Michael Roth “taught” introduction to philosophy to college freshman at a variety of schools including University of Illinois, Wisconsin, and either Southern Illinois or Central State Illinois. None of my classmates had any prior background in philosophy, though my high school English lit teacher had us read Aristotle’s Poetics and the Apology of Socrates in high school English lit.
I say “taught”, one of the more controversial statements he told freshman students taking their first philosophy course is whether any of them have read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave.
Seeing that no one has, and Roth himself did not assign any readings in Plato, he took it upon himself to provide the only authoritative interpretation of Plato’s Cave
Vagina Dentata, the vagina that bites with teeth.
which means the vagina that bites with teeth. Plato’s cave symbolizes the human vagina, and the prisoner who escapes symbolizes the penis as it withdraws from sexual intercourse, and hence, sexist, gendered value judgments about female oppression.
Michael Roth, a philosophy phD, feels if there is one thing that students need to know about Plato, it is not to read Plato, or the Socratic method, but to know he’s a sexist, and his allegory of the cave is sexist imagery for the human vagina.
I told each and every philosophy faculty member he said this in class via email, and I got an email response back, and I met with Robert Wengert in person to tell him this, and the Wengert was not pleased to hear this being taught, and would talk to him to verify.
vpaa.uillinois.edu/reports_r … ngert.html
Evidentally, Roth does not deny saying this as it is essential students know this.
I’m not entirely clear what Michael Roth’s intention was, but it did not stimulate any interest to read Plato as a result of hearing this, which, perhaps, is what he wanted all along. 
