Income Inequality Activist Makes $200K Per Year Teaching One Class

Income inequality activist Gene Nichol has had charges of hypocrisy leveled against him by conservative foes for his annual salary.

Nichol earns more than $200,000 annually for teaching just one class at the University of North Carolina School of Law, reports The College Fix.

The site describes him as a “controversial, outspoken law professor who frequently bashes Republicans and specializes in poverty issues as a self-proclaimed champion of the poor.”

That self-proclaimed champion teaches just one class per semester and earns $205,400 for it. He also picks up an additional $7,500 stipend for running the law school’s Center on Poverty, Work, and Opportunity.

That brings him to a grand total of $212,900 annually, a figure he does not dispute. From the report:

“‘I’m a full time faculty member — doing all the varied things faculty members do,’ he tells TCF. ‘That’s the basis for the salary you quote. Beyond that, I’m paid $7,500 to run the poverty center — the same as all the other law school center directors.’

“When asked about his compensation compared to other law professors, Nichol said: “‘Several make a good deal more than I do at Carolina, some make less.'”

In 2011, The News & Observer listed the UNC Distinguished Professor of Law Thomas Lee Hazen’s salary at $222,000, but that included teaching four classes in the fall and two in the spring.

Naturally, Republicans have seized on their opponent’s good fortune, pointing out that some of the CEOs he would take issue with do their jobs for $1 in annual salary — of course, that usually happens because they’re billionaires to begin with — or that the President of the United States is paid just $400,000 per year for running an entire country.

When compared to the income inequality activist’s one class, that hardly seems balanced.

Also, Nichol’s writings have caught the ire of many, including the North-Carolina based John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy, TCF notes. The organization states: “Nichol is a radical partisan who has desperately ratcheted up his rhetoric after seeing his preferred party lose control in North Carolina for the first time in more than a hundred years.”

“Perhaps more disturbing is Nichol’s abuse of his stature at UNC-Chapel Hill to propagate his invective.”

Nichol’s contract as president of the College of William and Mary from 2005 to 2008 was not renewed because of a string of controversies.

“Among them,” notes TCF, “he allowed a sex workers’ art show on campus and removed a cross from permanent display in the chapel of the historic Christopher Wren building, citing the facility’s use for secular events.”

Do you think this professor has a right to teach on income inequality in light of his salary and position?

[Image via Western Journalism]