Historian Kevin Gannon's Teachable Moment

Kevin Gannon, a professor of history at Grand View University and director of its Center for Excellence in Teaching, schooled Dinesh D’Souza this week after the conservative commentator insulted Gannon’s institution on social media.

Gannon, who has a large following on Twitter as @TheTattooedProf and engages with D’Souza on the platform from time to time, was among a number of historians to comment on D’Souza’s recent tweet saying, “Nazis got several of their bigoted murderous schemes from American progressives and the Democratic Party.”

Specifically, Gannon said that D'Souza on Twitter “is basically that joke about why you shouldn't play chess with a pigeon: it has no idea what it's doing -- it’ll just knock all the pieces down, shit all over the board, and strut around like it won anyway.”

D’Souza responded by not only insulting Gannon, but Grand View, calling it a “university no one has heard of.” D’Souza, who graduated from Dartmouth College, added, “Pigeon jokes are not a way to win arguments, at least not in the Ivy League where I was educated.”