a vagina and dark skin, so, really, the choice should be obvious, right?
To see how this manipulated gender derangement will guarantee Kurt Alme’s victory, here are some screenshots from Adria L. Jawort’s political think piece:
Further down, our editorializing journalist addresses the problem of Carol Williams’ influence, along with another woman who didn’t get the vagina memo, Moffie Funk:
“Carol’s List helps progressive, pro-choice Democratic women run for office in Montana and win — to increase women’s political power in the state,” their mission statement states.
But after you read this, you might say they should probably just edit that whole part out because they are anything but that.
In May of 2025, the Stars and Stripes military magazine published a piece describing an emerging trend of bad actors claiming to represent veterans’ groups were sowing distrust in the credibility of the Military and actual veteran group’s by committing a form of Stolen Valor.
Stars and Stripes said, “This new form of deception, what we call False Valor, is the exploitation of the military community’s reputation for unethical purposes.”
One of these False Valor groups was a dark money group called Progressive Vet. This group listed non-veteran and longtime Jon Tester sycophant, Moffie Funk, as its treasurer.
Despite its unscrupulous morals, this group was highly effective as they hid behind veterans’ names to exploit the trust of Montana voters, boosting Bankhead with $2.5 million in ads before immediately pulling support for her when she won the primary.
The group’s goal, after all, was to hide behind the namesake of veterans just to defeat the candidate Tester had openly mocked and wanted to discredit, Reilly Neill.
Moffie Funk, once a highly respected educator, had discredited and disrespected her own lifelong public service for 30 pieces of silver. Her legacy will be forever tainted as the person who committed one of the most brazen acts of False Valor in Montana political history.
While this episode of political mean girls plays out, I dropped a little cultural bomb on the professor last night when I suggested Allen Ginsberg was a sexual predator who, I believe, targeted the son of the man he’s non-sexually smooching in this picture:
When I finally start dumping my cultural analysis on Substack readers will have the opportunity to learn more about why I’m making such an audacious claim, because it’s not one I’m making lightly. The picture that has come into focus of Missoula, and this town’s role in the counter-culture, is so much more extensive and disturbing than I ever could have imagined.
The transformation of Universities from places of learning to business-focused indoctrination centers isn’t as important, it would appear, as the victim-experiences of cultural power’s new hierarchy, and with that the soul of academia disappears.
Here’s how Truthout ends its lament:
Higher ed is on the verge of collapsing because it has lost its soul. Can this soul be restored? Perhaps. But this would require a nationwide movement to restore public trust and reclaim higher education, building an academy that is not solely transactional or profit-driven but is deeply invested in serving and collaborating with its broader communities and society writ large. If we cannot do this, then we are one step closer to witnessing the weakening of our civil society and the end of our democracy.
Ok, sure, but the cultural malaise is so much worse and pervasive than what’s happening, or not happening anymore, on campuses, that I don’t begrudge towns like Missoula for not really caring about this seemingly minor issue of a University allowing its identity to die without a bigger fight.
Before discussing anti-Feminists and poet predators, I told the professor she was a potential accomplice in my criminally effective rhyming abilities, which warranted a legal discussion with Judge Vannatta a few months ago. Sadly, my fourth pint of ice cream this week was softening in my hand, so I bid the professor adios and returned to my little living box to compose this:
same, Lindsey
why go on?
this one's broken
this one's wrong
fame, Lindsey
I won't judge
things can whisper
things can nudge
tame, Lindsey
nothing is
three, two, one
goodbye kids!
babes, Lindsey
ice cube crash
your army grows
you own the math
craze, Lindsey
no they're not!
TikTok brave, their
sick-fuck talk!
lame, Lindsey
the man who calls
he made you do it!
he is the cause!
blame, Lindsey
you have none
so do thy will
your gender won
frame, Lindsey
not your home--
the camera frame,
the devil's phone
Don’t worry, dear reader, I’m a University-trained rhyming professional, and if this doesn’t align with my conditional First Amendment, I’m sure the uniformed oinkers enforcing the court’s strict standards will let me know.
Thanks for reading!
