SPRING 2018 The Public Eye

In this issue: “The Incel Rebellion”: Movement Misogyny Delivers Another Massacre The People’s Pope? How the Vatican’s Position on Gender Threatens Human Rights Right-Wing Europe’s War on “Gender Ideology” War on the Ivory Tower: Alt Right Attacks on University Professors editor’s letter

THE PUBLIC EYE QUARTERLY

PUBLISHER Tarso Luís Ramos EDITOR Shortly before this issue of The Public Eye went to press came word that Alek Minassian Kathryn Joyce plowed his vehicle into a busy street in Toronto, killing 10 and wounding many others—an COVER ART attack that he explicitly framed as the start of a men’s rights “rebellion.” As Alex DiBranco “Masks” by Xia Gordon writes in “The Incel Rebellion” (pg. 3), the massacre marked the latest development in LAYOUT an organized movement of misogynists who have turned their sense of “aggrieved entitle- Gabriel Joffe ment”—to women, to power, to wealth—into a deadly weapon. For years, feminist warn- PRINTING ings that online misogyny was scaling up—in ways that we now know enabled the rise of Red Sun Press the White supremacist Alt Right—were ignored. It’s well past time to start paying attention. EDITORIAL BOARD Frederick Clarkson • Alex DiBranco When members of the U.S. Christian Right helped exacerbate homophobic attacks, rhet- Gabriel Joffe• Kapya Kaoma Greeley O’Connor • L. Cole Parke oric, and policy in Uganda—most notably in the country’s 2014 “Kill the Gays” bill—PRA Tarso Luís Ramos • Zeina Zaatari Senior Research Analyst Kapya Kaoma was among the foremost experts explaining what the export of American culture wars looks like and how the Religious Right has used policy The Public Eye is published by victories abroad as a means of shaping debate at home. But as Kaoma points out in a new Political Research Associates feature, “The People’s Pope?” (pg. 5), it isn’t just evangelicals who are responsible for Tarso Luís Ramos Executive Director amplifying bigotry against LGBTQ people in Africa. The Catholic Church has played a key, Sarah Burzillo unacknowledged role in shaping attitudes and policy in countries like Kenya, where Catho- Finance Manager lic doctrine is inserted word-for-word into right-wing legislation. That particularly matters Frederick Clarkson when the Vatican has embraced a right-wing perspective on discourse around gender, de- Senior Research Analyst riding inclusivity as “gender indoctrination.” Cloee Cooper Research Analyst Africa isn’t alone in that. As Gillian Kane notes in “Right-Wing Europe’s War on ‘Gen- Steven Gardiner Senior Research Analyst der Ideology’” (pg. 11), the Vatican concocted this term of derision in the mid-1990s as Gabriel Joffe a means of pushing back against women’s and human rights gains at the United Nations. Program Coordinator More recently, that’s developed into a number of global campaigns that cast efforts to en- Kapya Kaoma sure gender equality as dangerous. Sometimes the framing is predictable—suggesting that Senior Research Analyst gender equity amounts to an attack on traditional religious values. Other times, it’s meshed Isabelle H. Leighton with populist anti-Muslim sentiment, grafted onto nationalism, or cast as a secular cam- Development Director paign to “save the children.” The very abstractness of the indictment, Kane writes, “is what Greeley O’Connor Communications Director makes it so effective in the global marketplace of ideas. It can appear secular in France, L. Cole Parke unapologetically Catholic in Poland, and anti-Muslim in Austria.” Research Analyst Shayna Parker Finally, in “War on the Ivory Tower” (pg. 15), Carolyn Gallaher looks at the increasing Operations Coordinator coordination of Alt Right attacks on university professors, and, perhaps more importantly, Zeina Zaatari how academic institutions are responding. While academia is often viewed as a “haven for Research Director liberal professors,” Gallaher writes, unprepared colleges have inadvertently abetted right- Fellows wing efforts to undermine academic freedom and universities’ role in discrediting harm- Tope Fadiran • Jessica Quiason Spencer Sunshine • Mariya Strauss ful ideologies with cowardly or inept reactions. Professors under attack too often find that their administrators accede to the demands of cynical troll campaigns, fail to correct mis- Interns Eduardo Albornoz • Konstantin Gorbunov information, or condemn faculty in an effort to make the storm pass. In an environment Gabe Meadow • Julia Taliesin • Ashrita Rau where higher education is increasingly viewed as an enemy of the Right, what’s needed is Board of Directors not just a stiffer spine, but smarter strategy. Dania Rajendra, Chair Paulina Helm-Hernandez • Lynette Jackson Online, look for our recent interviews with authors Kathleen Belew (Bring the War Home) Hamid Khan • Jenny Levison • Scot Nakagawa and Elizabeth Gillespie McRae (Mothers of Massive Resistance), as well as a new PRA report Mohan Sikka • Zeke Spier by Mariya Strauss and Tarso Luís Ramos, “Social Justice Feminism and How We Defeat the Carla Wallace • Susan Wefald Right.” As always, in between issues, PRA will continue its coverage and analysis of the Founder Right, with new blog posts and online-only features every week, so make sure to follow us Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. at politicalresearch.org. 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 Somerville, MA 02144-1837 Kathryn Joyce Tel: 617.666.5300 [email protected] © Political Research Associates, 2018 All rights reserved. ISN 0275-9322 ISSUE 94 www.politicalresearch.org commentary

BY ALEX DIBRANCO THE PUBLIC EYE QUARTERLY

PUBLISHER Tarso Luís Ramos EDITOR Kathryn Joyce “The Incel Rebellion” COVER ART Movement Misogyny Delivers Another Massacre “Masks” by Xia Gordon LAYOUT Gabriel Joffe PRINTING Red Sun Press n April 24, minutes before EDITORIAL BOARD Alek Minassian plowed his van Frederick Clarkson • Alex DiBranco into a busy pedestrian street in Gabriel Joffe• Kapya Kaoma Toronto, killing 10 and wound- Greeley O’Connor • L. Cole Parke Oing at least 13—predominantly women— Tarso Luís Ramos • Zeina Zaatari the 25-year-old posted an explanation The Public Eye is published by of sorts on Facebook: “Private (Recruit) Political Research Associates Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to Tarso Luís Ramos speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161. Executive Director The Incel Rebellion has already begun! Sarah Burzillo Finance Manager We will overthrow all the Chads and Sta- Frederick Clarkson cys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman El- 1 Senior Research Analyst liot Rodger!” Cloee Cooper The “supreme gentleman” that Minas- Research Analyst sian saluted, Elliot Rodger, was the no- Steven Gardiner torious mass killer who in May 2014 Senior Research Analyst stabbed his male roommates to death Gabriel Joffe Program Coordinator then set out to “slaughter” women at “the Flowers and messages are placed at a memorial for victims of the mass killing on April 24, 2018 in Toronto, Kapya Kaoma hottest sorority house” at the University Canada. Credit: CrowdSpark/Alamy Stock Photo. Senior Research Analyst of California, Santa Barbara.2 When Rod- Isabelle H. Leighton ger, then 22, failed to gain entrance to they are entitled to certain things— 25-year-old Marc Lépine killed 14 female Development Director the sorority, he opened fire outside, kill- power, wealth, sex—and that they are engineering students at École Polytech- Greeley O’Connor ing two women from another sorority as entitled to use violence to restore what nique in Montreal (which had rejected Communications Director well as a male bystander soon after. As an they believe is rightfully theirs.” Kim- his application), leaving a note declar- L. Cole Parke Research Analyst active member of the online community mel sees this perception at play not only ing, “I have decided to send the femi- Shayna Parker of “incels”—a term used in male suprem- in explicitly misogynist attacks, but also nists, who have always ruined my life, to Operations Coordinator acist forums to describe “involuntarily in White supremacist groups, which tell their Maker.”7 However, Rodger’s attack Zeina Zaatari celibate” (heterosexual) men who say White men that they have been unfairly was distinguished by his known connec- Research Director they’re unable to attract women for sex deprived of their rightful place in soci- tions to male supremacist online forums. Fellows or relationships—Rodger claimed in an ety. According to Kimmel, entitled kill- He frequented r/ForeverAlone, a subred- Tope Fadiran • Jessica Quiason approximately 140-page manifesto that ers need “to believe that they were justi- dit forum for incels, and r/TheRedPill, a Spencer Sunshine • Mariya Strauss one girl going on a date with him could fied, that their murderous rampage was forum founded in 2012 at the intersec- Interns have prevented this massacre.3 legitimate.”5 In a YouTube video Rodger tion of the existing Men’s Rights Activist Eduardo Albornoz • Konstantin Gorbunov Gabe Meadow • Julia Taliesin • Ashrita Rau Under the male supremacist frame- posted describing his plans, he laid out (MRA) and Pickup Artist (PUA) or “seduc- work Rodger had subscribed to, he be- the twisted logic under which he sought tion” communities.8 MRAs claim that Board of Directors Dania Rajendra, Chair lieved that he was entitled to sex, and “retribution.” “It’s an injustice, a crime men are oppressed by feminist society, Paulina Helm-Hernandez • Lynette Jackson women en masse deserved death for his because I don’t know what you don’t see venturing into conspiratorial thinking. Hamid Khan • Jenny Levison • Scot Nakagawa deprivation. Sociologist Michael Kim- in me,” he said. “I’m the perfect guy and Pickup artists teach men “game”: tips Mohan Sikka • Zeke Spier mel, who studies masculinities, argues yet you throw yourselves at all these ob- and strategies for picking up women that Carla Wallace • Susan Wefald that this concept of “aggrieved entitle- noxious men instead of me, the supreme include demeaning and “negging” them, 6 Founder ment” explains the motivations behind gentleman.” and advocate techniques that frequently Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. disproportionately male-perpetrated Rodger was hardly the first man in the amount to rape.9 While little studied

1310 Broadway, Suite 201 mass killings and everyday violence United States or Canada to commit mass before the shootings, in 2014, misogy- Somerville, MA 02144-1837 against women.4 Aggrieved entitlement, violence against women because of his nist online Reddit forums ranged from Tel: 617.666.5300 Kimmel writes, is a belief by men “that sense of aggrieved entitlement. In 1989, 30,000 subscribers (r/ForeverAlone) to [email protected] © Political Research Associates, 2018 All rights reserved. ISN 0275-9322 ISSUE 94 www.politicalresearch.org SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 3 almost 200,000 (r/seduction); today, sexually active men”—voicing a resent- Roosh V. spouted the same line of blame, r/TheRedPill is one of the largest, with ment characteristic of the incel commu- tweeting, “Alek Minnasian [sic] wouldn’t over 250,000 subscribers. nity. Online incel and Alt Right forums have killed people with a van if the media Rodger also posted regularly on refer, as Minassian demonstrated in his had not inoculated him and other lonely PUAhate.com—a messaging board for Facebook post, to sexually successful men against effective game teachers like failed pickup artists—which he credited White men as “Chads,” and to their at- myself. Sleeping with only two or three with confirming “many of the theories I tractive (and for an incel, unattainable) Toronto Tinder sluts would have been had about how wicked and degenerate White female counterparts as “Stacys,” enough to stop his urge to kill.”19 women really are.”10 (After his attack, or to both as “normies.” Rodger’s re- Though incels have generally been PUAhate was renamed Sluthate, a change sentment wasn’t only directed at White associated with pickup artists—or viewed as seeking to avoid the spotlight men, however; he was also deeply infu- failed PUAs—developments in recent Rodger put on the website; however, it riated by Asian and Black men who at- years suggest that the incel community also shifted focus from railing against tracted White women. Though himself should be analyzed as a distinct iden- tity within the overlapping spheres of male supremacist mobilizations. From “Aggrieved entitlement” is at play not only in explicitly mid-2016 to November 2017, a new mi- misogynist attacks, but also in White supremacist sogynist forum, r/Incels, grew rapidly groups, which tell White men that they have been to some 40,000 subscribers before get- ting banned. While support for violence unfairly deprived of their rightful place in society. is an unaddressed problem across male supremacist forums, other misogynist PUA lessons to simply hating sexually biracial—with a White father and Asian subreddits have been more circumspect active women.) His posts included a mother—Rodger viewed his Whiteness than r/Incels with regards to overt glori- rallying cry to fellow incels: “If we can’t as superior. Similarly, Harper-Mercer, fication of mass killers.20 Reddit, which solve our problems we must DESTROY also biracial, condemned Black men as has long permitted hateful content under our problems…One day incels will realize “vile” (exempting himself because only the guise of free speech, announced in their true strength and numbers, and his mother, not his father, was Black) late October 2017 that going forward the will overthrow this oppressive feminist and wrote that he “fully agree[d]” with site would “take action against any con- system.”11 Rodger’s position.15 tent that encourages, glorifies, incites, Since 2011, a similar revenge fantasy In October 2017, incel commenters or calls for violence or physical harm has been referred to on 4chan—an online applauded Stephen Paddock, the mass against an individual or a group of peo- forum that has become a major gathering shooter who killed 58 people in Las Ve- ple.”21 This resulted in the prompt ban- place for the growing Alt Right umbrella gas, for his successful massacre of such ning of White supremacist and neonazi of White and male supremacists, and to “normies.” Despite the fact that Paddock forums, including r/NationalSocialism, which Minassian pretended to be report- had a live-in girlfriend, incel supporters r/Nazi, r/DylannRoofInnocent, r/Euro- ing in his Facebook post—as the “beta saw him as one of their own, identifying peanNationalism, r/KillTheJews, and uprising.”12 Some incels admiringly also with the “despondent rage” and “alien- r/Far_Right. Two weeks later, r/Incels use the phrases “going ER”—as in “go- ation” of mass shooters, who were por- went the way of these racist and antise- ing Elliot Rodger”—or “going Sodini” trayed as the “real victims.”16 mitic forums.22 (the latter of which was coined after an- Even those members of the MRA land- However, other forums, on Reddit and other aggrieved, sexually inactive man, scape who don’t commend the violence off, continue to propagate incel ideology. George Sodini, opened fire in 2009 at a of shooters like Rodger or Minassian still This latest act of mass violence explicitly fitness class full of women, killing three support their sense of being aggrieved. referencing incels and hailing Rodger and leaving a year’s worth of sporadic Daryush Valizadeh (“Roosh V.”), a PUA speaks to the importance of paying great- online journal entries describing his mo- leader who founded the site Return of er attention to the threat posed by this tivations13). Christopher Sean Harper- Kings (recently designated a hate group community. 17 Mercer, a 26-year-old who killed nine by the Southern Poverty Law Center ), Alex DiBranco is a sociology PhD candi- people at Umpqua Community College did not explicitly endorse Rodger’s attack, date at Yale University, writing her dis- in Oregon in 2015, referenced Rodger in but blamed progressive organizations sertation on the U.S. New Right movement what the Los Angeles Times described as like SPLC for the killings and warned that infrastructure from 1971-1997. She is a “a script of his life to convince the public until “beta” men have accessible ways to member of The Public Eye editorial board, and media that the killings were the re- have sex with women—such as legalizing formerly PRA’s Communications Director, sult of his mistreatment by others, and prostitution or teaching “game”—“these and currently a graduate policy fellow at 14 that he was merely seeking revenge.” massacres will be more commonplace as the Institute for Social and Policy Studies. Though aiming most of his vitriol at America’s cultural decline continues.”18 women, Rodger also seethed at “all of you After the April 2018 Toronto attack,

4 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 BY KAPYA KAOMA

The People’s Pope? How the Vatican’s Position on Gender Threatens Human Rights

Pope Francis arrives at Copacabana beach for a welcoming ceremony for World Youth Day 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Photo: George Martell/Pilot New Media via Flickr.

n September 2016, Sharon Slater of and Kenya’s Catholic hierarchy. It was as well. the U.S.-based Christian Right group promoted on the website of Vatican Kenyan Catholic Bishop Alfred Rotich Family Watch International issued a Radio, and brought together African blamed the Anglican Church’s 1930 deci- special appeal to a crowd of African culture warriors like Stephen Langa, the sion to allow contraception as responsible Iconservatives, including Kenya’s Catholic infamous architect of Uganda’s Anti- for not just abortion but “other accompa- Conference of Bishops, which was spon- Homosexuality (or “Kill the Gays”) bill; nying vices such as necrophilia, bestial- soring the gathering. Making reference WCF African representative Theresa ity, paedophilia, same-sex relationships to a documentary her group had pro- Okarfor of Nigeria; and U.S. right-wing as well as calls for free sex and reproduc- duced, The War on Children—a jeremiad activists like WCF spokesperson Don tive health services for children!” against LGBTQ rights and sexuality edu- Feder and the anti-abortion Lepanto The argument that the Global North is cation—Slater suggested that African Institute’s Michael Hichborn. exporting immorality has helped further conservatives were the key to halting Many speakers at the conference re- numerous conservative campaigns in Af- global advancements in sexual and re- layed a familiar message, warning that rican countries—against homosexuality, productive rights at the United Nations the Global North is engaged in a new reproductive healthcare, and compre- and across Africa. form of colonialism, imposing liberal hensive sexuality education. The role of The event was the African Conference norms of sexual rights on African na- the U.S. Christian Right in fostering this of Families, an anti-LGBTQ, anti-sexual tions. To Feder, the 1960s sexual revolu- rhetoric has become well known. But and reproductive health summit in tion in the U.S. and Europe profoundly less recognized is the involvement of the Nairobi, co-sponsored by the World destabilized marriage and gender roles Catholic Church—including the leader Congress of Families (WCF), the Kenyan in the West, and unless contained, he touted for ushering in an era of modern- Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, warned, it would wreak havoc on Africa ization and tolerance, Pope Francis.

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 5 WHOSE POPE? ed, particularly any form of aggression Pope” has been silent. Since his election in 2013, Pope Francis and violence.3 has become a beloved symbol of progress But while Pope Francis’s statements CATHOLIC INFLUENCE IN AFRICAN in the Catholic Church. In 2013, TIME were widely hailed as the evolution of POLICY-MAKING magazine declared him its “person of the the Church, his actions have been more Just as U.S. evangelicals worked with year” and anointed him with a new title, telling. On the same trip wherein Francis politicians in Uganda on the “Kill the “the People’s Pope,” in recognition of his publicly met a gay couple, he also pri- Gays” bill,5 the Vatican and its clergy championship of those on the margins vately met with and embraced Kim Davis, have strongly influenced African anti- of society—the poor, immigrants, and the county clerk in Kentucky who refused sexual and -gender rights legislation. In refugees. His outspokenness on issues to issue marriage licenses to same-sex 2016, for example, several Roman Cath-

Vatican City. Photo: Paul Williams via Flickr.

of income inequality, the environment, couples despite a court order. Davis told olic clergy sat on the drafting committee and corruption suggested a shift from journalists that the Pope had thanked her of a major piece of Kenyan legislation his predecessor’s conservative views. But for her courage, told her to be strong, and that undercut reproductive and LGBTQ perhaps most surprising was his efforts presented her with two rosaries. Initially, rights, as Rev. Fr. Lucas Ongesa Manwa to reach out to the LGBTQ community. the Vatican denied Davis’ claim but final- of the Kenyan Conference of Bishops told Shortly after his election, he surprised ly admitted to it under media pressure.4 me at the September 2016 Nairobi con- many by asking, “If a person is gay and The Vatican’s attempt to conceal the ference. seeks God and has good will, who am I to meeting casts Pope Francis as double- Proposed by the Kenyan Ministry of judge him?” On a 2015 visit to the U.S., faced: publicly courting progressives Labor and Social Protection in 2016, the he met with a gay couple (one of the men on one hand, and privately supporting National Family Promotion and Protec- was his former student).1 In 2016, he the Christian Right’s anti-sexual rights tion Policy (NFPPP) was an addendum called upon Christians, and Catholics agenda on the other. On Francis’ 2015 to the Kenyan 2010 Constitution. The in particular, to ask forgiveness from official tour of Kenya and Uganda—two Constitution, along with the 2015 Anti- gay people “for the way they had treated countries where LGBTQ people have Domestic Violence Act, had enshrined them.”2 He even formalized the Vatican’s been particularly targeted—he never ut- progressive gender equality principles new attitude of tolerance in 2016, when tered a word on the persecution of sexual into law. The NFPPP was intended to he wrote in his book, Amoris Laetitia: and gender minorities, although Roman undo some of that work, by repealing two …every person, regardless of sexual Catholic bishops and priests have worked articles of the Constitution that had been orientation, ought to be respected in alongside Christian pastors and African particularly hard-fought: one allowing his or her dignity and treated with con- politicians to systematically undermine for legal abortion,6 and one providing sideration, while “every sign of unjust LGBTQ rights. When it comes to African anti-discrimination protections for LG- discrimination” is to be carefully avoid- homophobia in particular, the “People’s BTQ people.7

6 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 The initial fight over the Constitution anthropological basis of the family. lic Church is one of the most influential had been fierce, drawing international This ideology leads to educational pro- and intellectually organized civil soci- advocates on both sides. U.S. anti-LGBTQ grammes and legislative enactments ety institutions in Africa. Thus Catholic groups such as the American Center that promote a personal identity and bishops, priests and laity—helped along for Law and Justice (ACLJ) and Human emotional intimacy radically separated by U.S. Catholic groups such as Human Life International (HLI),8 funded their from the biological difference between Life International (HLI) and the Catholic African allies to oppose the Constitution. male and female.11 Family and Human Rights Institute (C- In partnership with the Kenya Christian Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia, published FAM, formerly the Center for Family and Professionals Forum (an offshoot of ACLJ) in 2016, is an almost perfect match: Human Rights) and the U.S. Christian and WCF,9 Congressman Chris Smith (R- Yet another challenge is posed by the Right—are strategically employing the NJ) traveled to Kenya and campaigned various forms of an ideology of gender Vatican’s ideas in policy development in against the new Constitution legalizing that denies the difference and reciproc- Africa.16 abortion. Nonetheless, in a national ity in nature of a man and a woman As Professor Mary Anne Case of the referendum Kenyans ultimately approved it by 67 percent.10 The movement to roll back the Con- Pope Francis appears double-faced: publicly courting stitution’s progressive clauses, however, progressives on one hand, and privately supporting began almost immediately. The NFPPP is a key weapon in that fight, and its propo- the Christian Right’s anti-sexual rights agenda on the nents are transparent about their aims. other. “Our Constitution protects homosexu- als and allows abortion—we are working and envisages a society without sexual University of Chicago Law School ar- to change this,” Ann Kioko, a campaign differences, thereby eliminating the gues, “whether speaking as an ‘expert manager for CitizenGO and organizer of anthropological basis of the family. on humanity’…or as a state actor...[the the 2016 WCF conference in Nairobi, told This ideology leads to educational pro- Vatican’s] emphasis is on the imperative me. Fr. Manwa also confirmed that the grammes and legislative enactments to influence secular law and policy in NFPPP was an effort to conservatize the that promote a personal identity and line with the Vatican vision.”17 The Vati- document. Fr. Prof. Richard N. Rwiza, emotional intimacy radically separated can doctrine of “complementarity”—the another priest who sat on the drafting from the biological difference between idea that men and women have distinct, committee, was even blunter: “The cur- male and female.12 complementary roles—Case notes, is the rent Constitution is too liberal,” he told The document employed other Vatican foundation of its ideological opposition me. “It allows abortion and homosexual- writings as well. On religion and culture, to sexual liberation and LGBTQ rights. ity… Definitely, the policy will rectify this the Kenyan draft policy states: When the Vatican takes on the role of a shortfall.” Throughout the centuries, different re- state actor, Case continues, its bishops Although scholars have found conclu- ligions maintain their constant teach- act as Vatican ambassadors. And the Vat- sive evidence that homosexuality and ing on marriage and family by promot- ican’s foreign policy agenda becomes vis- abortion existed in pre-colonial Africa, ing the dignity of marriage and family ible in its advocacy to ensure that its re- Kioko, Fr. Rwiza, and other conference and defining marriage as a community ligious views are integrated into secular participants repeated a common argu- of life and love.13 law and policy. And that agenda, over- ment: that homosexuality and abortion This is a neat echo of the XIV Ordinary seen by Pope Francis, is at clear odds with were against Kenyan “traditional cul- General Assembly of Bishops, which reads: the progressive image he’s cultivated. ture.” But their arguments read less as a Throughout the centuries, the Church defense of traditional Kenyan values than has maintained her constant teaching THE VATICAN AND GENDER THEORY a barely-disguised recapitulation of Cath- on marriage and family…promoting The Vatican’s opposition to “gender olic doctrine. In fact, this was so much the dignity of marriage and the fam- theory” is a reaction to the argument, the case that, in many instances, the ily.14 best articulated by feminist theorist Ju- draft NFPPP contains language nearly A section in the NFPPP dedicated to the dith Butler, that sex, gender, and sexu- identical to official Vatican publications, media also repeated Pope John Paul II’s ality are historical social constructs that including writings by Pope Francis him- message for the 2004 World Communi- have been instead cast as immutable self. The NFPPP reads: cations Day, in which he warned about facts of nature. Butler’s analysis contra- The challenge is posed by the various the press’s “capacity to do grave harm to dicts conservative views of gender as bio- forms of the ideology of gender that families by presenting an inadequate or logically determined, and also opposes denies the difference and reciprocity even deformed outlook on life, on the “compulsory heterosexuality,” as well as in nature of a man and a woman and family, on religion and on morality.”15 the social “cultivation of discrete sexes envisages a society without sexual The similarities in these statements with ‘natural’ appearances and ‘natural’ differences, thereby eliminating the are no coincidence. The Roman Catho- heterosexual dispositions.”18

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 7 By contrast, conservative Catholic influence of the Roman Catholic -hierar ity.26 (Although O’Leary’s work drew on ideas of complementarity view sex as bio- chy on politics has undermined LGBTQ Pope John Paul II’s earlier pronounce- logical and God-given. By permitting di- rights in Parliament,22 as in 2007, when ments about gender and feminism, it verse gender identities and conceptions the Italian Conference of Bishops orga- was The Gender Agenda that popularized of what constitutes family and marriage, nized a “Family Day” that led to the de- this strategic frame.) Her book was trans- Butler’s work threatened Catholic ortho- feat of the “governmental bill that would lated into Italian and presented at the Li- doxy. As Paris-based feminist scholar have granted a limited form of legal pro- brary of the Italian Senate in 2006. It was Sara Garbagnoli writes in Religion and tection for same-sex couples.”23 In France O’Leary’s analysis, Garbagnoli argues, Gender, the Vatican saw “gender as the in 2011, she continued, “the expres- that shaped the Vatican’s ideological ar- Trojan horse of ‘ideological colonization’ sions ‘gender theory’ and ‘sexual gender guments on homosexuality.27 But the opposition to LGBTQ rights didn’t end with Pope John Paul II or Benedict XVI. Mario Pecheny, professor of political science at the University of Buenos Aires, documents Pope Francis’s opposition to sexual and gender equality in Argentina. In 2010, Pope Fran- cis—then Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and President of the Argen- tine Episcopal Confer- ence—strongly opposed same-sex marriage in words that mirror the U.S. Christian Right. Legalizing same-sex marriage and adoption, Protesters gather in London to show solidarity with Uganda’s LGBTQI community, April 19, 2018. Photo: Alisdare Hickson via Flickr. he argued, would “seri- ously damage the fam- denying a biological truth and produced theory’ entered the French Parliament,” ily.” He warned: by a powerful lobby.”19 and the Vatican and its French bishops Let us not be naive: this is not simply The Vatican responded, in various provided “rhetoric and organizational a political struggle, but it is an attempt statements and pronouncements. As resources” to anti-“gender ideology” pro- to destroy God’s plan. It is not just a Cynthia Weber of the University of Sus- testors: casting gender theory as respon- bill (a mere instrument) but a “move” sex notes, “Butler’s book Gender Trouble sible for same-sex marriage, and thus a of the father of lies (Satan) who seeks was critiqued in the theological writings threat to children.24 to confuse and deceive the children of of Cardinal Ratzinger, heavily implied But the true origins of this anti-gender God.28 in his 2008 address to the Roman Curia activism, Garbagnoli finds, are within In 2010, after Argentina legalized once he became Pope Benedict XVI, and the U.S. Right, which, like the Vatican, same-sex marriage, he wrote that the lingers in Pope Francis’s concerns about views feminist deconstruction of gender new law was “a tool of the ‘destructive ‘gender indoctrination.’”20 as a threat to the future of the human pretension against the plan of God’” as The Pontifical Council for the Family’s family.25 In 1995, the U.S. right-wing well as “the Demon’s envy, by which sin Lexicon: Ambiguous and Debatable Terms Catholic writer Dale O’Leary presented entered the world, and which slyly aims Regarding Family Life and Ethical Ques- to the Vatican her position paper, “The to destroy God’s image: man and wom- tions, published in 2003, also helped Deconstruction of Women: Analysis of an.”29 spread anti-LGBTQ sentiment in Europe. the Gender Perspective in Preparation Contrary to his public statements on As Garbagnoli writes, “‘gender ideology’ for the Fourth World Conference (in Bei- gay issues, Pope Francis’s anti-LGBTQ ac- became a useful political category used jing, China) on Women,” which later be- tions have been consistent. For instance, by different groups and activists to block came the basis for her book, The Gender during the November 2014 Vatican-orga- social and legal reforms that affected LG- Agenda, in which she advocates a “new nized interfaith Colloquium Humanum BTQ people.”21 In Italy, she argues, the feminism” grounded in complementar- (attended by U.S. Christian Right lead-

8 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 ers such as Russell Moore of the South- sues of LGBTQ rights. While Francis has and HLI. ern Baptist Convention, and Saddleback been praised by progressives for a line The 2009 statement followed the Cat- Church Pastor Rick Warren30), Francis in Amoris Laetitia that many interpreted echism of the Roman Catholic Church (the argued that the family “can’t be qualified as an endorsement of same-sex relation- official Roman Catholic doctrine), which by ideological notions” and “complemen- ships—“We need to acknowledge the acknowledges the existence of homosex- tarity is a root of marriage and family.”31 great variety of family situations that can uality “through the centuries.”40 While He’s made similar statements in his writ- offer a certain stability”—that isn’t his the Catechism views LGBTQ persons as ings.32 full meaning. In the same document, he deserving of respect and compassion,41 While Pope Francis’s second encycli- writes, same-sex unions “may not simply it also views their sexual acts as “intrinsi- cal, Laudato Si’,33 which focused on en- be equated with marriage”; that only the cally disordered,” since they do not lead vironmental justice, is widely celebrated “union between a man and a woman” has to procreation, and holds that, “Under no for highlighting the realities of ecologi- a critical “role to play in society”; and that circumstances can they be approved.”42 cal challenges, its opposition to gender “No union that is temporary or closed to Other Vatican writings, such as the theory is apparent: the transmission of life can ensure the fu- 2003 Considerations written by then Car- Valuing one’s own body in its feminin- ture of society.”38 dinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Bene- ity or masculinity is necessary if I am dict), call on Roman Catholic politicians going to be able to recognize myself in CONTRADICTORY VATICAN POSITIONS to oppose same-sex unions and the adop- an encounter with someone who is dif- ON LGBTQ ISSUES tion of children by same-sex couples, ferent. In this way we can joyfully ac- In the wake of Uganda’s 2009 draft and to protect “young people [from] er- cept the specific gifts of another man or “Anti-Homosexuality Bill,” which sought roneous ideas about sexuality and mar- woman, the work of God the Creator, the death penalty for homosexuality, in- riage that would deprive them of their and find mutual enrichment. It is not ternational outcry was intense. The Holy necessary defenses and contribute to the a healthy attitude which would seek to See at the United Nations joined the con- spread of the phenomenon.” cancel out sexual difference because it demnation, releasing a statement to the Thus the Vatican, like the Christian no longer knows how to confront it.34 UN General Assembly declaring its op- Right, justifies the creation of new anti- The concept of complementarity in- position to “all forms of violence and un- LGBTQ and anti-abortion legislation by forms his opposition to sexual health and just discrimination against homosexual presenting gender and sexual minorities reproductive rights, as he writes, “Since persons, including discriminatory penal as threats to traditional family values, everything is interrelated, concern for legislation which undermines the inher- providing a rationale for discrimination the protection of nature is also incompat- ent dignity of the human person.”39 The and violence against them. Notably, ible with the justification of abortion.”35 statement further opposed “the murder since becoming pope in 2013, Francis Unlike in Laudato Si’, where comple- and abuse of sexual minorities,” and has been silent on discrimination against mentarity is a relatively minor point, Amoris Laetitia36 dedicates various sec- tions to the “ideology of gender.” To Pope The human rights community applauded the Francis, the family is built around a het- Vatican statement, and it seemed that the Vatican eronormative couple—male and female. Since developments in gender studies had successfully deflected responsibility for anti- challenge this assumption, he writes: LGBTQ movements in African countries onto U.S. The weakening of this maternal pres- conservative evangelicals. ence with its feminine qualities poses a grave risk to our world. I certainly value feminism, but one that does not called “on all States and individuals to African LGBTQ people. On his 2015 Af- demand uniformity or negate mother- respect the rights of all persons and to rican tour, for example, he condemned hood. For the grandeur of women in- work to promote their inherent dignity corruption and demonstrated solidarity cludes all the rights derived from their and worth.” with Muslims in the Central African Re- inalienable human dignity but also The human rights community ap- public, but said nothing about the kill- from their feminine genius, which is plauded the Vatican statement, and it ings and human rights violations against essential to society. Their specifically seemed that the Vatican had successfully LGBTQ individuals across the continent. feminine abilities—motherhood in deflected responsibility for anti-LGBTQ The pontiff’s visit followed years of particular—also grant duties, because movements in African countries onto persecution and demonization of gender womanhood also entails a specific mis- U.S. conservative evangelicals, who had and sexual minorities in various African sion in this world, a mission that soci- strongly influenced Uganda’s bill. All the countries, as well as the expansion of ety needs to protect and preserve for while, however, the Church was endors- anti-homosexuality laws and arrests of the good of all.37 ing similar anti-LGBTQ campaigns led by LGBTQ people in many nations. In 2014, And his opposition extends to other is- U.S.-based Catholic groups such C-FAM bishops in Uganda and Nigeria praised

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 9 their countries’ chief executives for sign- Today children—children!—are taught mere instrument.49 ing anti-LGBTQ bills. (In Nigeria, they in school that everyone can choose his For Christian Right activists who further commended President Goodluck or her sex. Why are they teaching this? have long argued against sexual libera- Jonathan for courageously fighting the Because the books are provided by tion, the pope’s comments are a reason Western conspiracy to make Africa “the the persons and institutions that give to celebrate. As the embattled former dumping ground for the promotion of all you money. These forms of ideologi- county clerk Kim Davis told ABC News, immoral practices that have continued cal colonization are also supported by after meeting with Francis in 2015, “Just to debase the purpose of God for man in influential countries. And this [is] ter- knowing that the pope is on track with the area of creation and morality, in their rible!47 what we’re doing and agreeing, you own countries.”) The same year, despite A similar argument is made in Amo- know, it kind of validates everything.”50 the Vatican’s opposition to criminaliza- ris Laetitia, where he denounced Global tion and violence against LGBTQ people, North countries for linking financial NOT YET THE PEOPLE’S POPE bishops from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, aid to the acceptance of same-sex mar- Pope Francis has been celebrated for Malawi, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and riage.48 his progressive views on various issues. Zambia jointly advocated for the crimi- Pope Francis’s characterization of sex- But on sexuality and gender identity, he nalization of same-sex unions that they ual rights as a form of “colonization” had is as conservative as his predecessors. His cast as unnatural and alien to African wide impact. His words were part of the opposition to gender theory is an even cultures.43 Additionally, as political sci- theme for the November-December 2017 greater threat to LGBTQ human rights ence professor Meredith than the U.S. Christian Right Weiss has noted, some Afri- he has made common cause can countries began a trend Pope Francis has been celebrated for his with, given the size and scope of “anticipatory” or “pre- progressive views on various issues. But of the faith he represents. emptive” homophobic legis- Pope Francis’s compassion lation,44 passing anti-LGBTQ on sexuality and gender identity, he is as for the poor, refugees, and marriage and adoption laws conservative as his predecessors. immigrants, and his defense even while it’s still a crime of the environment, all de- in these nations to be openly serve applause. However, LGBTQ. WCF-sponsored anti-LGBTQ conference Christian solidarity demands he visits This climate compelled the African in Lilongwe, Malawi. As was the case in LGBTQ refugees in South Africa or Ke- Commission on Human and Peoples’ Kenya, Archbishop Thomas Luke Msusa nya, who have fled repression in other Rights to pass a resolution to protect of Malawi’s Roman Catholic Episcopal African nations. He needs to hear their sexual minorities. The resolution spoke Conference was among the speakers— stories of persecution, violence, correc- against “acts of violence, discrimination, testifying to the growing partnership tive rape, and murder—and to act on that and other human rights violations; ‘cor- between U.S. conservatives and African knowledge—if he is truly to become the rective’ rape, physical assaults, torture, Roman Catholicism. people’s pope. murder, arbitrary arrests, detentions, The previous May, the St. John Vian- Rev. Dr. Kapya Kaoma is a Senior Research extra-judicial killings, and executions, ney Theological Seminary of Denver held Analyst at PRA. He was the original re- forced disappearances, extortion, and its own anti-LGBTQ summit, Framing a searcher to expose the ties between U.S. 45 blackmail.” It also forced President Catholic Response to Gender Ideology, right-wing evangelicals and the anti-LG- Obama to publicly back LGBTQ rights which was advertised by a pamphlet that BTQ legislation in Uganda, and has testi- during his Africa tours. read, “The Church faces a serious chal- fied before Congress and the United- Na But rather than adding his voice to the lenge from an organized and sweeping tions. He is the author of Globalizing the Commission’s and President Obama’s, agenda... which Pope Francis has charac- Culture Wars and Colonizing African Francis used similar rhetoric as the Chris- terized as ‘ideological colonization.’” The Values, and appears as an expert in the tian Right and the World Congress of pamphlet further paraphrased Francis as 2013 documentary God Loves Uganda. Families to inveigh against the “colonial” saying that gender theory: He received his doctorate in ethics from spread of “gender theory” around the …is having a devastating impact on Boston University. world, including in African countries, children and teens; ignore [sic] God as during a 2016 meeting46 with bishops Creator and promotes a view of indi- from Poland: vidual autonomy which is simply sin- In Europe, America, Latin America, ful; redefines the parent-child relation- Africa, and in some countries of Asia, ship, casting parents as “oppressing” there are genuine forms of ideologi- children by raising them as boys or cal colonization taking place. And girls; and undermines basic Christian one of these—I will call it clearly by its anthropology by defining the person as name—is [the ideology of] “gender.” a disembodied mind and the body as a

10 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 BY GILLIAN KANE

Right-Wing Europe’s War on “Gender Ideology”

ast March, on a cold, early spring edited by Roman Kuhar and David Pater- afternoon in New York City, a notte, traces the emergence of the anti- bright orange tour bus wended gender ideology movement from its ideo- its way from Trump Tower, down logical shaping in the halls of the Vatican LSecond Avenue, eventually parking in to its current blossoming in Europe as front of the United Nations’ glass-walled an organizing tool against progressive Secretariat Building. Wrapped around social policies. Although the overlap be- the length of the bus, in massive letters, tween this European movement and the was the tagline: “It’s Biology: Boys are U.S.-culture wars is considerable, the boys…and always will be. Girls are girls… European experience offers key insights and always will be. You can’t change sex. into how the movement is operating, of- Respect all.” ten in partnership with rising right-wing The bus’s arrival was timed to greet the populist movements, as well as how civil thousands of participants attending an society can respond. annual United Nations summit on wom- Gender ideology is not a legitimate ac- en’s human rights. Apart from a smatter- ademic term, but rather one cultivated by ing of protestors, and a few idling police the Catholic Church. In their introducto- officers, the bus drew little attention ry essay, Kuhar and Paternotte trace the from passersby—in part because the mes- term’s origin to the 1994 United Nations sage was inscrutable. But the organizers Conference on Population and Develop- made clear that the #FreeSpeechBus was ment in Cairo, and the World Conference protesting “gender ideology,” and in the on Women in Beijing the following year, Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing process, attacking not just transgender against Equality (Rowman & Littlefield International, where Hillary Clinton famously declared, adults, but transgender children. 2017). “women’s rights are human rights.” Cai- The concept of gender ideology is a ro marked the first time the United- Na right-wing invention that intentionally they claim would force homosexuality tions recognized sexual and reproduc- misrepresents feminist, queer, and gen- on children—in public schools, and it tive rights, and Beijing introduced the der theory in order to justify discrimina- has spread throughout the region. term “gender” into the United Nations’ tion against women and LGBTQ people. In the United States, similar conser- lexicon. Both of these moments signified It was concocted by the Vatican in the vative campaigns against sexual and re- major gains for the women’s rights move- mid-1990s, and has since spread glob- productive health and rights and LGBTQ ment, and both events incensed the Vati- ally. The Right claims gender ideology rights are all too familiar. Yet outside of can, which worried that countries would is being peddled by Western elites who activist and academic circles, the term be further empowered to protect abor- want to destabilize the traditional fam- gender ideology is not. Until the early tion access and LGBTQ rights. ily and the natural order of society. They 2000s, this was also the case in Europe. But gender’s official definition within use the label to delegitimize progressive But over the last 15 years, a cohesive the United Nations was so vague—the social policies that support comprehen- anti-gender ideology movement has Beijing Platform for Action said that gen- sive sexuality education, LGBTQ equal- emerged—not just in Catholic strong- der “was intended to be interpreted and ity, and abortion rights. holds like Poland and Ireland, but also in understood as it was in ordinary, gener- In Latin America, campaigns against progressive countries like Germany and ally accepted usage”—that it opened the gender ideology are well established. France, and likely soon the U.S. as well. term to multiple understandings. And so The Peruvian initiative “Don’t Mess with the Holy See and Catholic intellectuals My Kids” is one of the most successful. It WHAT IS “GENDER IDEOLOGY”? began manufacturing their own. contests government efforts to include The 2017 book Anti-Gender Campaigns A few years later the concept of a gen- instruction on gender equality—which in Europe: Mobilizing against Equality, der ideology began to take root with the

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 11 1997 publication of The Gender Agenda, reclaimed progressive notions such as gender ideology activists made common by Catholic writer Dale O’Leary. This in- gender or feminism and changed their cause with anti-Islamists. They did so fluential text—members of the Vatican meaning,” Kuhar and Paternotte write, by suggesting that women’s and LGBTQ are said to have read the book—argued “increasing confusion among average rights activists and Muslims alike seek to that substituting the word gender for sex citizens and resignifying what liberal reconstruct and control the political and in spaces like the United Nations was part voices have been trying to articulate over social order; that both take advantage of of an international feminist stratagem to the last decades.”3 It was, in essence, Vat- anti-discrimination policies and protec- remake society. According to O’Leary, ican gaslighting. tions; and that both want to crush West- ern Christian society.5 Bishop Pieronek’s suggestion that “gender” was yet Mayer and Sauer’s chapter was written before the October 2017 Austrian legisla- another foreign ideological threat to Poland found tive elections, when, for the first time, a captive audience in a population traumatized by the People’s Party (which has historical roots in the Catholic Church and 1930s decades of totalitarian rule. Austro-Fascism) cinched the election. Reconfigured for modern times, the Peo- ple’s Party is staunchly anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim. It also works closely with the right-wing Freedom Party, which was founded by ex-Nazis in the 1950s, and which was the runner-up in the election. While both parties are recognized for their anti-immigration positions, they have also weakened state mechanisms that protect women. In 2000, the two parties formed a national coalition gov- ernment, and together downgraded and disempowered the Women’s Ministry by folding it into the Ministry for Social Af- fairs. They then added a “men’s section.”6 Mayer and Sauer were prescient. They anticipated that the gender ideology dis- course might energize a new right-wing Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek in Krakow, 2011. Photo: Piotr Drabik via Flickr. movement against Austria’s social-dem- ocratic society in favor of a nationalist, feminists were undermining the idea of AUSTRIA anti-pluralist one. And indeed, the re- complementarity—that men and women Book contributors Stefanie Mayer and cent election seems to bear this out. fill distinct, immutable, corresponding Birgit Sauer explore this idea further roles—which, once gone, would inevi- in their chapter, “‘Gender Ideology’ in POLAND tably lead to the dissolution of the family Austria: Coalitions around an Empty As in Austria, the “anti-genderism” and society.1 Signifier.” A non-academic can get lost movement in Poland created a causeway By the early 2000s, opponents of gen- in the references to political theory and between nationalists and religious fun- der ideology were making inroads in Eu- theorists, but the underlying point is damentalism. This alliance helped gener- rope, particularly in Central and Eastern clear: gender ideology is such a vacuous ate the conditions for the right-wing Law Europe. They cast gender as the secular and ill-understood term that historically and Justice Party to win enough votes to phoenix rising out of Marxism’s totalitar- disparate social and religious groups can form a majority government in the 2015 ian ashes. “Gender” was, in their words, join together to oppose it. In Austria, this parliamentary elections. According to “the new Marxism.”2 became particularly alarming when pro- Agnieszka Graff and Elzbieta Korolczuk, Kuhar and Paternotte explain that ponents of gender ideology linked with who authored the chapter, “‘Worse than gender ideology was being deployed as a right-wing populist movements aimed Communism and Nazism Put Together’: marketing tool to reclaim Christian cul- against Muslim immigrants. War on Gender in Poland,” Poland’s ex- tural hegemony in secular spaces. One The connection is not intuitive; after perience with anti-genderism originated way this was done was by corrupting lib- all, polling indicates the majority of ob- with homegrown right-wing movements eral language, which was increasingly servant Muslims don’t support abortion against gender equality and sexual and becoming vernacular. “[T]he Church has or LGBTQ rights.4 But in Austria, anti- reproductive rights. They also take pains

12 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 to note that it was greatly enabled by, and that is, gender ideologues. This narra- from the official rankings of academic a part of, broader transnational mobiliza- tive benefited Polish Euro-skeptics who journals,” and promised to ensure that tions.7 argued that joining the EU would result school “be free from various ideologies” The chapter title refers to a 2013 state- in the loss of Polish culture, religion, and and that “Children will study normal, ment by Polish Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, identity. classic subjects.”10 who said that gender ideology is worse Graff and Korolczuk point out that de- What was initially perceived by the than the two despotic regimes responsi- spite the appeal of the narrative, it didn’t public as a local effort to cover up- pe ble for the death and victimization of mil- decrease Poland’s support for EU integra- dophilia scandals in the Polish Catholic lions of people in the region. Pieronek’s tion. Indeed, a 2014 poll showed that 68 Church was in fact a nationally-driven al- reflections, suggesting that “gender” was percent of Poles trusted the EU. Notwith- liance-building project between foreign, yet another foreign ideological threat to standing, conservative Poles succeeded illiberal influences and a gendered form Poland, found a captive audience in a in having their cake and eating it too. of nationalism. population traumatized by decades of to- “Polish Eurosceptics have capitalized on Anti-gender activists in Poland and the talitarian rule. this gap by arguing that Poland has the rest of Europe exploit these strategies to Organizing against gender started in right to benefit from European integra- great ends. And in places as unexpected earnest in 2012. This is also the year the tion economically, but must retain its as laïcité France, the religious battle to minister of justice justified his opposi- cultural integrity as a Catholic country,” erase “gender” is fought using a secular tion to the Istanbul Convention on pre- Graff and Korolczuk write.8 arsenal. venting and combating violence against The Polish anti-genderism movement women and domestic violence, on the was particularly good at generating pan- FRANCE basis that it was a “carrier of gender ide- ic on the issue of protecting children. In their chapter, “Resisting ‘Gender ology.” Groups mobilizing against gen- While this theme emerged in other Eu- Theory’ in France,” Michael Stambolis- der, which had formed a few years ear- ropean countries, such as France, there Ruhstorfer and Josselin Tricou describe lier, supported this position. They also was no greater doomsayer on the issue a putatively “grassroots” movement had a targeted focus on opposing abor- then the Polish Catholic Church. (Which that capitalized on conservatives’ anxi- tion, LGBTQ rights, and divorce. These was unconscionable given that at that ety over a 2012 Socialist Party victory views were consonant with those agitat- time the church was caught up in a priest and the expansion of LGBTQ rights. The ing against gender writ large, and the sex scandal.) Still, they were sufficiently movement, La Manif Pour Tous (LMPT, movements gradually coalesced against emerging issues like sexuality educa- tion and reproductive technologies. They The abstractness of “gender ideology” is what makes were soon connecting with conservative it so effective in the global marketplace of ideas. It can Polish think tanks like the Ordo Iuris Institute for Legal Culture, and eventu- appear secular in France, unapologetically Catholic in ally with European platforms working Poland, and anti-Muslim in Austria. globally, like the Spain-based right-wing group CitizenGO (one of the main organi- zations that sponsors “Free Speech Bus- convincing that in 2014, the right-wing in English, “The Protest for Everyone”), es” like the one that parked outside the party Solidarna Polska (United Poland) was led by the Catholic Church, although United Nations building in 2017). formed the STOP Gender Ideology Parlia- that fact was not made public. Instead, By 2015 the Polish movement against mentary Committee.9 it masterfully deployed a secular cam- gender had a decidedly Western Euro- The following year, in 2015, the right- paign against “gender”—and co-opted pean patina; in August of that year a wing Law and Justice Party won a ma- the “rights” framework—using defense demonstration against the inclusion of jority in parliament, becoming the first of French national identity as its call to sexuality education in public schools Polish party to do so since the fall of Com- arms. included high-profile speakers from Ger- munism. Newly victorious, the party Anti-gender movements in France many, England, and France. made Beata Kempa, leader of the STOP began stirring around 2010, over pub- While Polish people flocking to protest Gender Ideology Parliamentary Commit- lic schools’ embrace of “gender main- in plazas created arresting visuals, the tee, head of the new right-wing govern- streaming”: a globally recognized strat- movement against gender was also skill- ment’s chancellery of the prime minister. egy for promoting gender perspectives fully manipulating new technologies and Anti-genderism was also officially part and equality in all areas, including poli- social media to get their message further of Law and Justice’s policy of “Change for cy, research, and legislation.11 out. Embedded in the message was the the Better.” The ministries of science and But it was the 2012 introduction of idea that protections for gender were an education committed to strip away the the same-sex marriage and adoption EU imperative promoted by the “homo- influence of gender, including pledges to laws that brought the movement out of lobby” and the “pro-abortion lobby”— remove “gay and lesbian studies journals the shadows and into the public square.

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 13 The first anti-marriage equality protests lar historical roots in the French popular All this while working to disarm human firmly linked gender ideology and same- imagination that appealed to a sense of rights for women and LGBTQ people sex marriage, echoing concerns that French collective identity,” Stambolis- across the continent. O’Leary first articulated in 1997. Protes- Ruhstorfer and Tricou write.14 This dis- What does this mean for the United tors carried placards demanding “We tracted attention from the movement’s States? The message of the #FreeSpeech- want sex, not gender,” and “marriage for right-wing, anti-LGBTQ agenda. They Bus may have stalled on the streets of all=gender for all.”12 even appropriated gay iconography, New York City, and gender ideology may France’s fervent commitment to secu- playing Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive”— not yet be on the average American’s ra- larism, explain Stambolis-Ruhstorfer arguably an LGBTQ anthem—at protests dar, but that’s probably just a matter of and Tricou, compelled anti-gender activ- and rallies. time. The organizing issue for U.S. anti- ists to adopt non-religious language. At The campaign ultimately failed. De- gender ideology activists will likely be the rights and dignity of trans people— the very issue the #FreeSpeechBus raised last year at the United Nations. U.S. Catholic leaders are already look- ing ahead. At the close of 2017, the Unit- ed States Conference of Catholic Bishops focused its end-of-the-year pastoral letter on the theme “Created Male and Female”: We come together to join our voices on a more fundamental precept of our shared existence, namely, that human beings are male or female and that the socio-cultural reality of gender cannot be separated from one’s sex as male or female… Gender ideology harms individuals and societies by sowing confusion and self-doubt. The state itself has Demonstration against marriage equality in Strasbourg, France, February 2013. Photo: Claude Truong-Ngoc via Wikimedia Commons. a compelling interest, therefore, in maintaining policies that uphold the the same time, they benefited from the spite the outpouring of opposition, same- scientific fact of human biology and French Catholic Church’s largess and in- sex marriage and adoption remain legal supporting the social institutions and frastructure, which helped when it came in France. But this didn’t represent a loss norms that surround it. time to organizing protests against mar- for the larger movement. In fact, Stam- This is one of the few times that the riage equality. While public opinion in bolis-Ruhstorfer and Tricou believe this USCCB has addressed gender ideology. France is strong for same-sex marriage, was a turning point in French politics. La What makes the statement so remark- LMPT was able to capitalize on wide- Manif Pour Tous became an official politi- able is that it claims scientific certainty spread discomfort with same-sex parent- cal party in 2015, and with that, France, to demand government intervention to ing to generate a moral panic around con- that most secular of countries, succeeded codify the Catholic “socio-cultural reality cerns for children, same-sex adoption, in forming a political party with Catholic of gender.” The Trump Administration’s artificial insemination, and surrogacy.13 roots and a dedicated anti-gender ideol- attempt to ban transgender people from Given prevailing social opinions in ogy platform. enlisting in the U.S. military may or may France, the one thing activists couldn’t not succeed, but the emerging U.S. anti- do was directly attack LGBTQ people. BRINGING THE CULTURE WARS HOME ”gender ideology” movement—which That is, if they were going to express their Threaded throughout the many coun- could ensure it succeeds at a later point— contempt for same-sex marriage, they try case studies highlighted in Anti-Gen- is just getting started. couldn’t do so in homophobic terms. Be- der Campaigns in Europe is the suggestion Gillian Kane is a senior policy advisor for cause they were forced to be both secular that the abstractness of gender ideology Ipas, an international women’s reproduc- and kind, they ended up with a positive is what makes it so effective in the global tive health and rights organization. She campaign that, on its face, seemed be- marketplace of ideas. It can easily be re- served on the editorial board for The Public nevolent. Who doesn’t want to protect packaged for any country context. The Eye from 2008 to 2012. the children? ingenuity of the anti-gender ideology The LMPT protests were striking: formula is its malleability to appear secu- drawing in huge numbers of young peo- lar in France, unapologetically Catholic ple deploying “secular slogans with secu- in Poland, and anti-Muslim in Austria.

14 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 BY CAROLYN GALLAHER

War on the Ivory Tower Alt Right Attacks on University Professors

manda Gailey, an English a history4 of encouraging “trolling” cam- Alt Right, other professors respond by professor at the University paigns, where anonymous internet users playing it safe.9 of Nebraska-Lincoln, started swarm an individual’s social media feeds Most importantly, with nationalism receiving hate mail after she and email with invective and threats of and fascism both on the rise, the wider Aprotested a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) violence. Others are involved in White common good is at stake. Universities recruiting event on her campus. She nationalist circles.5 Still other trolls op- provide a powerful place where these got so much of it that she organizes it by erate independently, but take their cues ideologies can be challenged. However, theme. There’s the “c-word” category, for from groups loosely affiliated with the if universities fail to defend professors people who call her a cunt, and another Alt Right, such as TPUSA, whose found- attacked by the Alt Right, their students for mutilated animal photos.1 er, Charlie Kirk, is a Breitbart contribu- are more likely to accept Alt Right groups For Olga Perez-Stable Cox, a psychol- tor.6 A small portion of trolls are likely organizing college students as legitimate ogy instructor at Orange Coast College in motivated more by sadism than politics.7 actors. To better understand how univer- Costa Mesa, California, the harassment Wherever they sit in the wider Alt sities respond to Alt Right attacks on aca- began after a student recorded and dis- Right ecosystem, trolls typically justify demics, I interviewed three professors: tributed critical comments she made in their attacks in two ways. Some argue Amanda Gailey, Johnny Eric Williams, class about Donald Trump’s election. One that professors are “cosmopolitan elites,” and Dorothy Kim. I supplement these email warned, “We’re clean- interviews with cases from the ing out the rats, starting public record. with shooting you like the rat you are.”2 At stake in universities’ responses BECOMING AN ALT RIGHT Rabab Abdulhadi, a pro- to Alt Right attacks are not just TARGET fessor of ethnic studies at professors’ jobs and academic Although many professors San Francisco State who ad- are targeted for their work on vocated for Palestinian is- freedom, but the wider public good. race, any number of liberal sues,3 came to campus one positions can trigger attacks: day to find posters plastered supporting queer and trans- across campus that described her and her who have rejected national culture (and gender rights; criticizing Donald Trump; students as “terrorist supporters.” White dominance within it) in favor of protesting right-wing groups like TPUSA In an effort to silence academics, right- internationalism and diversity. (Like and Identity Evropa. Professors usually wing activists, including many from the other Alt Right terminology, “cosmopoli- get on the Alt Right’s radar in one of three Alt Right, have doxed, threatened, and tan” has an antisemitic history; in Nazi ways. smeared professors across the country, Germany and Stalinist Russia it was used without regard for academic hierar- to identify someone as Jewish.8) Oth- Right-Wing Media chy, type of institution, or discipline. ers complain that professors are trying Right-wing media outlets like Campus They have attacked professors with and to turn students into “social justice war- Reform, which defines itself as a “watch- without tenure. Their victims work at riors.” dog to the nation’s higher education sys- research institutions and liberal arts col- There is much at stake in how univer- tem,”10 play a central role in the targeting leges and in public and private schools. sities respond to these attacks. Profes- process. With a small staff in Arlington, They teach in the humanities, social and sors’ jobs are on the line as the Alt Right, Virginia, student correspondents who life sciences. seeking to stir controversy, makes outra- pen “exposés” about their professors, Despite the pervasiveness of such at- geous claims about professors and then and a “send a tip” link,11 Campus Reform’s tacks, it can sometimes be difficult to calls for their ouster. Academic freedom strategy is to feed names into the Far identify the individuals or groups behind is also at stake. Risk is central to academ- Right ecosystem so that trolls can launch them. Some are associated with Alt Right ic inquiry, but when universities refuse harassment campaigns against them. figures like Milo Yiannopoulos, who has to protect professors who run afoul of the According to The Chronicle of Higher Edu-

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 15 cation,12 Campus Reform’s editor, Sterling el, Ciccariello-Maher announced he was ginia, criticizing the “weaponization” of Beard, keeps a whiteboard in his office to resigning.18 her discipline22 and imploring the field’s track the success of each article. If some- senior scholars to denounce the Alt one loses their job after being featured in The Academic-Alt Right Grapevine Right’s cooption of medieval history for a Campus Reform article, Beard counts it Academia is often stereotyped as a ha- racist purposes. Fulton Brown responded as a victory. ven for liberal professors, but it houses by bringing in Alt Right reinforcements. In promoting her blog rejoinder to Kim23 on Facebook, Fulton Brown tagged Alt Right personality Milo Yiannopoulos, who has over 2.5 million Facebook fol- lowers and remains close to Breitbart, his former employer. The following day, Bre- itbart published an article about the row: “Lady With a Sword Beats Down Fake Scholar with Facts and Fury.”24 Fulton Brown then spent the next two weeks writing about Kim on her blog,25 mirroring the tactics of “Gamergate,” in- tentionally drumming up chatter about Kim so trolls would go on the attack. It worked. The threats started coming in af- ter Breitbart posted its story and ticked up each time Fulton Brown mentioned Kim by name. When I interviewed Kim, she told me that Fulton Brown “keeps bringing my name up,” explaining, “She wants to be Charlie Kirk (founder of TPUSA) speaking at the 2018 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National an Alt Right media pundit and I’m her Harbor, Maryland. Photo: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons. strawman to get there.”26

Turning Point USA (TPUSA) has a simi- conservative scholars as well. In recent THE NATURE OF ALT RIGHT ATTACKS lar strategy. In 2016 TPUSA created its years, some conservative professors have Once a professor is on the Alt Right’s “Professor Watchlist” to identify academ- aligned themselves with Alt Right per- radar, trolls pounce quickly. Their at- ics said to “discriminate against conser- sonalities and used their supporters to tacks are personal and vicious and, for vative students and advance leftist propa- attack academic rivals. Dorothy Kim, an the period of time they last—anywhere ganda.”13 Like Campus Reform, the goal is assistant professor of medieval literature from a few weeks to several months—un- to identify targets for harassment. at Vassar, experienced this after she drew relenting. Most attacks occur in cyber- the ire of fellow medievalist and Alt Right space, but some bleed into real life. Social Media Surveillance sympathizer Rachel Fulton Brown.19 The most common line of attack is dox- The Alt Right also finds targets by Fulton Brown and Kim’s differences ing—publishing someone’s private infor- surveilling the Facebook and Twitter started more than two years ago when mation online. Most professors already feeds of activist professors. This is how Fulton Brown began publically espous- have public profiles. Doxers go further, Drexel professor George Ciccariello-Ma- ing Alt Right views about Whiteness and hunting down social security numbers, her landed in the Alt Right’s crosshairs masculinity on her blog.20 Although they digging up the names of children, and in October 2017. After the massacre of had never met, Kim challenged Fulton tracking down home addresses, with 58 people at a country music concert in Brown’s statements across a wide variety Google Earth screenshots attached. Dox- Las Vegas, Ciccariello-Maher tweeted, of academic outlets and social media, in- ers then disseminate the information “White people and men are told that they cluding21 on a private Facebook group for across the Alt Right ecosystem.27 Attacks are entitled to everything. This is what medieval feminist scholars (where Fulton can go on for weeks. Even after the dust happens when they don’t get what they Brown was also a member). settles, the threats never completely want.”14 The next day The Daily Caller If the debate had stopped there, it stop. As Dorothy Kim explained, “Once published a story about Ciccariello-Ma- would have been unremarkable. Aca- you are in their crosshairs, it’s like you’re her’s tweets.15 Breitbart16 and The Blaze17 demic disputes are often rough and tum- being stalked forever.” quickly followed suit. After months of ble. But things changed when Kim wrote death threats leveled against him and his a blog post after the deadly Alt Right TYPES OF RESPONSES family and only tepid support from Drex- march last August in Charlottesville, Vir- Universities respond to Alt Right at-

16 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 tacks against their professors in several statement on the college’s webpage a said it was inundated with complaints. ways. In a robust response, a school de- few days later.28 Although the statement Two days after the appearance, Durden fends the attacked professor’s academic didn’t mention Kim or Fulton-Brown by was suspended for the remainder of the freedom, offers due process if disciplin- name, it reiterated the college’s support semester.30 ary action is being considered, and com- for academic freedom and decried the Durden told a local media outlet that municates the reasons for its decision use of threats of violence to shut it down. she was never given a formal explana- to the professor and the wider public. A tion for her suspension and did not re- weak response, by contrast, usually en- On-the-Spot Reproach ceive due process before the decision was tails on-the-spot dismissal without due University bureaucracies often move at made.31 The college’s Human Resources process. Most responses fall somewhere a glacial pace. When universities decide department told her she’d been suspend- in between: administrators offer a tepid to adopt punitive measures against at- ed because she mentioned her affiliation defense of academic freedom, grant due tacked faculty, however, they can move with Essex on Carlson’s show, although process, but only late in the game, or give different -ex planations to public and pri- vate audiences.

Robust Defense Dorothy Kim’s case pro- vides a good example of a robust response. When I asked Kim how she would rate Vassar’s performance, she told me: “I got all the practical things I wanted.” Her first request to Vassar was simple—“Don’t put me on immediate leave.” Kim knew that she had done nothing wrong, but she was also aware that universities sometimes try to quiet troll storms by putting profes- sors on leave. “I had seen what happened at Trinity and Drexel,” she explained, referring to George Ciccari- Thompson Library at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. Photo: Noteremote via Wikimedia Commons. ello-Maher and another tar- geted professor, Johnny Eric Williams, “so it was my number one ask.” quickly. The experience of Lisa Durden, she had not. The next communication Kim also asked the college to remove an adjunct professor of communications Durden received was an email saying the the location of her classes from the web- at Essex County College in New Jersey, is college would no longer need her for the site and to give her a different, unlisted a case in point. fall term. office. On her own, Kim started holding In early summer 2017, Fox News per- The first and only explanation Durden office hours in the student cafeteria- be sonality Tucker Carlson invited Durden would receive came after her contract was cause only people with Vassar ID can get onto his talk show to discuss an upcom- severed, when Essex president Anthony in. ing Black Lives Matter BBQ that was not Munroe issued a formal statement.32 Kim also requested that campus secu- open to White people. In what became a Munroe acknowledged that Durden did rity do extra loops around her on-campus contentious interview, Durden defended not represent her views as those of the home and asked university housing to the decision and expressed little sym- college on the show and affirmed the -Es replace her name on the property deed pathy for those who thought the BBQ sex’s commitment to “free speech and ac- with her partner’s so trolls could not dis- should be open to supporters of all rac- ademic freedom.”33 However, he also as- cover where she lived. es. “White folks crack me up,” she said. serted that Durden’s comments were not Finally, Kim asked Vassar’s president “When we have one day for Black folks consistent with the college’s values. “The to defend her publically. The president to focus on ourselves, but you’ve been character of this institution mandates agreed to Kim’s request and posted a having White day forever.”29 The college that we embrace diversity, inclusion,

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 17 and unity. Racism cannot be fought with readers back to the article that sparked a public statement critical of Williams’ more racism.”34 Durden was displeased his comments. One tweet read: “It is past posts, writing, “In my opinion his use with the explanation, telling a local radio time for the racially oppressed to do what of the hashtag was reprehensible and, at show, “[Munroe] called me a racist!...So, people who believe themselves to be the very least, in poor judgment.”46 She are you calling Black Lives Matter rac- ‘white’ will not do, put end to the vectors also announced that the Dean of Faculty ist?”35 of their destructive mythology of white- would conduct a review to determine Hans-Joerg Tiede, at the American ness and their white supremacy system.” whether Williams had breached univer- Association of University Professors Williams said his tweets weren’t ad- sity policy.47 (AAUP), called Essex’s response a text- vocating violence against White people, Williams next received a call from his book example of what not to do. “There but rather calling for an end to the ide- department chair, who asked if he would was no due process, she was basically ology of Whiteness and the system of go on paid leave. His Dean called next to fired on the spot.” Tiede said that- Dur White supremacy.40 But the furor around press the case. Worried, Williams called den’s case was also indicative of another them erupted so rapidly that he was un- a lawyer, who advised him against tak- troubling pattern: the particular lack of able to defend himself. Two days after ing leave, since it could be read as an ad- “due process for adjuncts or non-tenure he’d posted the tweets, Campus Reform mission of guilt. The next time he heard track faculty.”36 posted an article attacking Williams, from the college it was to inform him that In January of this year an open records without reaching out to him first.41 That he was being placed on involuntary paid request by the Foundation for Individual day he received a call from the conser- leave, although the review that President Rights in Education (FIRE) called into vative website Realclearlife42 asking for Berger-Sweeney had promised was not question the university’s claim that it comment. Williams hadn’t even known even underway. The news was devastat- had been inundated with complaints. about the first article—“I had to ask the ing. “I can’t believe I can’t teach,” Wil- In the 13-day period between Durden’s caller what he was talking about,” he liams told me. “That’s my identity.” cancelled class and her suspension, the told me—but by then a narrative was al- Fortunately, when the review48 was university only received one email com- ready congealing. Campus Reform said completed in July, it offered a strong plaining about her appearance on Carl- Williams supported killing White peo- exoneration of Williams. Tim Cress- son’s show.37 well, Trinity’s Dean of Faculty and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Muddled Approaches “There was no due process, she affirmed that Professor Williams’ Most universities muddle through tweets were “protected exercises Far Right attacks. Johnny Eric Wil- was basically fired on the spot.” of academic freedom”; that faculty liams’ case at Trinity College in Con- members have the right to express necticut and Amanda Gailey’s case opinions at odds with political ortho- at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln ple. The following day, the conservative doxy and public opinion;49 and that far provide two snapshots of what such flat- mainstream newspaper The Washington from constituting a threat of violence, footed responses look like. Times accused him of calling all White Williams’ tweets “fall squarely within people “inhuman.”43 his area of scholarship.”50 Cresswell also Johnny Eric Williams The social media threats began the dismissed attempts to blame Williams The ordeal for Johnny Eric Williams, a same day. Then, the harassment came to for the threats leveled at the college, not- sociology professor at Trinity College in his doorstep, in the form of a local news ing that they were “more attributable to Connecticut, began in mid-June 2017, crew that had gotten wind of the contro- extreme reactions to his posts than to after he tweeted a link to a Medium essay versy. Williams called his wife, and, out the actual statements in the posts them- by the pseudonymous writer Son of Bald- of concern for their children, the family selves.”51 win entitled, “Let Them Fucking Die.”38 left town for four days. Although Cresswell’s report vindicated The piece discussed how a Black, queer, Trinity College was also receiving Williams, the college’s prior actions— female police officer saved the life of blowback. Its switchboard was tempo- failing initially to defend Williams’ Rep. Steven Scalise (R-LA), a right-wing rarily overloaded, and its social media academic freedom or right to due pro- politician who once spoke to a White accounts were flooded with complaints. cess—weakened the overall effect. And supremacist group39 and who opposes A new hashtag, #FireJohnnyWilliams,44 Berger-Sweeney only reinforced the bad LGBTQ rights. Son of Baldwin used this emerged. Trinity also received several feelings by releasing a public statement “delicious irony” as a jumping off point unspecified threats. On June 21, the after Cresswell’s report, continuing to to ask whether minorities should save day after the firestorm erupted, the col- criticize Williams’ tweets. “It had a chill- racial bigots in distress. His ultimate an- lege’s emergency management team an- ing effect,” Williams told me. “It ceded swer was “no”—“do nothing…Let. Them. nounced it was closing the college “until the territory to Campus Reform.” Fucking. Die.” A few days later, Williams further notice.”45 tweeted two related comments, using the Later that afternoon, Trinity’s Presi- Amanda Gailey hashtag #LetThemFuckingDie, to refer dent, Joanne Berger-Sweeney, issued In some ways, Amanda Gailey’s ordeal

18 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 is similar. When the Alt Right media ma- At University of Nebraska-Lincoln Leads let us handle it.” Gailey was uneasy with chine turned its sights on her, Gailey’s Public Harassment Of Conservative Col- the approach, but decided to “go with university was also hesitant to publically lege Students.”53 Gailey was angry. “It the flow.” Unfortunately, the PR team’s defend her. However, because she works was a total fabrication.” response was slow and halting. By then, at a public university—the University of Although Gailey came to the protest Gailey said, the narrative “had gotten out Nebraska-Lincoln—Gailey also had to by herself, another instructor—Court- of control. The Omaha World-Herald said contend with the state legislature. ney Lawton, a graduate student lecturer I’d accosted the student.”56 Gailey’s troubles began at the start in the English Department—had also at- The university’s third mistake was of the fall 2017 term, when she heard tended. Gailey told me she saw Lawton to refuse to publically correct TPUSA’s that TPUSA would be on her campus standing with her back to the TPUSA claims even after eyewitness accounts to recruit students. Like many profes- table. At some point, someone with and security videos called it into ques- sors, Gailey opposes TPUSA’s Professor TPUSA came around the table to film tion. Indeed, the university still refuses Watchlist. “Their entire objective is to Lawton. After TPUSA edited the video, it to release the footage to the public or ac- intimidate you into silence.” Instead of appeared as though Lawton had initiated knowledge that it exonerates Gailey. being cowed, however, Gailey had asked a confrontation with the student. And, The university’s failure to set the re- to be put on the watchlist. Up until that though the TPUSA video did not contain cord straight left Gailey open to attack. point the group had Shortly after the ignored her requests, August protest, for so when Gailey heard In public universities, academic freedom is under example, Univer- about a protest in the sity of Nebraska works, she decided assault not only from outside agitators, but also from Regent Hal Daub to attend, carrying state legislators working in concert with such groups. complained to a a homemade poster Nebraska state leg- that read, “Turning islator that Gailey’s Point: Please put me on your watchlist.” footage of Gailey at the protest, the vid- “protest was a premeditated and orga- But when Gailey arrived at the event, eo’s caption suggesting she was off-cam- nized effort to intimidate and shut down she couldn’t tell “who was protesting era when Lawton was being filmed linked Kaitlyn Mullen.”57 He also suggested the whom.” Gailey positioned herself away their cases and ultimately put the English university should consider disciplinary from the scrum, near the TPUSA recruit- department in the crosshairs. action against Gailey because her behav- ing table. A short while later Gailey no- Gailey and her Dean spoke about the ior may have violated the conduct clause ticed that the student managing the ta- event the following Monday. By then, of her contract. (Gailey doesn’t believe ble, Kaitlyn Mullen, was crying. “I rolled however, other Alt Right outlets had Daub is a neutral observer, as later that up my sign and walked over to ask her if pounced on the story.54 The university fall he posed for a picture with Mullen she was ok,” she recalled. The student started on the back foot and made several at a charity event.58 The next day Mul- seemed overwhelmed, so Gailey asked errors going forward. len tweeted the photo with a caption the student protestors to cool things The first mistake, Gailey explained, referencing “Team Nebraska TPUSA.” It down. She tried to reassure Mullen, tell- was the decision by Hank Bounds, the was subsequently retweeted by different ing her, “‘I don’t want anyone to be upset. University of Nebraska system’s presi- TPUSA chapters, creating an impression No one is protesting you. It’s your organi- dent, to issue an apology on Monday.55 that Daub was a supporter of the organi- zation they are protesting.’”52 Gailey was incredulous. “I had been tell- zation.59) She gave Mullen her email address ing them all along that [TPUSA] are lying Nebraska’s Republican Party also sub- and offered to meet with her, but had a about my involvement.” Gailey would jected Gailey to a campaign of harass- bad feeling about the encounter. “I knew find out later that video footage from ment. A few days after the protest, for immediately that this was going to turn campus security cameras backed up her example, three Republican legislators into something,” Gailey told me, so she account. Two months after the protest, submitted an open records request for called her department chair the same day Gailey was finally allowed to watch the any of Gailey’s emails that mentioned to warn him. Gailey’s hunch proved accu- video in the Chancellor’s office. Not only President Trump, Nebraska Senator Ben rate. A few hours later, TPUSA had post- did the video cast Courtney Lawton’s ac- Sasse, or Nebraska Congressman Jeff ed a video of the protest on its Facebook tions in a more positive light, she said, Fortenberry.60 Gailey only had to turn page and, misleadingly, included an old but “it verified that I was in another area over one email, and it did not implicate photo of Gailey. Although the video foot- [away from the scrum].”) her in any wrongdoing. Nevertheless, age was taken before Gailey was even The second mistake was to approach Gailey told me the request “felt alarm- on campus, its caption suggested that the hate swarm as a public relations ingly fascist.” she had been present during the filming problem. Gailey recalled the university’s The executive director of the Nebraska and had harassed the student: “Radical communications team told her, “We Republican Party also submitted a public Professor Amanda Gailey (off camera) can’t tell you to not talk to the press, but records request for emails between Gailey

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 19 and Lawton that mention Betsey Riot (an ‘novel.’” at administrators. It asked for all email activist group in Lincoln) or any Repub- On October 31, a few days after the sen- communications mentioning Courtney lican lawmaker by name. The chairman ators sent their open letter, Bounds and Lawton and Kaitlyn Mullen.65 of the Nebraska Republican Party also UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green finally of- The headlines notwithstanding, the joined the fray, requesting five months fered a public defense of the English de- university agrees that Gailey did not be- of email communication between the partment in separate letters. But by then, rate Mullen at the August protest and chair of the English department and any the Alt Right’s narrative had gone un- affirms that she was within her rights to faculty or administrator. challenged for two-and-a-half months, go to the protest and carry a sign. Still, In mid-October, UNL’s chancellor Ron- becoming the definitive account. Gailey’s things have been difficult for Gailey. “I nie Green decided to try to calm the wa- opponents were in a position to double have not been disciplined,” she said, “but ters by calling another round of individ- down. One of the senators, Steve Hallor- they are still trying to get me fired.” Gailey’s case demonstrates that in public universities, academic freedom is under assault not only from outside agitators, but also from state legislators working in concert with such groups.

BEST PRACTICES In a 2017 report, the AAUP made two recommendations for how universities should respond when professors are at- tacked. First, university actors, from gov- erning boards and high-level administra- tors to college deans and faculty, must aggressively defend academic freedom both collectively and individually. Sec- ond, administrators should develop poli- cies that limit or prohibit “surreptitious recording of classroom discourse or of private meetings between students and faculty.”66 These recommendations are a good start, but universities can do more, including the following:

Condemn Threats Unflattering stories about professors in Nebraska Union of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Photo: ensign_beedrill via Wikimedia Commons. Campus Reform and similar outlets rarely lead to constructive debate. Rather, ual meetings with Gailey, Lawton, and an, told The Hastings Tribune that he and they often beget harassment campaigns Mullen. After Mullen met with the chan- his colleagues were going to continue to against targeted professors. Universities cellor, however, she reopened the de- “hold government accountable,” since must not only condemn the threats but bate on twitter by complaining about the UNL “is a government-funded univer- also the role that outlets like Campus Re- English department’s mission statement, sity.”63 form play in encouraging them. and suggesting that it was “teaching stu- In response, Bounds seemed to cave, Although condemning threats of vio- dents to be social justice warriors.”61 announcing that Courtney Lawton’s con- lence should be an obvious response, To Gailey, the attacks appeared coor- tract would not be renewed the following some universities never even acknowl- dinated between Nebraska’s Republican academic year. (Initially, Lawton had edge that their professors receive them. establishment and TPUSA. Indeed, a few been reassigned from her teaching duties In his first comments about the protest days after Mullen’s tweets, three Republi- but had remained an employee.) Bounds at UNL, for example, University of Ne- can state senators sent an open letter62 to and Green also announced the university braska system President Hank Bounds the president and chancellor that echoed was hiring a polling firm to assess the condemned protestors’ behavior towards Mullen’s complaints, grumbling that the campus political climate for conserva- Kaitlyn Mullen but ignored the hate mail department’s mission statement lacked tives.64 sent to Amanda Gailey and the death “traditional English Department words The Nebraska GOP remained dissatis- threats lodged against Courtney Lawton. such as ‘classic literature studies,’ ‘writ- fied. In late November they issued anoth- Other universities denounce threats of ing,’ ‘poetry,’ ‘fiction,’ ‘grammar,’ and er open records request, this one targeted violence but bury the lede. When Trin-

20 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 ity’s president first responded to the up- da to get liberal professors fired. Accord- Kim was grateful that Vassar adminis- roar over Johnny Eric Williams’ tweets, ingly, though correcting factual errors trators met her safety requests, she was she only mentioned the threats Williams is important, this must be accompanied disappointed that the university handled faced at the end of the memo, and in- by a counter-narrative of events from her case as if it were about free speech. stead of forcefully condemning them, the university. Williams’ case provides The Alt Right has made no secret of the used tempered language—“not accept- a good example. The Campus Reform ar- fact that it sees universities and colleges able”—to describe them. ticle about Williams’ tweets used a head- as a battleground. With little resistance ing that attributed Son of Baldwin’s com- from universities, the movement’s at- Get Educated ments to Williams and accused him of tacks on professors are likely to contin- Many administrators don’t understand impugning all White people. In her first ue, if not accelerate. The cases detailed how online harassment works. Dorothy public memo, Trinity President Berger- here suggest that universities have a Kim told me that she had to explain what Sweeney made it clear that Williams was steep learning curve and not much time doxing was to one administrator. Anoth- not Son of Baldwin, but she failed to put to climb it. The first step should be to er dean questioned her account because his tweets into context. As Williams ex- change the terms of the debate. Univer- he did not see anything about it on Twitter. Kim had to explain that the Alt Right The Alt Right has made no secret of the fact that it sees was “deplatformed” after universities and colleges as a battleground. With little resistance the Charlottesville rally, as from universities, the movement’s attacks on professors are likely Twitter banned several Alt Right accounts and others to continue, if not accelerate. canceled their accounts in protest. As a result, the Alt Right turned plained in our interview, critical race sities must counter the Alt Right’s claim to smaller forums, like subreddits, to scholars do not believe that race is “real” that it only wants to be another voice at plan attacks, and took cues from writers in a biological sense. Nor do they equate the table and instead acknowledge that sympathetic to the Alt Right. “Pizzagate Whiteness and White people. Rather, its ideology is illiberal and menacing to is the perfect example,” Kim told me. they teach that Whiteness is an ideol- a variety of demographic groups in the “People didn’t see it coming because it ogy used to justify dominance. Within country. In tandem, universities must wasn’t discussed in the usual places.” this context, Williams’ tweets, in which methodically rewrite their faculty manu- he put scare quotes around the word als and their rules for renting space on Correct the Factual Record “White,” look very different. campus in ways that reinforce universi- One of the hallmarks of Campus Reform Gailey’s case also illustrates the impor- ties’ right to reject intolerant behavior and TPUSA stories is inaccuracy. In Gai- tance of developing a counter-narrative. and to protect and defend professors, ley’s case, both groups’ stories contained The Nebraska Republican Party used a students, and staff from threats of - vio basic factual errors. The caption for the factual error forwarded by TPUSA—that lence. TPUSA video, for example, inaccurately Gailey had harassed a TPUSA student vol- Carolyn Gallaher is a professor at American stated that Gailey was “off camera” dur- unteer—to claim that conservatives’ free University. She has written about right- ing the filming. Both outlets also claimed speech was under assault and that Gailey wing paramilitaries in the U.S. and North- that Gailey harassed Kaitlyn Mullen, should be fired. A good counter-narra- ern Ireland. Her first book, On the Fault when, in fact, she’d comforted her. Eye- tive would have noted two things. First, Line: Race, Class and the American Pa- witness accounts from the protest, as the First Amendment does not guarantee triot Movement (Rowman and Littlefield, well as the university’s own security foot- anyone a compliant audience. Heckling, 2003), looked at the rise of the Patriot age video, contradict these statements. making fun of political opponents, and Movement in Kentucky after the Oklahoma Yet the university never demanded cor- carrying posters are just as protected as City bombing. Her second book, After the rections. When local newspapers repeat- setting up a recruitment table. Second, Peace: Loyalist paramilitaries in Post- ed the inaccuracies, the university let if you defend Mullen’s right to recruit for accord Northern Ireland (Cornell, 2007) them go unchallenged. Administrators’ TPUSA, you have to defend Gailey’s right examined why Loyalist paramilitaries took failure to publically correct the record to protest the organization. nearly 10 years after the 1998 peace agree- made it easier for the legislature and one Universities also should counter the ment to decommission their weapons and of its regents to unfairly call for Gailey’s Alt Right’s use of the free speech mantle stand down their fighters. dismissal. to legitimize what is essentially harass- ment. As Dorothy Kim told me, her case Develop a Counter-Narrative “was not really a free speech issue.” In- The errors in stories by Campus Reform, stead, Kim argued that by tagging Milo TPUSA, and others are not the result of Yiannopoulos, Rachel Fulton Brown was sloppy fact checking, but rather an agen- “sending violence my way.” Although

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 21 endnotes

“The Incel Rebellion,” p. 3 ger-learned-game/comment-page-6. tions but lost for allowing abortion under 34. Francis, Laudato Si’, Par. 155. 19. Daryush Valizadeh (@rooshv), “Alek medical guidance as well as article 27: 1; 4 35. Francis, Laudato Si’, Par. 120. 1. “Facebook post linked to Toronto van at- Minnasian wouldn’t have killed people with the anti-discrimination clause—which they 36. Francis, Amoris Laetitia, Pars.52; 55; 173. tack points to insular, misogynistic world of a van if the media had not inoculated him interpreted protect same-gender loving in- 37. Francis, Amoris Laetitia, Par. 173. ‘incels’,” CBC News, April 25, 2018, http:// and other lonely men against effective game dividuals and allowing abortion on demand. 38. Francis, Amoris Laetitia, Par. 52. Italics www.cbc.ca/news/canada/what-is-an-incel- teachers like myself. Sleeping with only two 11. “National Family Promotion & Protec- mine. toronto-van-attack-explainer-alek-minas- or three Toronto Tinder sluts would have been tion Policy” (presentation at the African Or- 39. The Vatican, “Statement of the Holy See sian-1.4633893. Also see: Dan Bilefsky and enough to stop his urge to kill,” Twitter post, ganisation for Families: World Congress of Delegation at the 63rd Session of The Gen- Ian Austen, “Toronto Van Attack Suspect April 24, 2018, https://twitter.com/rooshv/ Families Conference, Nairobi, Kenya, 2016), eral Assembly of The United Nations on the Expressed Anger at Women,” The New York status/988877994650427392. Slide 20. Declaration on Human Rights, Sexual Orien- Times, April 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes. 20. “I am only interested in mass shooters not 12. Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia: The Joy of tation and Gender Identity,” December 18, com/2018/04/24/world/canada/toronto-van- the victims,” r/Incels, 4 October, 2017, http:// Love; on Love in the Family (Our Sunday Visi- 2008, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/ rampage.html. web.archive.org/web/20171004024818/ tor, 2016), Par. 50. secretariat_state/2008/documents/rc_seg- 2. Megan Garvey, “Transcript of the disturb- https:/www.reddit.com/r/Incels/ 13. “National Family Promotion & Protec- st_20081218_statement-sexual-orientation_ ing video ‘Elliot Rodger’s Retribution,” Los comments/73uru1/i_am_only_interested_in_ tion Policy” (presentation at the African Or- en.html. Angeles Times, May 24, 2014, http://www. mass_shooters_not_the/. ganisation for Families: World Congress of 40. The Vatican, Catechism of the Catholic latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-transcript- 21. u/landoflobsters, “Update on site-wide Families Conference, Nairobi, Kenya, 2016), Church, http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_ ucsb-shootings-video-20140524-story.html. rules regarding violent content,” Reddit, Oc- Slide 14. css/archive/catechism/p3s2 c2a6.htm, par. 3. Elliot Rodger, “My Twisted World: tober 25, 2017, https://www.reddit.com/r/ 14. The Vatican, XIV Ordinary General As- 2357. Accessed October 20, 2016. The Story of Elliot Rodger,” May 25, 2014, modnews/comments/78p7bz/update_on_ sembly the Vocation and Mission of the Family 41. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Par. https://assets.documentcloud.org/docu- sitewide_rules_regarding_violent_content/. in the Church and Contemporary World, Linea- 2358. ments/1173808/elliot-rodger-manifesto.pdf. 22. Bryan Menegus, “Nazi Groups Kicked Off menta, 2014. Par 16. http://www.vatican. 42. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Par. 4. Michael Kimmel, “The Aggrieved En- Reddit as Next Wave of Community Bans Be- va/roman_curia/synod/documents/rc_syn- 2357. titlement of Elliot Rodger,” The Shriver Report, gins [Update],” Gizmodo, October 25, 2017, od_doc_20141209_lineamenta-xiv-assem- 43. “Catholic Church condemns homosexu- June 2, 2014, http://shriverreport.org/the- https://gizmodo.com/reddits-next-wave-of- bly_en.html. ality,” Lusaka Times, July 29, 2014, https:// aggrieved-entitlement-of-elliot-rodger/. community-bans-starts-today-1819849813. 15. John Paul II, “The Media and the Fam- www.lusakatimes.com/ 2014/07/29/catho- 5. Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men: Amer- Also see: Adi Robertson, “Reddit bans Nazi ily: A Risk and a Richness,” Vatican, May lic-church-condemns-homosexuality/. ican Masculinity at the End of an Era, (New York: boards in crackdown on ‘violent’ content,” The 23, 2004, http://w2.vatican.va/content/ 44. M. L. Weiss, “Prejudice before Pride: Rise PublicAffairs, 2017). Verge, October 25, 2017, https://www.thev- john-paul-ii/en/messages/communications/ of an Anticipatory Countermovement,” in M.J. 6. Megan Garvey, “Transcript of the disturb- erge.com/2017/10/25/16548958/reddit-ban- documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20040124_world- Bosia and M.L. Weiss (eds.), Global Homopho- ing video ‘Elliot Rodger’s Retribution,” Los nazi-subreddit-violence-policy-change. communications-day.html. bia States, Movements, and the Politics of Op- Angeles Times, May 24, 2014, http://www. 16. Christian Africa in this article refers to pression (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-transcript- The People’s Pope?, p. 5 countries in sub-Saharan Africa in which over 2013), 149–173. ucsb-shootings-video-20140524-story.html. 50% of the population self-identifies as Chris- 45. African Commission on Human and Peo- 7. Julie Bindel, “The Montreal massacre: 1. Jim Yardley and Laurie Goodstein, “Pope tian. This in contrast to Islamic Africa, where ples’ Rights 2014: Resolution 275. Canada’s feminists remember,” The Guardian, Francis Met With Kim Davis, Kentucky County the majority self-identifies as Muslim. 46. Joshua J. McElwee, “Francis strongly criti- December 3, 2012, https://www.theguardian. Clerk, in Washington,” The New York Times, 17. Mary Anne Case, “After Gender the De- cizes gender theory, comparing it to nuclear com/world/2012/dec/03/montreal-massacre- September 30, 2015, http://www.nytimes. struction of Man - The Vatican’s Nightmare arms,” National Catholic Reporter, February 13, canadas-feminists-remember. com/2015/09/30/us/county-clerk-kim-davis- Vision of the ‘Gender Agenda’ for Law,” 31 2015, https://www.ncronline.org/news/vati- 8. Angela Nagle, “The New Man of 4chan,” who-denied-gay-couples-visited-pope.html. Pace Law Review 802 (2011), 807. can/francis-strongly-criticizes-gender-theory- The Baffler, March 2016, https://thebaffler. 2. Philip Pullella, “Pope says Church 18. Judith Butler, “Performative Acts and comparing-nuclear-arms. com/salvos/new-man-4chan-nagle. should ask forgiveness from gays for past Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenome- 47. “Apostolic Journey of His Holiness Pope 9. Brandy Zadrozny, “The Secret World of treatment,” Reuters, Jun 26, 2016, http:// nology and Feminist Theory,” Theatre Journal, Francis to Poland on the Occasion of the XXXI Pickup Artist Julien Blanc,” Daily Beast, De- www.reuters.com/article/us-pope-church- Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec., 1988), pp. 519-531.. World Youth Day (27-31 July 2016)” The Vati- cember 1, 2014, https://www.thedailybeast. idUSKCN0ZC12E, 19. Sara Garbagnoli, “Against the Heresy of can, July 27, 2016, https://w2.vatican.va/ com/the-secret-world-of-pickup-artist-julien- 3. Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, (Vatican Immanence: Vatican’s ‘Gender’ as a New Rhe- content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/july/ blanc. City: Vatican Press, 2016), Par. 250. torical Device against the Denaturalisation of documents/papa-francesco_20160727_polo- 10. Nicky Woolf, “‘PUAhate’ and ‘Forever- 4. “Kim Davis Recounts Secret Meeting With the Sexual Order,” Religion and Gender 6, 2 nia-vescovi.html. Alone’: inside Elliot Rodger’s online life,” Pope Francis,” ABC NEWS, September 30, (2016): 187–204, 191. 48. Francis, Amoris Laetitia, Par. 251. The Guardian, May 30, 2014, https://www. 2015, http://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive- 20. Cynthia Weber, “Right-Wing Populism, 49. Saint John Vianney Theological Semi- theguardian.com/world/2014/may/30/elliot- kim-davis-recounts-secret-meeting-pope- Anti-Genderism, and Real US Americans in nary, “Framing a Catholic Response to Gender rodger-puahate-forever-alone-reddit-forums. francis/story?id=34143874. the Age of Trump,” The Disorder of Things, Ideology,” http://sjvdenver.edu/wp-content/ 11. Josh Glasstetter, “Shooting Suspect El- 5. Kapya Kaoma, Christianity, Globaliza- July 6, 2017, https://thedisorderofthings. uploads/2017/03/Gender-Conference-bro- liot Rodger’s Misogynistic Posts Point to Mo- tion, and Protective Homophobia: Democratic com/2017/07/06/right-wing-populism-anti- chure-Final-3-2-17.pdf. tive,” Southern Poverty Law Center, May Contestation of Sexuality in Sub-Saharan Africa, genderism-and-real-us-americans-in-the- 50. “Kim Davis Recounts Secret Meeting 23, 2014, https://www.splcenter.org/hate- (United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); age-of-trump/. With Pope Francis,” ABC News, Sep 30, 2015, watch/2014/05/23/shooting-suspect-elliot- Kapya Kaoma, Colonizing African Values: How 21. Garbagnoli, “Against the Heresy of Im- http://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-kim- rodgers-misogynistic-posts-point-motive. the U.S. Christian Right is Transforming Sexual manence,” 194. davis-recounts-secret-meeting-pope-francis/ 12. Robyn Pennacchia, “‘Beta Males’ Want Politics in Africa (Somerville: Political Research 22. Garbagnoli, 194. story?id=34143874. To Kill Women Because They Can’t Get Laid,” Associates, 2012); Globalizing the Culture 23. Garbagnoli, 195. BUST Magazine, February/March 2016, http:// Wars: U.S. Conservatives, African Churches 24. Garbagnoli, 196. Right-Wing Europe’s War on “Gen- bust.com/feminism/15551-mo-beta-blues. and Homophobia (Somerville: Political Re- 25. Garbagnoli, 189. der Ideology”, p. 11 html. search Associates, 2009). 26. Garbagnoli, 189. “Full Text of Gym Killer’s Blog,” New 13. 6. “26. (4) Abortion is not permitted unless, 27. Sara Garbagnoli, e-mail message to au- 1. Editor, “Interview with Dale O’Leary, York Post, August 5, 2009, https://nypost. in the opinion of a trained health professional, thor, July 5, 2017. author of ‘The Gender Agenda One Man, com/2009/08/05/full-text-of-gym-killers- there is need for emergency treatment, or the 28. Edward Pentin, “Cardinal Bergoglio Hits One Woman,” Culture of Life Foundation, blog/. life or health of the mother is in danger, or if Out at Same-Sex Marriage,” National Catholic July 10, 2008, http://www.culture-of-life. 14. Rick Anderson, “‘Here I am, 26, with permitted by any other written law.” Register, July 8, 2010, http://www.ncregister. org/2008/07/10/interview-with-dale-oleary- no friends, no job, no girlfriend’: Shooter’s 7. “27. (1) Every person is equal before the com/blog/edward-pentin/cardinal_bergo- author-of-the-gender-agenda-one-man-one- manifesto offers clues to 2015 Oregon college law and has the right to equal protection and glio_hits_out_at_same-sex_marriage. woman/. rampage,” Los Angeles Times, September 23, equal benefit of the law. (4) The State shall 29. Pecheny et al., “Sexual Politics and Reli- 2. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., 2017, http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na- not discriminate directly or indirectly against gious Actors in Argentina,” Religion and Gen- Anti-Gender Campaigns in Europe: Mobilizing school-shootings-2017-story.html. any person on any ground, including race, der, vol. 6, no. 2 (2016), pp. 205–225. against Equality, (London: Rowan & Littlefield 15. “Shooter’s Manifesto,” contributed by sex, pregnancy, marital status, health status, 30. Edward Pentin, “Humanum Confer- International, 2017), 7. John Heasly, The Register Guard, https://www. ethnic or social origin, colour, age, disability, ence Highlights Sanctity and Beauty of Mar- 3. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., documentcloud.org/documents/3989824. religion, conscience, belief, culture, dress, riage,” National Catholic Register, November 11. “I am only interested in mass shooters not 16. language or birth.” 20, 2014, http://www.ncregister.com/daily- 4. “Chapter 3: Morality,” in The World’s the victims,” r/Incels, 4 October, 2017, http:// 8. See Colonizing African Values, p. 11. Also, news/humanum-conference-highlights- Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society, Pew web.archive.org/web/20171004024818/ “VIDEO: The Kenyan Referendum: One Year sanctity-and-beauty-of-marriage. Research Center, April 30, 2013, http://www. https:/www.reddit.com/r/Incels/ Later,” https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/ 31. Pope Francis, “Full text: Pope Fran- pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-mus- comments/73uru1/i_am_only_interested_in_ video-the-kenyan-referendum-one-year-later. cis’s opening address to Humanum con- lims-religion-politics-society-morality/. mass_shooters_not_the/. 9. “World Congress of Families Leadership ference” Catholic Herald, November 17, 5. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., 17. “Male Supremacy,” Southern Poverty Petition in Support of the “No” Campaign - Ke- 2014, http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/ 36. Law Center, https://www.splcenter.org/ nyans Opposed to the Pro-Abortion Constitu- news/2014/11/17/full-text-pope-franciss- 6. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/male- tion,” http://www.provitabucuresti.ro/docs/ opening-address-to-humanum-conference/. 25. supremacy. rel-int/petitie.kenya.pdf. 32. Pope Francis, “Full text: Pope Francis’s 7. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., 18. Roosh Valizadeh, “No One Would Have 10. Pat Robertson founded and the Sekulow opening address to Humanum conference.” 175. Died if PUAhate Killer Elliot Rodger Learned led American Center for Law and Justice, and 33. Pope Francis, Laudato Si’: On Care for Our 8. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., Game,” Return of Kings, May 25, 2014, http:// the Roman Catholic Human Life International, Common Home, (Brooklyn: Melville House, 178. www.returnofkings.com/36135/no-one- WCF, and their U.S. conservative-funded Af- 2015), Pars. 120; 155. 9. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., would-have-died-if-pua-hate-killer-elliot-rod- rican allies campaigned against the constitu-

22 • The Public Eye SPRING 2018 endnotes

182. post, December 28, 2017, https://www. 35. Al Antomatte and Doug Doyle, “Com- munications/president-bounds-statement-on- 10. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., facebook.com/george.ciccariellomaher/ mentator and Educator Lisa Durden Wants 182. posts/10155729883545325 Reinstated at Essex County College,” WBGO turning-point-usa-incident. Rick Ruggles, “UNL sophomore says she 11. “Gender Mainstreaming,” UN Women, 19. Rachel Fulton Brown, University of Chi- Journal, June 30, 2017, http://wbgo.org/ 56. http://www.un.org/womenwatch/osagi/gen- cago, http://home.uchicago.edu/~rfulton/. post/tv-commentator-and-educator-lisa- was berated and intimidated while trying to re- cruit students for conservative group,” Omaha dermainstreaming.htm. 20. Rachel Fulton Brown, “Talking Points: durden-wants-reinstated-essex-county- World-Herald, August 30, 2017, http://www. 12. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., Three Cheers for White Men,” Fencing Bear college#stream/0. omaha.com/news/education/unl-sophomore- 82. at Prayer (blog), June 5, 2015, http://fencing- 36. Hans-Joerg Tiede, phone interview with says-she-was-berated-and-intimidated-while- 13. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., bearatprayer.blogspot.com/2015/06/talking- author, December 1, 2017. trying/article_1187dc24-837c-51ad-9387- 83. points-three-cheers-for-white.html. See also 37. Zaid Jilani, “New Jersey College Sus- 17f2ed7e6b5c.html. 14. Roman Kuhar and David Paternotte, eds., Rachel Fulton Brown, “An Establishment Con- pended a Professor After Being ‘Inundated’ 86. servative’s Guide to Milo,” Breitbart News, De- With Complaints Over Her Fox News Debate. 57. Senator Stever Erdman, “Erdman: UNL cember 1, 2016, http://www.breitbart.com/ Here’s What Really Happened,” The Inter- professor, teaching assistant need to be termi- nated,” Scottsbluff Start Herald, September 7, War on the Ivory Tower, p. 15 milo/2016/12/01/establishment-conserva- cept, January 26, 2018, https://theintercept. tives-guide-to-milo/, and Oliver Lee Bateman, com/2018/01/26/fox-news-black-lives-mat- 2017, http://www.starherald.com/opinion/ 1. Amanda Gailey, phone interview with au- “How Much Longer Can the Milo Yiannopou- ter-essex-county-college/. erdman-unl-professor-teaching-assistant- need-to-be-terminated/article_b42d7185- thor, January 16, 2018. los Show Last?” Pacific Standard, February 2, 38. Son of Baldwin, “Let Them Fucking Die,” 2. Nina M. Lozano-Reich, “Professor Watch 2017, https://psmag.com/news/how-much- Medium, June 16, 2017, https://medium. 12a6-50a0-811c-1f2112f31300.html. List: #ADDMYNAME,” Huffington Post, De- longer-can-the-milo-yiannopolous-show-last. com/@SonofBaldwin/let-them-fucking-die- 58. Katie Mullen (@RealKtMullen), “Team Nebraska TPUSA with Gov. Ricketts, The cember 18, 2016, https://www.huffington- 21. Dorothy Kim, “Antifeminism, Whiteness, c316eee34212. Honorable Hal Daub, Congressman Bacon post.com/entry/professor-watch-list-addmy- and Medieval Studies,” In the Middle (blog), 39. Robert Costa and Ed O’Keefe, “House Ma- name_us_58534ba1e4b0d5f48e164e23. January 18, 2017, http://www.inthemedi- jority Whip Scalise confirms he spoke to white and Mayor Stothert[…]Great night with great 3. Abigail Hauslohner and Susan Svrluga, evalmiddle.com/2016/01/antifeminism- supremacists in 2002,” The Washington Post, people!,” Twitter post, November 9, 2017, “Free speech or hate speech? Campus de- whiteness-and-medieval.html. December 29, 2014. https://twitter.com/RealKtMullen/sta- tus/928824883496325121. bates over victimhood put universities in 22. Dorothy Kim, “Teaching Medieval Studies 40. Johnny Eric Williams, phone interview a bind,” The Washington Post, October 20, in a Time of White Supremacy,” In the Middle with the author, December 5, 2017. 59. In March of 2017 Hal Daub also at- tended a Republican fundraiser, “Elephant 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/ (blog), August 28, 2017, http://www.in- 41. Anthony Gockowski, ”Prof calls whites national/free-speech-or-hate-speech-campus- themedievalmiddle.com/2017/08/teaching- ‘inhuman assholes,’ says ‘let them die’,” Cam- Remembers”, where TPUSA’s founder Char- debates-over-victimhood-put-university- medieval-studies-in-time-of.html. pus Reform, June 20, 2017, https://www.cam- lie Kirk was a special guest speaker (http:// omaha.eventful.com/events/2017-elephant- officials-in-a-bind/2017/10/20/7f610dfe- 23. Rachel Fulton Brown, “How to signal that pusreform.org/?ID=9334. remembers-/E0-001-100749651-4). An aa07-11e7-92d1-58c702d2d975_story.html. you are not white,” Fencing Bear at Prayer 42. RealClearlife is “part of the RealClearPoli- 4. Zaid Jilani, “Gamergate’s fickle hero: The (blog), September 14, 2017, http://fencing- tics family of sites” (http://www.realclearlife. Omaha photographer captured Daub enter- dark opportunism of Breitbart’s Milo Yian- bearatprayer.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-to- com/about-real-clear-life/). RealClearPolitics’s ing the vent and yelling briefly at a protester nopoulos,” Salon, October 28, 2014, https:// signal-you-are-not-white.html. ideological leanings are usually described as at the event (https://www.facebook.com/ pg/PhotoCass/photos/?tab=album&album_ www.salon.com/2014/10/28/gamergates_ 24. Staff Writer, “Lady With a Sword Beats conservative. See: Josephy D’Agostino, “Con- fickle_hero_the_dark_opportunism_of_breit- Down Fake Scholar with Facts and Fury,” servative Spotlight: Real Clear Politics,” Hu- id=727286727452265). barts_milo_yiannopoulos/. Breitbart News, September 15, 2017, https:// man Events 59 (11), 2003, 16 60. Chris Dunker, “Senators point to tim- ing of email release on safety of conservative 5. Meghan Cloherty, “American U. student www.dangerous.com/30878/lady-with-a- 43. Douglas Ernst, “Trinity College profes- body president threatened online,” WTOP, sword-beats-down-fake-scholar-with-facts- sor calls white people ‘inhuman’: ‘Let them students; meanwhile records appear to show May 5, 2017, https://wtop.com/dc/2017/05/ and-fury/. f-ing die’,” The Washington Times, June 21, coordination between state GOP, conserva- tive website,” Lincoln Journal Star, December american-university-responds-to-online- 25. See the following posts on Fulton Brown’s 2017, https://www.washingtontimes.com/ threats-against-student-president/. blog, Fencing Bear at Prayer (http://fencing- news/2017/jun/21/johnny-eric-williams- 3, 2017, http://journalstar.com/news/local/ 6. Charlie Kirk, Breitbart, http://www.breit- bearatprayer.blogspot): “How to Signal You trinity-college-professor-cal/. education/senators-point-to-timing-of-email- release-on-safety-of/article_ce776689-387f- bart.com/author/charlie-kirk/. Are Not a White Supremacist,” September 14, 44. #FireJohnnyWilliams emerged as a 7. For a good review of the complex world 2017, “Why Dorothy Kim Hates Me,” Septem- hashtag on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sear 5a75-9b30-623fa76e90c8.html. of trolling see: David Neiwert, ”Birth of the Alt ber 17, 2017, “Risus et bellum,” September ch?q=%23firejohnnywilliams&src=typd&lan 61. Katie Mullen (@RealKtMullen), “UNL Right,” The Public Eye, Winter 2017, 4-11. 21, 2017, and “The Female of the Species,” g=en. English Department’s mission statement. Are they teaching English or teaching students to 8. Volker Ullrich, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939, September 30, 2017. 45. T. Reese Shapiro, “Trinity College closes be social justice warriors?,” Twitter post, Octo- (New York City: Vintage, 2017). 26. Dorothy Kim, phone interview with the Conn. campus in response to ‘threats re- 9. Association of American University Pro- author, December 22, 2017. ceived’,” The Washington Post, June 21, 2017, ber 23, 2017, https://twitter.com/realktmul- len/status/922650717910978560. fessors, “1940 Statement of Principles on Aca- 27. Micah Lee, “How Right-Wing Extrem- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/ demic Freedom and Tenure with 1970 Inter- ists Stalk, Dox, and Harass Their Enemies,” grade-point/wp/2017/06/21/trinity-college- 62. A copy of this letter was posted on the pretive Comments,” https://www.aaup.org/ The Intercept, September 6, 2017, https:// closes-conn-campus-in-response-to-threats- Omaha World Herald’s Website: http://www. file/1940%20Statement.pdf. theintercept.com/2017/09/06/how-right- received/. omaha.com/letter-from-state-sens-steve-erd- man-tom-brewer-and-steve/pdf_12d09866- 10. “Mission,” Campus Reform, https://www. wing-extremists-stalk-dox-and-harass-their- 46. Joanne Berger-Sweeney, “Statement Re- campusreform.org/about/. enemies/. garding Social Media Posts by Faculty Mem- cbfa-11e7-a6c0-a32c6785add1.html. Shay Burk, “Halloran wants changes 11. “Got a news TIP?,” Campus Reform, 28. Elizabeth Bradley, “Statement: Regarding ber,” TrinColl.edu, June 21, 2017, http:// 63. https://www.campusreform.org/TIP/. Intellectual Freedom,” Vassar.edu, September www.trincoll.edu/NewsEvents/NewsAr- in UNL climate,” Hastings Tribune, Novem- 12. Peter Schmidt, “Higher Education’s In- 17, 2017, https://president.vassar.edu/point- ticles/pages/StatementSocialMedia21June17. ber 15, 2017, http://www.hastingstribune. ternet Outrage Machine,” Chronicle of Higher of-view/170917-intellectual-freedom.html. aspx. com/news/halloran-wants-changes-in-unl- climate/article_eb85552a-ca24-11e7-96e6- Education, September 8, 2015, https://www. 29. “’Hostile, Separatist and Crazy’: Tucker 47. Joanne Berger-Sweeney, “Statement Re- chronicle.com/article/Higher-Educations- Battles Supporter of ‘Blacks-Only’ Memorial garding Social Media Posts by Faculty Mem- d7e20f3dd83e.html. Internet/232879. Day Party,” Fox News, June 6, 2017, http://in- ber.” 64. Brent Martin, “State senators seek free speech guarantees in latest flap with Univer- 13. “About Us,” Professor Watchlist, http:// sider.foxnews.com/2017/06/06/black-lives- 48. Tim Cresswell, “Review of the June 18, professorwatchlist.org/index.php/about-us. matter-black-only-memorial-day-picnic-tuck- 2017 Actions of Professor Johnny Williams sity of Nebraska,” Norfolk Daily News, Novem- 14. George Ciccariello-Maher (@ciccmaher), er-carlson-lisa-durden. and College Policy,” Trinity College, Hartford, ber 24, 2017, http://norfolkdailynews.com/ wjag/news/state-senators-seek-free-speech- “White people and men are told that they are 30. Samantha Schmidt, “Professor fired -af Connecticut, July 2017. Available online at: entitled to everything. This is what happens ter defending blacks-only event to Fox News. http://www.trincoll.edu/AboutTrinity/of- guarantees-in-latest-flap-with/article_a5e- when they don’t get what they want,” Twitter ‘I was publicly lynched,’ she says,” The Wash- fices/president/Documents/FinalWilliamsRe- 6ba06-d125-11e7-9e2c-ab5d2a1bbab3.html. post, October 2, 2017, https://twitter.com/ ington Post, June 26, 2017, https://www. port12July17.pdf. 65. Meg Rice, “Nebraska senators react to Turning Point USA incident repercussions,” ciccmaher/status/914861355835981824. washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/ 49. Cresswell, p. 6. The Daily Nebraskan, November 26, 2017, 15. Rob Shimshock, “Prof: Vegas Massacre ‘Is wp/2017/06/26/professor-fired-after-de- 50. Cresswell, p. 24. http://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/ What Happens When’ White People ‘Don’t Get fending-blacks-only-event-on-fox-news-i- 51. Cresswell, p. 24. nebraska-senators-react-to-turning-point- What They Want,” The Daily Caller, October was-publicly-lynched-she-says/?utm_ 52. Amanda Gailey, phone interview with the 2, 2017, http://dailycaller.com/2017/10/02/ term=.3d014a53b21f. author, January 16, 2018. usa-incident-repercussions/article_d661fd08- d319-11e7-8bc9-0f275ad13a4a.html. prof-vegas-massacre-is-what-happens-when- 31. Barry Carter, “Going on Fox News cost 53. Turning Point USA, “MUST WATCH! Rad- white-people-dont-get-what-they-want/. me my job, professor claims,” NJ.com, June ical Professor Amanda Gailey (off camera) At 66. AAUP, “Targeted Online Harassment of 16. Tom Ciccotta, “Drexel Professor Blames 20, 2017, http://www.nj.com/essex/index. University of Nebraska-Lincoln Leads Public Faculty,” AAUP.org, January 31, 2017, https:// ‘White Supremacist Patriarchy’ for Vegas ssf/2017/06/essex_county_college_profes- Harassment of Conservative Students! #Big- www.aaup.org/news/targeted-online-harass- Shooting,” Breitbart, October 2, 2017, http:// sor_suspended_after_fox.html. GovSucks,” Facebook video, August 25, 2017, ment-faculty#.WsJvqpch3cs. www.breitbart.com/tech/2017/10/02/drex- 32. Anthony E. Monroe, “Statement from Es- https://www.facebook.com/turningpointusa/ el-professor-blames-white-supremacist-patri- sex College President Anthony E. Monroe,” Es- videos/1401503063231739/. archy-for-vegas-shooting/. sex Community College, June 23, 2017, http:// 54. Hannah Scherlacher, “VIDEO: Profs bully 17. Dave Urbanski, “Prof who wanted ‘white www.essex.edu/pr/2017/06/23/statement- TPUSA prez while she recruits on campus,” genocide’ for Christmas blames ‘white people from-essex-county-college-president-antho- Campus Reform, August 25, 2017, https:// and men’ for Las Vegas massacre,” The Blaze, ny-e-munroe-3/. www.campusreform.org/?ID=9649. October 3, 2017, http://www.theblaze.com/ 33. Anthony E. Monroe, “Statement from 55. Hank M. Bounds, “President Bounds’ news/2017/10/03/prof-who-wanted-white- Essex College President Anthony E. Monroe.” statement on Turning Point USA incident,” genocide-for-christmas-blames-white-people- 34. Anthony E. Monroe, “Statement from Nebraska.edu, August 28, 2017, https:// and-men-for-las-vegas-massacre/. Essex College President Anthony E. Monroe.” nebraska.edu/president/speeches-and-com- 18. George Ciccariello-Maher, Facebook

SPRING 2018 Political Research Associates • 23 NON-PROFIT ORG. US POSTAGE PAID POLITICAL RESEARCH ASSOCIATES BOSTON, MA 1310 BROADWAY, SUITE 201 PERMIT NO. 54584 SOMERVILLE, MA 02144

A Call to Love: Confronting the Religious Right’s Attacks on Gender and Sexual Minorities in Africa

The rising global wave of conservative religious mobilization In this book, PRA Senior Research Analyst Kapya Kaoma that singles out women and LGBTQI people for condemnation, speaks frankly about his journeys to understand sexual politics punishment, and persecution is cause for alarm as well as action. in Africa, the growing militant attacks on sexual and gender While those who denounce, demonize, and cast stones belong to minorities, and the role the Christian Right and U.S. conserva- many nations, these oppressive cam- tives have played over the years in paigns often have their origins with shifting discourses and practices of U.S. religious conservatives seeking many African religious leaders, and to impose their intolerant—and even in engendering policies that have led theocratic—interpretations of Christi- to numerous deaths, imprisonment, anity on the rest of the world and who and displacement of fellow Africans. have recently found strong allies in Kaoma centers the life stories of Af- the White House. rican sexual and gender minorities, Over the last decade, PRA has insisting on humanizing them in the worked to document and challenge face of attempts to erase them liter- this trend. The forthcoming book, A ally and metaphorically. He explains Call to Love: Confronting the Religious that there is nothing inherently Afri- Right’s Attacks on Gender and Sexual can about homophobia just as there Minorities in Africa, reflects our ongo- Senior Research Analyst Kapya Kaoma. Photo: Allen Abdula. is nothing inherently Western about ing commitment to producing acces- LGBTQI identities. He calls upon Afri- sible, relevant, action-oriented research and expert analysis. We cans, and particularly religious leaders, to practice Ubuntu and hope that it will support and inform human-rights groups, news “reject theologies and ideologies that harm God’s people.” As re- media, policymakers, grassroots activists, religious leaders, and ligious leaders take positions detrimental to the well-being and all those looking to advance social justice and human rights. Ul- human rights of members of the LGBTQI community, it becomes timately, we are working toward the dream of globalizing hope even more important to hear and elevate voices of moral courage, rather than despair and justice rather than suffering. like Kaoma’s, demanding more inclusive and just futures for all. -Zeina Zaatari, PRA Research Director

Political Research Associates (PRA) is a think tank devoted to challenging the Right and advancing social justice. Visit our website, www.politicalresearch.org, to access past issues of The Public Eye, connect with us through social media, and donate. You’ll also find in-depth reports, web-only features, and our Eyes Right blog. Need to renew or purchase a subscription? Go to politicalresearch.org/subscribe. Call 617.666.5300 or email us at [email protected] for more information.

Your support makes The Public Eye possible. Subscribe and donate today!