DENVER (AP)-- Republican congressman Tom Tancredo has fired off a wisecracking press release saying he wants to be a professor of conservative politics at the University of Colorado — a school often criticized by conservatives as being too liberal.

The outspoken opponent of illegal immigration is suggesting classes in "English Only 101" and "American Assimilation." He's also proposing a 20-foot-high fence around the border of the university's Boulder campus.

Tancredo spokesman T.Q. Houlton said Wednesday Tancredo doesn't really want a job at CU when he retires from Congress in January. He's just poking fun at reports that CU wants to establish a new position for a professor of conservative thought and policy.

Tancredo briefly ran for the GOP presidential nomination last year. In recent weeks he has been pushing for a fence on the U.S.-Mexico border.