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n this time of strong political tensions, groups have seized on statements made by professors and taken them to task, sometimes with such vehemence that the faculty members feared for their jobs or safety. The six articles in this collection describe what happened to several professors who ended up in the political cross-hairs, and how their Icolleges responded to the uproar.

Who’s Left to Defend Tommy Curry? 4 A black philosopher at Texas A&M discovered an audience that did not want to hear his message.

Higher Education’s Internet Outrage Machine 15 Two publications have emerged as major forces in academe’s ideological battles.

Professors’ Growing Risk: Harassment for Things They Never Really Said 18 Faculty members are facing backlashes because of how conservative media characterize their views.

The Far Right’s ‘New Offensive 20 Against Academia’ A professor who mocked “white genocide” in a tweet reflects on the ensuing furor.

A Christian Conservative Professor 23 Accuses Colleges of Indoctrinating Students Carol Swain, a political scientist at Vanderbilt, is retiring early after students called her a bigot.

What to Do When Outrage 26 Is Aimed at Your Campus How deftly colleges respond can have a major influence on how quickly storms dissipate.

Cover illustration by Eric Petersen Cover photo by Eric Thayer, The New York Times

22 R e ining In Fr at e r ni t ie s t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / s e p t e mb e r 2017

A black philosopher at Texas A&M thought forcing a public discussion about race and violence was his job. Turns out people didn’t want to hear it.

By STEVE KOLOWICH

Tommy J. Curry, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M, was deluged with threats and hate mail.

BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN FOR THE CHRONICLE n a Thursday morning in May, Tommy As the car pulled away from campus, Mr. Curry J. Curry walked through the philoso- reread the letter and rolled his eyes. phy department’s offices at Texas A&M He has not been back since. University with a police officer at his side and violence on his mind. rofessors are being watched, followed, and OThe threats had started a few days earlier. “Since confronted. They are being brought to ac- you said white people need to be killed I’m in fear Pcount for things they said and things they did of my life,” one person had written via email. “The not say. Modern technology has turned campus next time I see you on campus I might just have to politics into a circus, and audiences come to see pre-emptively defend myself you dumb fat nigger. the freaks: the professor who thinks white-marble You are done.” statues are racist, the one who wants white geno- Mr. Curry didn’t know if that person was lurk- cide for Christmas, the one who wants to see Pres- ing on the university grounds. But Texas is a ident Trump hanged. Preening elites exposed as gun-friendly state, and Texas A&M is a gun-friend- ugly brutes. ly campus, and he took the threat seriously. Tommy Curry was the angry black one who said The professor supports the right to bear arms. It white people need to die. That was the caricature, was part of how he ended up in this situation. anyway. In 2012 he had appeared on a satellite-radio There was much more to it. The drama that un- show and delivered a five-minute talk on how un- folded at Texas A&M is about a scholar who was easy white people are with the idea of black peo- welcomed by a public university because of his ple talking about owning guns and using them to unusual perspective and who became estranged combat racist forces. from it for the same reason. It is a story about what He was right about that. When a recording of a university values, how it expresses those values the talk resurfaced in May, people thought the under pressure, and how that pressure works. It is tenured professor was telling black people to kill about freedom and control, reason and fear, good white people. It flowed swiftly through the bor- faith and bad. oughs of conservative media and into the fever Mostly, it is a story about a black man in Amer- swamps of Reddit forums and racist message ica who did exactly what he said he set out to do, boards. The threats followed. and who became a cautionary tale. Anonymous bigots weren’t the only ones mak- It starts in Lake Charles, La., where the color ing Mr. Curry feel unwanted. Michael K. Young, lines were obvious to a black kid growing up in president of Texas A&M, had called the professor’s the 1980s and ’90s. His family lived in a mostly comments “disturbing” and contrary to the values black neighborhood on the east side of the city. The of the university. Mr. Curry was taken aback. His white folks lived on the other side of the highway. remarks on the radio were not a regrettable slip of At the Woolworth store downtown, he saw the fad- the tongue. They were part of why the university ed outline of letters that remained visible on the had hired him. window glass: “No Coloreds.” A police officer met Mr. Curry inside his aca- His father sold insurance. He told Tommy sto- demic building and rode with him in the elevator ries about how white people used to break into to the philosophy department, on the third floor. black people’s homes and terrorize them. The fam- In a hallway, the professor pointed to photos of his ily kept a shotgun behind the couch, and Tommy graduate students so the police officer would know Sr. owned a pistol as well. “He constantly told us who was supposed to be there. The officer told him that there is a very real threat of white violence,” to keep an eye out for unfamiliar faces. says Mr. Curry. “The idea of black people having a Mr. Curry picked up his mail. There were a few right to defend themselves is just something I grew angry letters, and also an envelope marked with a up with.” Texas A&M logo. He put the hate mail into a folder His mother, a social worker, told him to arm and carried the whole bundle downstairs. Back in himself with an education. She and her husband the car with his wife, he opened the university en- were members of the NAACP, and they supple- velope. Inside was a copy of a letter from a campus mented Tommy’s schoolwork with books about official that he had received a few days earlier by black inventors, screenings of Roots, and talks email — before his inbox was flooded with racist about how he could expect to be judged by the col- messages. or of their skin. Tommy was a serious child who “I am delighted to offer my congratulations on hoarded information. In high school, he read the your promotion to Professor at Texas A&M Uni- fathers of critical race theory and decided he want- versity effective September 1, 2017,” said the letter. ed to be a law professor. He had issues of Socialist “This measure of your achievement is an indica- Review sent to their house. “My parents thought tor of the very high esteem in which you are held the government was going to come get me,” he says. by your peers. We are honored to have you on our Mr. Redding, who was a few years older, was faculty.” struck by the high-schooler’s confidence. “I re-

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 5 member him coming to the debate room, and a lot would never end. of people thinking he was very bright but maybe a “The evidence of the last 50 years has convinc- little too self-confident, too self-assured,” says Mr. ingly demonstrated the failure of multicultural co- Redding. “Even some black people, who should alitions, civil rights legislation and integration,” he know better, would think he was too cocky.” wrote in a 2007 paper. “The current task of radical Then again, Mr. Curry was a first-generation black Black thought now rests in the development of al- student with dreams of blazing through the white worlds of competitive debate and higher education. Mr. Redding knew that the young man would need all the confidence he could muster. “The idea of black r. Curry used debate scholarships to attend Southern Illinois University at people having a MCarbondale, where he won an award for his prowess as a cross-examiner. After getting his master’s in Chicago, he went back to Carbondale right to defend to work on a doctorate in philosophy. He carried his debating style into the classroom, earning a themselves is reputation as a “take-no-prisoners Afrocentrist,” according to his adviser, Kenneth Stikkers, a professor of philosophy and Africana studies. just something Mr. Curry showed little deference to the canon, often challenging the universal claims that West- I grew up with.” ern philosophers made in their work. That an- noyed a lot of people in the department, but Mr. Stikkers liked Mr. Curry. He considered him a model student who “inhaled” the texts his adviser recommended, reading them closely even if he dis- ternatives in light of this disappointment.” agreed with them. “It was always a delight when Alternatives like violence. he’d come to see me,” says Mr. Stikkers, “because I “Historically, the use of violence has been a seri- was always going to learn something.” ous option in the liberation of African people from Mr. Stikkers, who is white, understood that not the cultural tyranny of whiteness,” he wrote, “and everybody would find Mr. Curry’s iconoclasm as should again be investigated as a plausible and in energizing as he did. Philosophers consider them- some sense necessary political option.” selves open-minded, he says, but the department It was a provocative thesis, and Mr. Curry knew was still a white neighborhood with expectations it. He did not consider himself a violent person. of how a black guest should behave. Mr. Curry was Even when he was a teenage socialist, his revolu- not interested in playing that game. In comments tionary vision had been passive: White capitalism on Mr. Curry’s papers, the professor found himself would collapse under its own weight, and black repeating a refrain: “Don’t unnecessarily antago- unionists would help build a more egalitarian soci- nize your audience.” ety in its ruins. Anyway, philosophy was supposed Mr. Curry’s patience for that advice was limited. to be about asking hard questions without fear “He would say at times that he liked nothing more or prejudice, and Mr. Curry was not interested in than pissing white people off,” says Mr. Stikkers. “I steering clear of topics just because they made his think he did get a certain thrill from that.” white colleagues uneasy. During the time when Mr. Curry was studying Mr. Stikkers urged him to pre-emptively defend at Southern Illinois the people of that state elected himself against charges that he wanted to incite a young, mixed-race law professor to the U.S. Sen- violence. In the paper, Mr. Curry explained that he ate. Carbondale liberals had high hopes for Barack wanted to raise violent resistance in the context of Obama as a unifying political figure and a symbol American racism “not as a call to arms, but as an of how far race relations in America had come. open-ended political question.” Mr. Curry did not share their optimism. In the Still, the young philosopher knew he was tread- days after Hurricane Katrina, he heard that the ing on dangerous ground. police had opened fire on a group of unarmed “To some,” he wrote, “for a black scholar to even black families on the Danziger Bridge in New Or- ask if violence should be used to combat racism is leans. It would take years for courts to determine a career faux pas.” the guilt of the officers, but Mr. Curry didn’t need an official judgment to convince him it was true. he paper was published in Radical Philoso- The aftermath of the hurricane bolstered his belief phy Today, and Mr. Curry put it on his cur- that antiblack racism in America was a storm that Triculum vitae. Two years later, he earned his

6 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 doctorate from Southern Illinois, and Texas A&M seen Mr. Martin and assumed he was up to no brought him on as a “diversity hire,” he says. The good. He grabbed his gun and followed Mr. Mar- university’s philosophy department, like philoso- tin. There was a confrontation. Mr. Martin broke phy departments everywhere, was all white. “They Mr. Zimmerman’s nose and injured the back of his sold it to me based on the idea that they were try- head; Mr. Zimmerman then shot Mr. Martin in ing to change,” he says. the chest. Black philosophers are rare in academe. In 2013 The case brought attention to “stand your a group of researchers counted 141 black profes- ground” laws, which gave the residents of some sors, instructors, and graduate students working at states, including Florida, the right to use lethal U.S. colleges, accounting for about 1 percent of the force rather than retreat if they fear they might be field. At Texas A&M, Mr. Curry turned heads al- in serious danger. (In court, Mr. Zimmerman was most immediately. In 2010 he taught a course that later acquitted.) used hip-hop as a lens into philosophical ideas. That December, Django Unchained was released The rapper 50 Cent was on the syllabus alongside in theaters. The film starred Jamie Foxx as a black Thomas Hobbes. gunslinger who frees his wife and murders her Mr. Curry and his hip-hop philosophy course white slavers with guns and explosives. In a Satur- irked some conservative students on the campus, day Night Live monologue, Mr. Foxx joked about which was only 3 percent black. That fall, in an ar- how great it was that he got to “kill all the white ticle for Campus Reform, a new website devoted people in the movie,” prompting white pundits to to exposing what it sees as the liberal excesses of accuse the black actor of racism. academe, Steven Crumpley, a member of the uni- Mr. Curry made plans to talk about Django on versity’s student government, criticized Mr. Cur- Mr. Redding’s show. He wanted to place the film ry’s course as having “little to no educational value in the context of Nat Turner’s slave revolt, the writ- whatsoever.” (Mr. Curry says the student was not ings of the civil-rights leader Robert F. Williams, enrolled in the course. Mr. Crumpley, who was an and the history of black people’s taking up arms. accounting major, did not return messages from Once again, conjuring visions of black-on-white The Chronicle.) violence would be risky. The audience this time But some students credited Mr. Curry for intro- was not subscribers to Radical Philosophy Today. ducing them to a new way of seeing themselves and It was the public airwaves and the internet. “He the world. “I think there need to be more courses knew that saying that, on its face, would be contro- like this in the university,” wrote one student last versial,” says Mr. Redding. They decided the pro- fall in an evaluation of the hip-hop course, “with fessor should focus on self-defense. an open environment where students can share When it came time to record the segment, Mr. their thoughts and ideas without feeling ashamed.” Curry spoke without a script. Mr. Curry didn’t want to confine his teaching “When we have this conversation about violence to the classroom. In 2012 he reconnected with or killing white people, it has to be looked at in the Mr. Redding, the acquaintance from his debating days in Lake Charles, who had followed his dream of becoming a radio host. His show, the Redding News Review, played online and on the airwaves in “To some, for a several cities. Mr. Redding began featuring Mr. Curry in a segment called “Talking Tough With Tommy.” black scholar to Each Thursday the professor would call in and lecture about race, fear, and complacency during even ask if violence the Obama years. He warned them of what might happen as white America began to feel the levers of power slipping from its grasp. “We despise black should be used to people who are pessimistic about the political situation,” he said in one episode, “as if history hasn’t combat racism is a already borne out what happens when black people make progress, even if it’s illusory.” Earlier that year, grim news from a Florida sub- career faux pas.” urb had reminded the nation of how precarious the political situation was, no matter who was in the White House. Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager, kind of these historical terms,” he said. had been stalked and killed in a gated communi- “And the fact that we’ve had no one address, like, ty where his father’s girlfriend lived. George Zim- how relevant and how solidified this kind of tradi- merman, a neighborhood-watch volunteer, had tion is, for black people saying, ‘Look in order to be

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 7 equal, in order to be liberated, some white people may have to die.’ I’ve just been immensely disap- pointed, because what we look at, week after week, is national catastrophe after catastrophe where black people, black children, are still dying.” White conservatives speak reverently of gun rights, said Mr. Curry. “But when we turn the conversation back and say, ‘Does the black community ever need to own guns? Does the black community have a need to protect itself? Does the black individual have a need to protect himself from police officers?’ We don’t have that conversation at all.” The segment aired, and nothing happened. Mr. Redding posted Mr. Curry’s piece on YouTube in December 2012 with the title “Dr. Tommy Curry on killing whites,” then forgot about it. Until Rod Dreher found it.

r. Dreher, too, was from Louisiana. Born 12 years before Mr. Curry, he grew Mup in St. Francisville, a small town 160 miles northeast of Lake Charles. Only a few years before he was born, white vigi- lantes there had stalked and terrorized black men who had tried to register to vote in the town center. In 1963, a tenant farmer named James Payne told a Justice Department official that a white mob had showed up at his house a day later. The intrud- ers disarmed him, threatened to burn his family alive, and fired a bullet from his own pistol into the ground between his legs. Mr. Dreher had a fling with progressive politics MAUDE SCHUYLER CLAY FOR THE NEW YORKER during his college years, at Louisiana State Universi- Rod Dreher was writing regularly for “The American ty, but his ideology took a right turn and he moved to Conservative” about campus politics, which seemed only to have the Northeast, where he cultivated an urbane con- gotten more toxic since he was in college. servatism and waded into the culture wars. Personal experience made him wary of vigilan- tism. In a 2001 column for the New York Post, Mr. He felt safe going out in public only after planes Dreher bemoaned an elaborate funeral procession struck the World Trade Center towers a few days that black mourners had arranged for Aaliyah, the later, briefly uniting black and white New Yorkers 22-year-old R&B artist who had died in a plane in their rage against Muslim terrorists. crash. “A traffic-snarling, horse-drawn cortege Mr. Dreher came to regret the Aaliyah column, in honor of a pop singer most people have never admitting that it was “insensitive,” but he never- heard of?” he wrote. “Give us a break!” theless saw himself as a victim of racial venom Mr. Dreher has vivid memories of what hap- coursing through parochial networks. He blamed pened next. Callers flooded his voice mailbox with black radio hosts for using their influence to mark messages. They cursed him out, hurled anti-Se- him as the enemy of a race. mitic slurs (Mr. Dreher was raised Methodist and He eventually moved back to Louisiana and cul- had converted to Catholicism), called him a rac- tivated an online following as a blogger for The ist, and said he should be fired. All of the callers American Conservative. His take on the Trayvon had “black accents,” he later recalled. Mr. Dreher Martin case was that Mr. Martin had “overreact- tried to brush it off. He recorded a cheeky voice- ed” to Mr. Zimmerman’s confronting him with a mail greeting that instructed his critics to press 1 gun, and that black people had overreacted to Mr. to leave a death threat, 2 to leave a bomb threat, 3 Zimmerman’s just acquittal. Mr. Dreher didn’t see to get him fired, and so on. (“Please remember to Django Unchained, he said, because revenge fan- speak as grammatically as you can,” he added.) tasies were corrupting. His audience eventually Still, the outrage scared him. “Every time a black grew to about a million readers per month. man got within 10 feet of me, I thought, ‘Could this By the time Mr. Dreher learned about Mr. Cur- be one of the people who made the death threat?’ “ ry, he was writing regularly about campus politics, he wrote. He eventually hid out in his apartment. which seemed only to have gotten more toxic since

8 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 he was in college. The racial terrorism of the 1960s somebody wrote there, posting a link to The Amer- was in the past, as far as he was concerned, and yet ican Conservative. “THE HELL?!?! This guy the “social-justice warriors” remained on the war- teaches at Texas A&M!! Liberalism at Universities path. Worse, college administrators indulged those as [sic] gotten completely out of hand!!” students’ petty outrages. Cristina Laila, a writer for The Gateway Pundit, This spring, a reader sent Mr. Dreher an email: a blog devoted to exposing “the wickedness of the A black professor at Texas A&M was saying racist left,” also saw Mr. Dreher’s post about Mr. Curry. things about white people, and the university was “This is more proof that rasicsm [sic] is ok,” she letting it happen. (The tipster used a pseudonym, wrote, “as long as the attacks are against whites.” according to Mr. Dreher, but he guessed it was a Infowars was next. On May 10, Paul Joseph student.) He Googled Mr. Curry’s name and soon Watson, a commentator writing for the site, posted found the “killing white people” YouTube clip that his own take on Mr. Dreher’s discovery. “Presum- Mr. Redding had posted. He also found the profes- ably,” he wrote, “the university thinks that advo- sor’s 2007 paper on “violence against whiteness.” cating for the death of an entire group of people To his ears, Mr. Curry sounded like a bully. based on their skin color is something that cor- “That rat-a-tat-tat way of talking reminded me relates with their values.” of people I’ve encountered in the past who are so Mr. Watson’s article opened a line to another au- busy talking at you that they don’t actually listen,” dience: neo-Nazis. That evening somebody post- says Mr. Dreher. “He reminded me of political and ed a link on Stormfront, a forum for white racists. religious extremists I’ve run across in my life in Some of the people who responded seemed to wel- that way. That stuff sets me on edge.” come the thought of a race war. They liked their So he decided to expose Mr. Curry on his blog. chances. Mr. Dreher embedded the “killing whites” radio “My West Point and 82nd Airborne cousins are segment and quoted from other radio appearanc- more than happy to accommodate those of us who es in which the professor had talked about how may need a little help in just such an emergency,” white people would never voluntarily surrender wrote one person. “So please, oh pretty please, do their advantages. TRY to initiate hostilities sooner rather than later.” “What does any of this racist bilge mean?” wrote Mr. Dreher. “To prove his own human worth to r. Curry had succeeded in getting peo- Tommy Curry, a white person has to despise him- ple across the country to talk about racial self? Good luck with that, Tommy Curry.” Mviolence in the name of self-defense. Now He published it on a Monday, this past May 8, at they were talking about how Texas A&M Universi- 8:30 a.m. ty needed to defend itself from Mr. Curry. To hundreds of people on the forums of TexAgs, a ater that morning, an email arrived in Mr. fan site, the answer was clear. Curry’s inbox from Kelly McNally, a book- “Can we not fire him?” wrote one person. Ler for Tucker Carlson Tonight. Mr. Carlson, “What an embarrassment to Texas A&M,” wrote the Fox News Channel host, wanted to interview another. “Waiting on a response from President the professor — about health care and how race is Young, knowing it will never come.” discussed on college campuses, she told him. (“We Mr. Young, a lawyer, was hired to run Texas had seen reporting on the professor’s comments,” A&M in 2015 after a four-year stint as president Ms. McNally later told The Chronicle. “That is of the University of Washington. He had served what prompted us to reach out to him.”) on the 50th Anniversary Commission of the U.S. Mr. Curry declined, but he would not be able Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education de- to avoid the spotlight for long. Mr. Dreher’s post cision, which made segregation illegal in public sent the professor’s words racing across a network schools. Meeting the family members of the black that was primed for racial outrage — like New plaintiffs, Mr. Young said later in an interview, had York City’s black-radio scene circa 2001, but much helped him appreciate the toll of racial alienation more powerful. The internet’s right-wing news belt and the importance of courage in the service of ed- had expanded under President Obama. Websites ucational opportunity. like Infowars and Breitbart, once on the fringe, “One young man in particular told me that his had found a champion in President Trump, who grandfather, who had been the father of one of the seemed passionate about defending white Amer- plaintiffs, had lost his job, lost his livelihood, been ica’s borders and voting rolls from usurpers like ostracized out of the community he was in, be- Muslim refugees, undocumented Latinos, and cause he took a stand in this,” the president said. poor blacks. “And at that point I realized how incredibly im- One of the first online hubs to notice Mr. Dre- portant that courage was.” her’s article about Mr. Curry was /r/The_Donald, At Texas A&M, Mr. Young had earned a rep- a Reddit forum devoted to the lionization of Pres- utation as an able navigator of public-relations ident Trump. “‘When Is It OK To Kill Whites?’” crises having to do with racism. In 2016 white

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 9 students had taunted a group of black and Latino know something.” high-school students who were visiting the campus Many of those Aggies might not have been “ful- from a Dallas preparatory school. One woman rely informed” of the context of Mr. Curry’s words, he portedly asked the prospective students what they says, but some of them were longtime donors, vol- thought of her Confederate-flag earrings; other unteers, and friends of the university, and their con- students told the high-school visitors to go back cerns were “pretty rational” and “very respectful.” where they came from. Mr. Young says he disagreed with the idea that Mr. Young responded by announcing an inves- Mr. Curry was inciting violence. But as president, tigation and then traveling to Dallas to personally he felt an obligation to take the concerns seriously. apologize to the students who had been harassed. Public outrage can be perilous for a public uni- He was later praised widely for making a heartfelt versity, especially when race is involved. After response without rushing to judgment. black students and their allies caused a national “Knee-jerk responses have to be avoided at all stir by protesting racism at the University of Mis- costs,” Mr. Young told The Chronicle a few weeks souri at Columbia, the university’s fund-raising afterward. “That becomes a challenge, too, because efforts took a big hit, and Mizzou became a punch- your first instinct is to side with the people who are ing bag for the conservative state legislature. Two outraged.” The key to beating the outrage machine, years later, freshman enrollment has dropped by he said, is to know exactly what your university 35 percent, and the university has temporarily stands for. If you do that, “even if it doesn’t play out shuttered seven dormitories. the way the Twitter world initially thinks it should, Texas A&M’s president says that finances were you never have to back away or apologize.” not on his mind as he weighed what to do about Texas A&M officials knew early on that Mr. Dre- Mr. Curry, but that he acknowledged the impor- her’s article might become a problem. On May 8, tance of staying in the good graces of constituen- hours after it went up, somebody from the univer- cies beyond the campus. “People send their chil- sity’s office of marketing and communications no- dren to A&M, and students come to A&M, because ticed the vicious chatter about Mr. Curry online. it’s a very special place,” he said in an interview. “I He notified the university’s security chief, who didn’t want anybody to doubt what they believe it called the professor. stands for is what it stands for.” Amy Smith, senior vice president for marketing On May 10, Ms. Smith presented Mr. Young with and communications, advised Theodore George, two options for a new response to people who were head of the philosophy department, on how to re- complaining about Mr. Curry. spond to inquiries about Mr. Curry. “Barring di- The first option offered an assurance that calls to rect threats by him to others, Dr. Curry has a First violence are against the university’s core values. Amendment right to offer his personal views on The second option was exactly the same as the this subject,” she advised him to say, “no matter first, plus this sentence: how incendiary and inappropriate others may con- “While professors have a First Amendment right sider them to be.” of course to offer personal views on their own time, It soon became clear that would not be enough. university policy prohibits them [from doing] so in a way that creates an appearance that they are orter Garner III, head of the Association of speaking for the University.” Former Students, was receiving angry calls “Let’s go with option two,” the president told Ms. Pfrom donors. They thought Mr. Curry was en- Smith. “I think this is good.” couraging violence against white people. Mr. Gar- ner had advised Mr. Young to say something pub- hat morning, the dean of Texas A&M’s liber- licly to ease their minds. al-arts college asked Mr. Curry to meet with It was something to consider. The association Tadministrators. The professor agreed but raises about $10 million for Texas A&M annually, told them he wanted another person of color in the but its greater value is in the connections it builds meeting. He didn’t want to feel surrounded by peo- and maintains on the university’s behalf. Although ple who didn’t get it. Mr. Garner’s group isn’t Texas A&M’s biggest fund At the meeting, Mr. Curry says, he got the im- raiser, “we are the initial cultivator of all relation- pression that university officials wanted to draw a ships” between the university and its current and distinction between his radio commentary and his future supporters, he says. work for Texas A&M. The professor’s comments had not yet been cov- Mr. Curry stood his ground. He told the uni- ered in the mainstream press, but alumni were versity officials there was no difference. Earlier in writing to Mr. Garner, calling him, stopping him at the year, a panel of judges from the Society for the events to ask if this guy really worked at their alma Advancement of American Philosophy honored mater. “The Aggie network is wide, it is diverse, it Mr. Curry’s radio work by giving him an award is well-informed,” says Mr. Garner, “and I suspect for public philosophy. (“Our committee was im- if a few Aggies know something, a lot of Aggies pressed,” wrote the chair of the panel, “by how

10 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 BOB DAEMMRICH After a series of statements and clarifications, Michael Young, president of Texas A&M, issued one more: “For those of you who considered my comments … impinging upon the centrality of academic freedom at this university, I regret any contributions that I may have made to misunderstandings in this case.”

seamlessly Dr. Curry is able to fuse his work as sitting in his apartment, at his computer, when a a professional academic philosopher with a very message arrived from President Young. It was ad- public and intellectually rigorous engagement with dressed not to him, but to everybody. lay audiences across a variety of platforms.”) “As you may know, a podcast interview by one of His radio commentary wasn’t some offbeat rant, our professors that took place approximately four the professor told his bosses. This is part of what and a half years ago resurfaced this week on social you hired me to do. media, seen for the first time by many of us,” wrote “They backed down a little bit,” says Mr. Curry. Mr. Young. He says they told him to put his defense in writing “The interview features disturbing comments so they could use it to respond to people who were about race and violence that stand in stark con- contacting the university to complain. trast to Aggie core values — most notably those of The professor wrote in the third person, assuming respect, excellence, leadership and integrity — val- that his bosses would adopt his voice as their own. ues that we hold true toward all of humanity.” “The inflammatory phrase ‘When is it OK to Kill Mr. Curry read the email with dawning anger. white people,’ “ he wrote, referring to Mr. Dreher’s He’s throwing me under the bus, the professor headline, “deliberately misconstrues Dr. Curry’s thought. distinction between revolutionary violence and Mr. Young continued: self-defense.” “As we know, the First Amendment of the U.S. The professor continued: “Dr. Curry, drawing Constitution protects the rights of others to offer from the Second Amendment tradition, suggests their personal views, no matter how reprehensi- that the law’s failure to protect the lives of Black, ble those views may be. It also protects our right to Latino, and Muslim Americans requires new con- freedom of speech which I am exercising now. versations which may require self-defense and “We stand for equality. more radical options than protest. In no way does “We stand against the advocacy of violence, hate, his work promote or incite violence toward whites and killing. or any other racial group.” “We firmly commit to the success, not the de- The professor sent the text to his department struction, of each other.” chair that evening. Two hours later, Mr. Curry was Have no fear, the president assured them: Texas

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 11 A&M’s core values remained intact. Young. The website encouraged alumni to sign a petition pledging to withhold all donations to Tex- he alumni association is not the only non- as A&M and its affiliated fund raisers until the profit organization Texas A&M relies on to Traise money. There is also the Texas A&M Foundation and the 12th Man Foundation, which contribute close to $100 million annually. The “Paying a professor George Bush Presidential Library Foundation helps underwrite the expenses of the presidential library and the Bush School of Government and to share radical ideas Public Service. Ms. Smith, the communications vice president, on behalf of a university immediately sent Mr. Young’s statement to the presidents of all those organizations. “Thank you Amy!” wrote Mr. Garner. has nothing to do with “Thank you Porter, and all of you for what you do for our beloved university,” Ms. Smith replied. free speech.” Mr. Young was pleased. “Beautifully done!!!!” he told Ms. Smith. The communications chief felt good about the statement. Fair was fair: Last December, when the board took action. (Mr. Schroeder, who graduated white nationalist Richard Spencer visited Texas in 2014, declined to be interviewed on the record.) A&M, Mr. Young made it clear that the universi- “President Young claims to ‘stand against the ad- ty did not share his values, either. After trying and vocacy of violence, hate, and killing,’ “ read the pe- failing to bar Mr. Spencer from speaking on cam- tition, “yet he continues to support Professor Cur- pus, university leaders organized a unity-themed ry’s dangerous indoctrination of young students, rally in the football stadium. “If you’re a purveyor engraining [sic] impressionable pupils with hate of hate and divisiveness,” said John C. Sharp, the against whites and an appreciation for violence.” chancellor, “and you want to spew that kind of rac- Alumni were not the only ones upset. Mr. ism, this is the last campus on earth that you want Young’s attempt to get out ahead of a national sto- to come to to do that.” ry created another outrage closer to home. In light of the situation with Mr. Curry, Ms. Smith found herself moved by the chancellor’s aying professors to share radical ideas does words. have to do with academic freedom, a priv- “It is even more meaningful now,” she wrote to Pilege that is sacred on college campuses, if the president the next morning, “as we articulated nowhere else. Members of the Texas A&M facul- our core values again yesterday in a new-but-relat- ty were coming to the conclusion that Mr. Curry’s ed situation that shows we mean this equitably.” 2012 comments were part of his work as a scholar. The statement did little to slow the momentum The right of the professor to study and teach of the story. The outrage machine was just warm- without interference from above is enshrined ing up. Conservative writers struggled to square in Texas A&M’s bylaws. According to university their love of free speech with their horror at Mr. guidelines, “each faculty member must be free from Curry’s words. the corrosive fear that others inside or outside the “Certainly, no one should be stopped for shar- University community, because their views may ing and debating ideas; the country has seen too differ, may threaten his or her professional career.” many prohibitions of speech in past years,” wrote To some of Mr. Curry’s colleagues, the statement Ron Meyer, editor of Red Alert Politics, a Wash- the president sent out to mollify the professor’s ington-based blog. “However, paying a professor critics was not an affirmation of the university’s to share radical ideas on behalf of a university has core values. It was a betrayal. nothing to do with free speech.” Joe Feagin, a long-serving sociology professor, Mr. Garner, of the Association of Former Stu- wrote to Mr. Young the next morning. dents, was still getting calls from alumni who “Michael,” he wrote, “I wish you had contacted thought Mr. Young had not gone far enough. Some me about the Curry matter.” said the president should have condemned Mr. But the president hadn’t, so Mr. Feagin aired his Curry more forcefully. Others were upset that the concerns to a student reporter instead. In an email professor wasn’t fired. to The Battalion, a campus newspaper, the sociol- SupportAggies.com, a website registered to Eric ogist argued that the Second Amendment arose Schroeder, a former chairman of the Texas Aggie out of the desire of all-white militias to arm them- Conservatives student group, called on the Texas selves against the black people they had enslaved. Board of Regents to fire both Mr. Curry and Mr. Mr. Curry’s 2012 radio lecture, he said, was based

12 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 on good research. ment, and his advisers spent several days discuss- Nandra Perry, an associate professor of English, ing how to thread the needle. teaches about the Bible as literature. “In the pro- Karan L. Watson, who was provost at the time, cess of teaching that course,” she told the president judged that the number of people mad at the pres- in an email message, “I make all manner of per- ident for not firing Mr. Curry outnumbered the fectly benign observations rooted in my academic number of people who were upset on the profes- expertise that could easily be recorded, edited, and sor’s behalf. Many faculty members, she noted taken out of context in order to smear my charac- in an email to a colleague, approved of how Mr. ter or pit people against each other.” Young had handled the situation. She had assumed that the university would have Still, the provost suggested that the president her back if anybody used a classroom recording use the new statement to apologize to Mr. Curry. to attack her. Now she wasn’t so sure. “To call this “To all those whose work is contextualized by incident a blow to academic freedom,” Ms. Perry understanding the historical perspectives of events told the president, “doesn’t begin to do justice to that have often been ignored,” Ms. Watson sug- the chill it will have on my teaching and indeed the gested saying, “and especially the professor and his teaching of almost everyone I know.” work discussed in the podcast, I apologize.” Perhaps the most scathing rebuke to the presi- On May 17, a week after Mr. Young put out his dent came in a letter signed by every faculty mem- statement about Texas A&M’s values, he released ber in the Africana-studies department, where Mr. a statement clarifying them. He said he was com- Curry also holds a faculty appointment. The histo- mitted to academic freedom. He acknowledged ry of black thought, they said, includes more than that scholars often find their work oversimplified Martin Luther King Jr.’s crossover hits. By dismiss- or misunderstood. He reiterated the university’s ing Mr. Curry’s comments on violent resistance as position that racial violence is always bad. “personal views,” they said, Mr. Young had delegit- As for how he had handled the outcry over Mr. imized the professor’s expertise and dismissed cen- Curry, the president was guardedly contrite. “For turies of history. those of you who considered my comments dispar- “Blacks in the United States live with the daily aging to certain types of scholarly work or in any fear that a traffic stop, or a trip to the store or the way impinging upon the centrality of academic park, could be the end of their lives,” wrote the pro- freedom at this university,” he said, “I regret any fessors. “Yet we cannot talk about black resistance? contributions that I may have made to misunder- Historically or contemporaneously? Are you aware standings in this case, including to those whose that Dr. Curry’s work falls within a longstanding work is contextualized by understanding the his- epistemological tradition in black diaspora and co- torical perspectives of events that have often been lonial studies?” ignored.” They demanded an apology. The personal apology didn’t make it in. When Mr. Dreher heard that the Texas A&M professor was getting death threats, he wrote a follow-up blog post. Anyone threatening violence against Mr. Curry, he said, should be ashamed and, if possible, arrested. “I hope Dr. Curry is armed,” he added, “so that if anybody shows up at his house “To call this incident threatening him, he defends his home and family by any means necessary.” a blow to academic Still, the American Conservative writer stuck by his interpretation of Mr. Curry’s 2012 radio com- freedom doesn’t mentary. “I don’t believe Tommy Curry is encouraging black people to go out today and cut throats,” Mr. Dreher wrote. “I think he is entertaining dangerous begin to do justice thoughts here, same as far-right white radicals.” (He later would write a third post, which was removed, to the chill it will comparing the professor to Emperor Palpatine, the Star Wars villain who encourages morally complex characters to “give in to the dark side.”) have on my teaching.” Mr. Curry read the second blog post somewhat differently than Mr. Dreher had meant it. That evening the professor wrote an email to Mr. Young with a headline that was provocative, if a bit mis- even weeks after setting the Curry drama in leading: motion, Mr. Dreher took his 13-year-old son “Rod Dreher retracts.” on a trip to Italy. In Tuscany they watched The president decided to make another state- S the Palio de Siena, a horse race that has been run

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 13 for centuries. Afterward they marched along the his apartment as messages arrived by email warn- street in a crowd behind the winning team. “It was ing him of what might happen if he did. everything I hoped it would be for him,” he wrote “You and your entire family of low-IQ, affirma- in an email. tive-action herpes-infected african monkeys might They were in the land of Dante, the poet Mr. need to be put to death.” Dreher credits with helping him shed the anger he There were dozens like that. The professor for- had carried through most of his life. His own fa- warded them to the campus police department. ther, a formidable man with a quick temper, had Mr. Curry says a detective told him some of the not understood his sensitive, bookworm son — messages appeared to have been sent from within had called him a “sissy” and blamed him for let- the county. ting himself be bullied in school. His disapproval Police officers made a point to drive past his weighed heavily on Mr. Dreher well into adult- apartment building often for several weeks. But hood, and the writer drifted in and out of depres- Mr. Curry worried about whether his 6-year-old sion. Decades later, moved by Dante’s Divine Com- was safe at her elementary school. Driving her edy, he forgave his father. home at the end of the day, he would circle the Mr. Dreher believes that forgiveness is the only block a few times to make sure they had not been practical solution to racial resentment, too. “We followed. inherited the good and the bad,” he wrote, “all con- Nobody came to his door, knocked him down, sequences of an infinite number of choices made disarmed him, fired a bullet between his legs, or BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN FOR THE CHRONICLE before we were born — choices made by sinners, made him beg for his life. The mob that came for “If that’s the American dream,” Tommy Curry says of his experience as a black professor, “then I’d hate to just like us.” Mr. Curry reflected his own time. It was digital see what the actual nightmare is.” In 2015, Mr. Dreher marveled at the “Christ-like and diffuse, everywhere and nowhere. love” of the teenage children of Sharonda Cole- The goal, however, was the same as ever: fear. man-Singleton, one of the nine black parishioners And it worked. killed by the white supremacist Dylann Roof at The Currys left town. They were already plan- the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church ning to move, but Mr. Curry and his wife decided in Charleston, S.C. Ms. Coleman-Singleton was a to leave early to stay with family. His daughters speech pathologist and a high-school track coach. thought they were going on vacation. He does not Mr. Roof shot her five times. The next night, at plan to bring them when he returns to Texas A&M a vigil for their mother, Chris and Camryn Cole- in the fall. man-Singleton told an interviewer that they had The hate mail tapered off, but Mr. Curry’s name already forgiven Mr. Roof. still occasionally appeared on conservative web- Mr. Dreher saw their gesture as both inspiring sites. After a few weeks he got another message and necessary. from Ms. McNally, the Fox News booker. “We “There will always be haters, of all kinds, and would very much appreciate the opportunity to sometimes those haters will murder in service of hear from you,” she wrote, “and offer you the op- the hate that consumes them,” he wrote. “But to portunity to explain your work and teachings, deny that things have changed for the better, and which I know have garnered significant attention can change for the better if we work at it, is to deny of late.” to ourselves the hope that inspired Martin Luther But the professor was tired of explaining. King and the civil rights heroes.” In his life, Mr. Curry has embodied both the Mr. Curry is no hero, says Mr. Dreher, who promise of racial progress and its limitations. He thinks that the professor’s talk of racial violence is was able to study at an integrated school, but his reckless, and that he should cut it out before he in- hometown remained divided by the legacy of seg- spires somebody to do real harm. regation. He was hired by a university that wanted “Tommy Curry’s big fat radical mouth gets to more black professors, then mocked by conservative me,” he wrote in an email from Italy, “because of students who assumed his insight was worthless. He the consequences of the things he believes and earned honors from his colleagues, then anger from says. It’s not a joke.” strangers and a tepid defense from his bosses. “If that’s the American dream,” says Mr. Curry, ack in America, Mr. Curry was more worried “then I’d hate to see what the actual nightmare is.” about the consequences of what Mr. Dreher He plans to return to Texas A&M in the fall as Bbelieved and said about him. a full professor. He knows there are people there The writer’s airing of Mr. Curry’s 2012 com- who want him gone. He no longer trusts the uni- ments stirred up feelings that were far from versity to defend him. He only hopes he can defend Christ-like. For two weeks, the professor rarely left himself.

Originally published on July 26, 2017

14 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 Higher Education’s Internet Outrage Machine

BY PETER SCHMIDT

KAREN KASMAUSKI FOR THE CHRONICLE The conservative online publication Campus Reform “specializes in a small genre of journalism, but it’s an exciting one to be in,” says the editor in chief, Sterling Beard (left, in front of its “wall of fame”).

ARLINGTON, VA. ampus Reform carefully tracks how well it creates head- aches in academe. On a dry-erase board in its offices here, the online publication tallies numbers related to its mission of exposing liberal “bias and abuse” at American colleges. In mid-Au- Cgust, the board showed that so far this year it had published more than 530 articles, seven of which had been featured by the Drudge Report, an online conservative news hub that drives big audiences. Its reporters had been interviewed 27 times on Fox News, 43 times elsewhere on television. Most important, in its view, it had scored 15 “victories” — a term it applies to any situation in which a college changes a policy, fires some-

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 15 one, or otherwise responds to concerns raised by really essential function,” says George Leef, direc- the reporting on its site. tor of research at the John William Pope Center for In recent years, Campus Reform and a simi- Higher Education Policy and a frequent contrib- lar publication, The College Fix, have emerged utor to the right-leaning National Review’s high- as major forces in academe’s ideological battles. er-education blog, Phi Beta Cons. “It is like having Each routinely puts college administrators and scouts out in the army so you can find out what is faculty members on the defensive with articles really going on in the field.” alleging liberal bias or indoctrination. Each has demonstrated a knack for generating outrage by SPINNING RIGHT producing stories that spread virally through social media. Conservative radio and cable-TV pro- Campus Reform and The College Fix make no grams and right-leaning websites amplify their effort to hide their ideological slant. That’s appar- reach by picking up their stories. Seeing them- ent in their use of headlines and photos that por- selves as friendly competitors devoted to the tray colleges as beset by leftist tyranny and liberal same cause, each of the two publications often excess. Recent headlines from Campus Reform cites the other’s work. include “Atheist organization goes after college Although many professors and college adminis- football chaplains” and “UCLA student: criticism trators dismiss Campus Reform and The College of my tampon column was sexist.” A recent Col- Fix as biased and sensationalistic, there’s no ques- lege Fix headline said, “UNC’s ‘Literature of 9/11’ tion that their ability course sympathiz- to reach wide audiences with terrorists, es can place colleges paints U.S. as impe- under intense public rialistic.” pressure. “All it takes these Morton C. Black- Late last month, for well, president of the example, Campus Re- days is one kid Leadership Institute, form thrust Washing- the conservative ad- ton State University vocacy group that into the middle of a with a smartphone operates Campus national controver- Reform, calls most sy by reporting that who turns on their of higher education some instructors there “a left-wing indoctri- had barred students nation center.” Jen- from using terms such recording app.” nifer Kabbany, editor as “illegal alien.” The of The College Fix, article was cited by holds a similarly dim conservative blogs view of academe: and shared on social media more than 30,000 “There are too many professors who openly and ve- times, according to a meter on Campus Reform’s hemently despise America.” website. (Campus Reform says it has more than While almost any journalistic publication fields 42,000 followers on Facebook and more than complaints from those it covers, some academics’ 55,000 on Twitter.) Washington State subsequent- objections to Campus Reform and College Fix sto- ly announced plans to ask faculty members to al- ries go well beyond allegations of minor factual inter their course policies to ensure students’ free- accuracies or biased wording, crossing into asser- speech rights. tions that the articles were completely off base. The College Fix sparks similar uproars, as was Michael Heaney, an assistant professor of orga- the case last spring when it reported that the Uni- nizational studies and political science at Mich- versity of Michigan at Ann Arbor had canceled a igan, last month denounced as “patently false” a scheduled showing of American Sniper in response College Fix article about one of his courses, un- to complaints that the movie perpetuated negative der the headline “‘Activism’ class at University stereotypes of Muslims. of Michigan teaches capitalism should be ‘over- Both organizations rely heavily on the reporting thrown.’” He said the site had based the accusation of college journalists, whom they pay about $50 not on anything he taught in class, but on a text- per story and offer training for news-media ca- book passage he had not assigned. reers. Their editorial models help them maintain Ms. Kabbany, the publication’s editor, said that large, low-cost labor pools — a useful adaptation Mr. Heaney had refused a reporter’s requests to to the reality that neither publication sells nearly discuss the class, and that the text in question enough online advertising to sustain itself. featured contributions from “a parade of leftist With their national networks of campus-based scholars.” correspondents, the two publications “perform a Both Ms. Kabbany and Sterling Beard, editor in

16 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 chief of Campus Reform, say they insist that their articles the site publishes. student reporters be fair and offer those they cov- Campus Reform also draws upon the Leader- er an opportunity to comment. Rather than at- ship Institute’s network of nearly 1,600 conserva- tack the veracity of reporting about themselves, tive groups on college campuses for news tips and many college instructors and administrators own potential material. To expose a faculty member up to errors in judgment, often leading to the in- attempting to engage in what the group believes is stitutional responses that Campus Reform tallies liberal indoctrination, Mr. Beard says, “all it takes as triumphs. these days is one kid with a smartphone who turns Campus Reform, which says it had 25 such cases on their recording app.” last year, refused to offer details on most of its re- Twice a year, Campus Reform brings 20 to 30 of cent successes, describing many colleges’ respons- its correspondents to town for journalistic train- es as having been made quietly. Among those Mr. ing, which includes coaching for television in the Beard would discuss: In July, after his publication Leadership Institute’s well-equipped studio. A reported on the existence of a “bias-free language “wall of fame” near its full-timers’ cubicles holds guide” on the University of New Hampshire’s web- framed shots of reporters and editors being inter- site, Mark W. Huddleston, the university’s presi- viewed on television. dent, disavowed the guide as unrepresentative of “The Leadership Institute and Campus Reform his institution’s commitment to free speech and have been able to take a lot of talent, groom it, and ordered it removed. put it out there,” says Mr. Beard, a 2012 graduate Henry F. (Hank) Reichman, chairman of the of Dartmouth College and alumnus of the conser- American Association of University Professors’ vative Dartmouth Review, who joined Campus Re- Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, form as news editor in 2013. The site specializes in says he regards Campus Reform and The College “a small genre of journalism, but it is a very excit- Fix as “totally within their rights to pursue what- ing one to be in,” he says. ever criticism they may have of higher education or The College Fix’s publisher, the Student Free even individual professors.” His chief concern, he Press Association, was established in 2010 to says, is whether colleges respond in a manner that groom young conservatives for careers in the news protects faculty members’ academic freedom and media by placing college students in internships due-process rights. with right-leaning publications. The association began publishing The College Fix the following BIG AMBITIONS year, at about the same time that Campus Reform became a news site. Mr. Blackwell, a longtime Republican activ- “We really are about getting students to get bit ist and a former executive director of the College by the journalism bug,” Ms. Kabbany says. Republican National Committee, established the With an annual budget that it reports at about Leadership Institute in 1979 to train young con- $400,000, the Student Free Press Association is a servatives for careers in politics, government, and much smaller operation than the Leadership Insti- the media. He set up Campus Reform as an online tute. The College Fix operates solely online, with- social network in 2009 and turned it into a news out a brick-and-mortar office. It has two full-time site in 2011, based on his belief that online pub- editors and one part-time editor who work with lishing could expand the reach of young conserva- roughly 50 correspondents on college campuses. tive writers whose work had been read mainly in John J. Miller, director of the journalism pro- campus-based newspapers and blogs. Campus Re- gram at Hillsdale College and president of the Stu- form says its online offerings attracted about 9.3 dent Free Press Association, says he established million page views last year. The College Fix partly as a means of working with The Leadership Institute, which reports hav- young journalists at the large proportion of col- ing annual revenue of nearly $15 million, produc- leges that lack conservative or libertarian alterna- es Campus Reform out of its headquarters here, tives to official student newspapers. where Mr. Beard and three other full-time em- “For a young writer, if you want to focus on po- ployees work with a revolving staff of about five litical correctness on campus, it is the gift that just interns. A network of about 50 correspondents, keeps on giving,” Mr. Miller says. “Every time the many of whom cover both their colleges and near- school year starts, I am anxious to get going with by campuses, accounts for about three-fifths of the great stories again.”

Originally published on September 8, 2015

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 17 Professors’ Growing Risk: Harassment for Things They Never Really Said

By PETER SCHMIDT

ollege faculty members can find it The nation’s college faculty members have long challenging enough to deal with the been coming under fire not for statements they backlash over a controversial remark. actually made, but for views ascribed to them by In recent months, however, several others, says Hans-Joerg Tiede, a senior program have ended up facing a barrage of ha- officer in the American Association of Universi- Crassment and death threats in response to state- ty Professors’ department of academic freedom, ments that they deny ever actually making. tenure, and governance. Back in the 1930s, for Johnny Eric Williams, an associate professor example, William Randolph Hearst’s newspa- of sociology at Trinity College, became an extreme per empire had reporters pose as students and example of the phenomenon this week. His em- accused many professors of “radical tendencies” ployer, a small private nonprofit institution in Con- based on remarks taken out of context. necticut, ended up closing the campus on Wednes- The emergence of the internet and social media day in response to threats apparently stemming made it easier to quickly spread word of such ac- from an article about him on Campus Reform, a cusations and orchestrate campaigns demanding conservative website that polices academe for per- that faculty members be disciplined. What’s new ceived liberal bias. Headlined “Prof calls whites about the latest controversies, Mr. Tiede says, ‘inhuman assholes,’ says ‘let them die,’” the article is the extent to which instructors and their em- said Mr. Williams “seemingly endorsed the idea” ployers are being deluged with threats of various that the black first responders to last week’s shoot- forms of violence, including sexual assault. ing at a Congressional baseball game should have The AAUP on Thursday issued a statement done nothing to save the white victims. condemning the practice, “becoming all too com- Mr. Williams had riffed on a separate, anony- mon, of bombarding faculty members and insti- mous author’s blog post that made such an argu- tutions of higher education with threats.” It said ment, but he had never explicitly expressed such “threatening messages are likely to stifle free ex- a view himself. His own comments on race and pression and cause faculty and others on campus law enforcement, he said, were in response to a to self-censor so as to avoid being subjected to police officer’s fatal shooting of a black woman in similar treatment.” Seattle. It was a distinction without a difference For his part, Sterling C. Beard, editor-in-chief to many who sent Trinity angry emails. of Campus Reform, said in a statement issued On Thursday, Mr. Williams issued a statement Thursday that his publication stands by its re- in which he said he had gone into hiding far from porting, does not call for the harassment of any the campus for his safety and apologized to Trin- of its story subjects, and views the threatening ity for the “fear and anxiety” the controversy over and harassing of people on college campuses as his remarks had brought it, the Hartford Cou- “never acceptable.” rant reported. “We are simply reporting on what these profes- Professors at several other institutions — in- sors publicly stated; that’s our job as a higher-ed- cluding Drexel University, Texas A&M Univer- ucation watchdog,” he said. sity, and the University of Iowa — have recently Among the colleges where faculty members found themselves besieged after others’ interpre- have faced an intense backlash for statements tations of their statements went viral. they deny ever making are:

18 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 UNIVERSITY OF IOWA almost have the fascists in on the run. Syracuse peo- Target: Sarah E. Bond, ass ple come down to the federal tant professor of classics. building to finish them off.” The original statement: In an essay published this The critics’ take: In an ar- month on Hyperallergic, ticle headlined “Professor an online forum focused on urges students to ‘finish off’ the arts, Ms. Bond said that anti-Sharia protesters,” Cam- many of the marble statues, pus Reform characterized the reliefs, and sarcophagi cre- tweet as “a veiled call for vio- ated in the ancient Western lence,” an interpretation that world originally had coats of Ms. Cloud rejects. Other con- colored paint that later came servative websites picked up off, and that the equation of the story, bringing a torrent white marble with beauty is of angry emails and threats. a dangerous construct that In defending Campus Re- continues to influence today’s form’s coverage, Mr. Beard white supremacists and hurt says Ms. Cloud was indeed minority members. “calling for violence, even if inadvertently.” The critics’ take: Campus Reform summarized Ms. COURTESY SARAH BOND The institution’s response: Bond’s argument in an arti- Sarah E. Bond, of the U. of Iowa, says Syracuse’s office of academ- cle titled “Prof: ‘White Mar- her university has been supportive after ic affairs issued a statement ble’ in Artwork Contributes she became a target of angry emails. condemning any threats to White Supremacy.” It against Ms. Cloud and say- defends the story as accu- ing she had “clarified that rate and straightforward. her remarks were not intended to invite or incite She argues that it “remixed” her thought to say violence.” More than 1,200 scholars and students white statues are racist in themselves. The story at Syracuse and elsewhere have signed an online spread to other conservative websites, and Ms. statement declaring support for her. Bond ended up being barraged with angry emails, In a separate statement issued by the univer- many calling for her dismissal. sity on Thursday, Chancellor Kent Syverud said Ms. Cloud’s statement “is susceptible to multi- The institution’s response: Ms. Bond told The ple interpretations,” but he rejected calls to de- Chronicle that her university has been supportive nounce, censor, or dismiss her. “Free speech of her. is and will remain one of our key values,” Mr. Syverud said. “Our faculty must be able to say SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY and write things — including things that provoke some or make others uncomfortable — up to the Target: Dana Cloud, professor of communication very limits of the law.” and rhetorical studies. Editor’s note: Other examples of misunderstandings The original statement: Ms. Cloud took part in a of professors’ speech can be found in the article on counterprotest in response to a June 10 “anti-Sha- Tommy Curry, of Texas A&M University, on Page 4, ria law” rally in downtown Syracuse, N.Y. When and the interview with George Ciccariello-Maher, of the other side began to disperse, she tweeted, “We Drexel University, on the following page.

Originally published on June 22, 2017

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 19 The Far Right’s ‘New Offensive Against Academia’

By GOLDIE BLUMENSTYK

eorge Ciccariello-M aher, an associate marks the end of the white race, you’re contributing professor of politics and global studies to the downfall of your people,” were hashtagged at Drexel University, says he was being “white genocide.” satirical when on December 24 he post- It’s an idea that circulates in far-right-wing racist ed on Twitter: “All I Want for Christ- circles. It was an attempt to mock this nonexistent Gmas is White Genocide.” thing, which for these right-wing sectors means mul- A scholar of revolutionary movements and a ticultural policies, it means intermarriage. There are, self-described social activist, Mr. Ciccariello-Ma- famously, the billboards that say, “Diversity is white her is no stranger to Twitter furors. But he says the genocide.” Any policy that is not rooted in affirmation internet maelstrom that quickly engulfed him, his of white superiority is understood to be a contribu- friends and family, and his university reflects “a tion to the downfall of the pure white race. new offensive against academia” by far-right and neo-Nazi groups. Q. What were the responses like? “White genocide” is a term invoked by hate A. The initial response was what I expected. It was groups and white supremacists against inter- an immediate backlash from people who knew racial marriage and racial-diversity efforts. Mr. perfectly well what I was talking about. In other Ciccariello-Maher says many of those who reported words, these right-wing sectors who, I could tell, I on his tweet either deliberately or out of ignorance had touched a nerve with. This is their code word failed to explain that, or to indicate that his tweet for everything that’s bad in the world, and so mak- was mocking the concept. ing a mockery of it led to that. Usually these sorts Drexel itself was among those that appeared to of backlashes are Twitter feuds, They don’t last very miss the context. In the first of two statements, the long. But by the next day, clearly, this had taken on university actually condemned the professor’s com- a life of its own, and we really need to think hard ment as “utterly reprehensible” and “deeply disturb- about why that was, what kind of machinery was ing.” A few days later the university acknowledged set into motion, what kind of sectors picked it up Mr. Ciccariello-Maher’s rights to free speech but and pushed it out and made it into the phenomenon reiterated that his tweets did not represent Drex- that it was. el’s values. Platforms like Twitter, the statement This began with organizations like Breitbart, said, are “limited in their ability to communicate websites like Infowars, these far-right white-su- satire, irony, and context, especially when referenc- premacist news outlets, but also discussion groups ing a horror like genocide.” Drexel’s response, the like Reddit, where I found pages and pages of peo- professor counters, “put wind in the sails of fascist ple not only complaining about my tweet but also groups.” organizing what became a campaign of harass- Mr. Ciccariello-Maher spoke with The Chronicle ment against me and my employer, and my family about what had prompted his tweet and how aca- — posting addresses, posting email addresses, and deme must brace itself for the fight of its life. encouraging people to see what they could do to get Q. So, it’s Christmas Eve, you’re sitting with me fired. your family, getting ready for the holiday. What Q. How personal did it get to you and your fam- set you off? ily? A. My tweet was a response to the virulent, rac- A. It was almost entirely personal. This is part of ist backlash against a tweet from State Farm In- what’s very revealing. Some people who have spent surance that showed a black man proposing to a time online, for example, know there’s a word, white woman. I study these things, it shouldn’t be called “cuck,” which has become a catchall insult of a surprise to me, and yet I was taken aback by the the right, for what’s perceived to be the soft men of incredible racist content in reaction to this image. the left. Without going into it, in its explicitness, it Many of these responses, which were saying, “This reveals a very deep sexual and racial anxiety among

20 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017 “What’s really, really terrifying is that organized white-supremacist groups organized a campaign, and that campaign pressured the university into acting.”

these groups. I was called cuck. I was called “low testosterone.” They speculated that I’m Jewish, that I looked and act like a Jew. Of course, these things begin from the personal because they’re rooted in a certain idea of what it means to be white. Q. They didn’t come just at you, right? A. A number of pictures were taken off family members’ public profile pictures on Facebook and put on these right-wing websites. Many family members were contacted via Facebook message with many threatening messages, through Twitter. Anyone who retweeted me or tweeted any kind of support was then subject to a barrage. Q. Did you feel that your family was actually in danger? A. Yes. But when you’re getting more than a hun- dred death threats, it’s difficult to know which, if any, of those are serious. Q. Did you expect this magnitude of reaction? A. Absolutely not. Any of my past tweets could have been picked up in the same way, but this was the one that was. It was fed into a machine, and that machine put it in there, pressed it into the mainstream, and made it a national story. But it doesn’t become a national story without that machinery. This became important to certain sectors — so important that they were going to make a stand over it. It has to do with the moment, a moment in which the far right would feel empowered — and they stated this — in which they feel encouraged by Trump’s election and they’ve said that this is their time to shine. This is them acting on that. The anti-Semitic website the Daily Stormer celebrated Drexel’s condemnation of me as a victo- ry. It said, “This is what winning looks like.” They

MARK MAKELA FOR clearly understand that this is the time to begin to THE CHRONICLE push, to begin a new offensive against academia, and to really try to expand their influence by both attacking lefty profs on the one hand, and then pushing these campus tours by Richard Spencer,

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 21 and Milo [Yiannopoulos], and others in an at- tweet in a certain way. Why? Because, when some- tempt to provoke conflict over questions of free- one tweets something very inflammatory — “Kill dom of expression. all white people,” for example — my first reaction is not to be angry because, first of all, it’s prepos- Q. When do you think this moment began? terous. It’s clearly not serious. But second of all, be- A. The moment has been running throughout the cause I don’t, in any way, feel victimized by society. electoral season because it’s not just Trump as an And yet part of what the dramatic shift in the nar- individual. It’s about what Trumpism, as a certain rative of the past few decades — very deftly chart- form of nativism, has provoked and unleashed and ed by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s recent book, encouraged. Debates about whether Trump him- From Black Lives Matter to Black Liberation, for self is fascistic or not are important. But the big- example — is the sense of white victimization as ger question is what he’s unleashing and what he’s we shift toward the so-called colorblind society. letting out of Pandora’s box without being able to This “white victim” narrative has been very ef- close it, even if he wanted to. fectively deployed, and so to interpret my tweet in that way is in some ways to buy into the idea Q. The official university response, particularly that white people have ever been historical vic- the first one, has been much debated. Had you tims in this country, which is not the case, which is communicated with administrators offline be- preposterous, and which of course sets that apart fore that came out? from the other phenomena — for example, black A. I’d spoken with representatives of the university genocide, indigenous genocide, ongoing histori- prior to that, but none of those conversations made cal realities that no one really wants to be talking it sound as though that’s the kind of statement I about or be outraged about. And yet these are real was going to see. things in the world that we live in as opposed to I want to draw attention to the material impact this mythical idea of white genocide. of that statement, which made no attempt to un- Q. If you had it to do again, would you have derstand my tweet. But to come out and denounce tweeted differently? it put wind into the sails of fascist groups. Because if my own institution is saying it’s “reprehensible,” A. I don’t think we can avoid the fights that are com- then it must be reprehensible. ing. The idea that we should be trying to avoid these This gets to the bigger question of what really debates and discussions and conflicts is not one is going on in the world that the university cannot that’s going to be very sustainable for universities. divorce itself from — the rise of these right-wing Q. You’re not likely to be the last professor at- sectors that are pushing on faculty and on univer- tacked by the so-called alt-right. What would sities. What’s really, really terrifying is that orga- you want others to know and do if this hap- nized white-supremacist groups organized a cam- pens to them? paign, and that campaign pressured the university into acting. I think a lot of people got hustled. A. The most important thing is to realize that this is a legitimate fight, to realize that the temptation Q. You did get strong support from faculty at to retreat is a very strong temptation, especially your university and elsewhere, right? when your life is threatened, but these fights are A. Yeah. What’s good is the pushback that occurred in inevitable and the alt-right is not going anywhere. this case, hopefully, will be a lesson to many universi- So on the one hand, we need to shut down these ties that we’re organized, that we’re capable, that even ideas, push back on them, but we also need to be if an organized campaign comes against one of us, we’ll more than academic in the sense that we need to be able to and we will counter-organize resistance to it be building movements that are going to be capa- and push back. ble of weathering this storm, that are going to be using intellectual space to make these arguments, Q. At the same time, you’re certainly aware of but also organizing in the streets. the gulf of understanding between people in academe and typical Americans who don’t belong This interview has been edited for length and clar- to a hate group but still might not realize that ity. “white genocide” is code for something else. Were you concerned that you might just be feed- Update: In October, Drexel put Mr. Ciccariel- ing into the narrative of the smug professor? lo-Maher on administrative leave after he raised A. It’s possible for any tweet to be misunderstood. more ire with a remark on Twitter that linked the But equally important is this question of the vol- mass shootings in Las Vegas to the “white suprem- untary misunderstanding. Many people, white acist patriarchy.” The university cited safety con- people in particular, are primed to interpret that cerns because of threats he received. Originally published on August 30, 2017

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Accused by students of being a bigot and deserving of suspension, Carol Swain announced this year that she would retire from Vanderbilt. “I will miss the students and the rhythm of campus,” she wrote, “but I will not miss what American universities have allowed themselves to become.”

A Christian Conservative Professor Accuses Colleges of Indoctrinating Students

By MARC PARRY

JOE BUGLEWICZ FOR THE CHRONICLE arol M. Swain, a political scientist at have their ears perked, to make sure someone is Vanderbilt University, considers Islam a not slighting them. It doesn’t prepare the students dangerous religion that is incompatible for life outside of the university. with Western notions of freedom. She Q. You were an odd fit at Vanderbilt. You’re calls the Black Lives Matter movement one of what I assume are very few conservative Ca “very destructive force.” She has suggested that black female professors. You were also target- the women who marched on Washington were ed by a student petition campaign that called “fighting for the selfish right to kill their unborn you “synonymous with bigotry, intolerance, babies.” and unprofessionalism.” What did it feel like Such views have made the Christian conserva- being someone of your background and beliefs tive Republican an outlier in the upper precincts on campus? of academe. At Vanderbilt, where she has been a professor of political science and law since 1999, A. My life as a faculty member changed when I students called her a bigot and petitioned for her became a public Christian. When you think about suspension. campus environments, being a person of faith is Now she’s had enough. Ms. Swain, 63, an- a lot harder than the race aspect of it. It’s not just nounced in January that she would take an ear- Vanderbilt. Christians are marginalized in aca- ly retirement. “I will miss the students and the demia if they are conservatives — if they are Bi- rhythm of campus,” she wrote, “but I will not ble-believing Christians. You’re not treated as if miss what American universities have allowed you’re very smart. It doesn’t matter your creden- themselves to become.” tials. If you look at my credentials, I’ve won the Her exit comes at a moment when the rise of Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award, the highest Donald J. Trump has brought fresh relevance to prize a political scientist can win. It’s the closest her research. In a widely read New York Times a political scientist will get to a Nobel Prize. opinion piece, published in December, Christo- After my opinion piece in The Tennessean [cr it- pher Caldwell pointed to Ms. Swain’s 2002 book, icizing Islam], which led to the attacks and the The New White Nationalism in America: Its student protest, of course I was deeply hurt. Part Challenge to Integration (Cambridge University of my identity has been caught up in the students. Press), as a prescient analysis of the worldview It was a massive rejection, even though it was a now known as “alt-right.” minority of students, and none that had been in In a conversation with The Chronicle, Ms. my classes. Swain looked back at her travails in academe and Q. Help me understand your politics. You are forward to the positive changes she expects for credited as one of the first to grasp the signif- the country under President Trump. icance of the new white nationalism, which Q. What precipitated your retirement? you called an underappreciated danger to civil rights and racial integration. But now you en- A. I look at life as a journey, with different sea- thusiastically support Trump, whose election sons. I felt that that season of my life had come to and appointments electrified white national- an end — and that I could have more impact if I ists. That seems like a contradiction. had flexibility with my time. I could be more productive, even critiquing the university, from the A. I’m not sure what you just said is true. And outside. I’ve watched higher education change it’s not a contradiction. My work has always been dramatically over the last 10 years, in a way that I ahead of its time. would consider negative. With The New White Nationalism in America, I was initially writing a book about affirmative Q. Can you elaborate? action when some high-profile incidents of inter- A. Universities are no longer marketplaces of racial violence occurred. That caused me to won- ideas. They’re more about indoctrination, rather der about how people come to the point that they than teaching students how to think and how to hate others — to the point that they’d want to kill be productive human beings. them. I was at Princeton at the time. I commis- It’s driven by administrators, who are catering sioned interviews, using a white interviewer, of to students. What bothers me is that the students, 10 white-nationalist leaders. The questions were in many ways, they’re children. They don’t know designed to find out about their childhood, what everything. They’re there to learn. They should they thought was important. We were trying to not be setting the rules for the institutions. I don’t figure out how they became who they were. And want to single out Vanderbilt. I see it happening among that group were two Jewish people with across the universities. This whole demand for Ph.D.s, and then there was Jared Taylor, who is safe spaces, the expectation that professors will considered one of the leaders of the alt-right. give trigger warnings, the search for microaggres- I consider alt-right a rebranding of what I sions: I believe it encourages students to always called the new white nationalism. What I had in

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my group were some highly educated people that not sure that I would have tried. I still might be were using social-science data, FBI statistics, and in Bedford, Va., in poverty. So I see his election census data to make a case. They could be very as a great opportunity to change the messages we persuasive, and they were addressing concerns send to young people. and grievances that a lot of people had, whites Q. What wrong messages are you referring to? and blacks — about immigration and affirmative action and stuff like that — that were not being A. The message that if you’re black, or a minority, addressed by mainstream politicians. With that that the world is stacked against you. You can’t book, I had policy recommendations, and I is- do this, you can’t do that. I always believed in the sued a warning, because I felt like we needed to American dream: that if I worked hard, I could hear what they were saying, to be able to address be successful. the concerns that were legitimate. Q. In media conversation about the alt-right, At the time it was relevant because everyone is there anything people are overlooking? was looking in the wrong place. They were laugh- ing at the Klansmen on television with the beer A. One of the points I make in the book is that gut, the missing teeth. The real threat were the racial interest-group politics — that’s problemat- people that were more intellectual, that could ic. As Americans, we need to identify as Ameri- put forth a persuasive case using the language of cans. If you’re going to have black identity, brown multiculturalism and civil rights. Part of the ar- identity, Asian identity, then you’re gonna also gument that they were using was that it’s wrong have white identity. You are finding white people to discriminate against anyone. White people are more self-consciously than ever before thinking being discriminated against, and no one is stand- of themselves as white people and thinking of ing up for them. Then they would argue that ev- themselves as being marginalized. ery group should be able to celebrate their unique There’s a book by a guy named J.D. Vance heritage: White people can’t celebrate who they called Hillbilly Elegy. He’s a guy that started off are, and that’s wrong. Just basically taking that from poor white trash. It’s almost like below the language we hear on college campuses and point- underclass, his family. And he was able to go into ing out that there was a double standard. That, I the military and graduate from Yale Law School. felt, would be persuasive to young people, and I And so he’s written about his family and the kind thought it was very dangerous. of poverty that those whites in Appalachia live in. That’s part of our reality, too. Q. The support for Trump — that’s what We need to have a different conversation in seemed like a contradiction. That you were America when it comes to race. A lot of things warning about white nationalism, yet now you that seem to be about race are really about so- support Trump. cial class. If we really wanted to improve Ameri- A. I don’t see Trump as a white nationalist. I see ca and race relations, we would move away from him as someone that has his pulse on the con- racial-identity politics and move more to focus cerns of all Americans. I don’t think his support- on social class and the things that people have in ers are racists. People that may be supporting common. We need to create opportunities where him that are more extreme — did you really think people, regardless of their race, can overcome the they were going to support Hillary? circumstances of their birth. You might think about the universities. My ex- Q. You attended the inauguration, your first. perience is that there were almost no people like How was it? me, from the kind of poverty that I came from. A. I was very excited. I have hope for America. I The blacks that I encountered were very afflu- have hope for the future of African-Americans. ent, very elite. They had gone to the best schools. A lot of the lawlessness — the carnage in places They did not do as well as I did. There was a like Chicago and in some of the urban areas — strong sense of entitlement. And usually they’re something we’re doing is not working. All of that the ones leading the marches. They’re speaking needs to be rethought. And when I think about for the underclass. They don’t have a clue, for the my own rise from poverty, and the mind-set, the most part, about the real conditions or what the resources, that helped me to overcome my cir- people need. cumstances, I really feel like the messages that we send our young people are totally wrong. If I This interview has been edited for length and had heard those messages when I was young, I’m clarity.

Originally published on March 19, 2017

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 25 What to Do When the Outrage Is Aimed at Your Campus

By BETH MCMURTRIE

he email arrived two days after a gun- creasingly inevitable, that they are on the front lines man killed a dozen people at the Wash- of one of those controversies? ington Navy Yard. A reporter at Campus Reform, a con- IGNORE AT YOUR PERIL servative website, was asking the Univer- Tsity of Kansas for reaction to a tweet by one of its How deftly colleges respond can have a ma- professors. “The blood is on the hands of the #NRA. jor effect on how quickly storms dissipate. Crisis- Next time let it be YOUR sons and daughters,” the management consultants say there often remains a tweet had said. gulf between the way top administrators think and The university issued a statement, and the story react and the way their social-media staff does, with was posted the next day. “Journalism professor says the first group being more likely to want to hunker he hopes for murder of NRA members’ children,” down. the headline read. Once the National Rifle Associa- “Oftentimes among presidents their first attitude tion picked up the story, everything else at the uni- is, let’s just ignore this, maybe it’ll go away,” says versity seemed to stop. Mark R. Weaver, head of Communications Counsel, The telephones in public affairs rang off the hook. a consulting firm. But it may not, at least not with- So did those in the chancellor’s office. Tweet after out inflicting some reputational damage. tweet slammed the professor, with many calling At Kansas, communications officials engaged as for him to be fired. The university’s Facebook page soon as the story about the tweet, which was com- filled with angry comments. Emails poured in. posed by David W. Guth, an associate professor of “We had talking points,” recalls Timothy C. Ca- journalism, gained traction. They answered every boni, vice chancellor for public affairs. “But the ma- phone call. They let people yell. They asked other de- jority of callers were so irate there wasn’t an oppor- partments on the campus to forward emails, with the tunity to give a response.” idea that the communications staff would respond to That September, two years ago, the University of those messages, too, although maybe not on the same Kansas experienced just how quickly a single tweet day. They tweeted out a follow-up statement. could consume an institution and push it into the Equally important, says Mr. Caboni, they didn’t try center of a social-media firestorm. Within about 24 to clean up comments on the university’s Facebook hours, Mr. Caboni estimates, the university received page. “The last thing we needed was a second crisis by more than 1,000 messages through calls, emails, scrubbing our social-media accounts,” he says. and other communication. The university also had two teams working. One How should or shouldn’t a college respond? How was made of communications experts, who hashed can an institution best monitor the extemporane- out a variety of possible responses. The other, a ous speech and potentially incriminating videos group of senior administrators — including the its professors and students are posting on Twitter, chancellor, the provost, the journalism-school dean, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Yik Yak, and other and Mr. Caboni — discussed the options presented platforms? by the communications experts. And how might administrators and communica- The day after the Campus Reform article came tions officers prepare for the day, which seems in- out, things had gotten so out of hand (the professor

26 p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion / o c t ob e r 2017

and others had received threats) that the university times of crisis aren’t delayed by “layers of hierarchy.” decided it had to make an immediate decision about Even the best-thought-out plan won’t be able to Mr. Guth. They put the professor on temporary change the conversation effectively if it comes too leave with pay. late, she says. While university officials still had an enormous Third, the experts urge, enlist allies. Social me- amount of work to do, including engaging in deep- dia can magnify criticism through retweets and re- er conversations with the faculty, trustees, alumni, posts. Trustees, alumni, professors, and students and legislators, making a fast decision about Mr. can help provide balance by offering support and Guth “gave us an opportunity to regain control over countering rumors, provided the college gives them timing,” says Mr. Caboni. information to work with. Colleges should reach out By that night, hours after they had put the pro- directly to their allies in the midst of a crisis, say fessor on leave, the worst of the social-media storm communications experts. was over. Temple University took that approach last sum- mer after a Jewish student was hit by another stu- BE PREPARED dent during an argument over Israeli-Palestinian issues at Temple Fest, an annual welcome-to-cam- Kansas’ experience was unusual in its intensity, pus event. but it illustrates the importance of being prepared, Within hours the incident was reported on by say crisis experts. While colleges shouldn’t respond TruthRevolt, a conservative website. Soon, rumors to every angry tweet or Facebook post, they should and allegations began to fly, suggesting that Tem- be able to quickly react when a problem escalates. ple was an anti-Semitic campus; that the student To do so, college officials must first monitor what union, which displays flags from other countries, people normally talk had refused to show the about, says Nick Alexo- Israeli flag (it hadn’t); that pulos, associate director the president had deliber- of media relations and “The last thing ately scheduled a meeting social media at Loyola with concerned Jewish University Maryland. we needed was a students to conflict with a He uses social-media planned rally (he hadn’t). monitoring software Local reporters began that tracks relevant key second crisis by calling, wanting to come for words like the univer- the second day of Temple sity’s name as well as scrubbing our Fest. The campus received hashtags, geotags, and dozens of phone calls and university-related so- tweets from concerned cial-media accounts on social-media community members, par- Twitter, Facebook, Ins- ents, alumni and others, tagram, and other plat- accounts.” says Ray Betzner, associate forms. That helps him vice president for executive respond to complaints communications. His office directly when he sees even heard from news out- them, and quickly spot the point at which small lets in Israel. problems become big ones. In response, Temple invited the local press for the Two years ago, his office noticed that several stu- second day of Temple Fest, and officials at the uni- dents were announcing on social media that the versity’s news center put together a Q&A web page, campus was going to close because of a handful of which they updated regularly when they got new reported mumps cases. The university quickly got information or needed to answer a new rumor. Mr. the rumor under control by preparing a statement Betzner says it was important to release informa- that explained what was going on and clarified that tion quickly, even if it was just to say that the uni- the campus would remain open, and by releasing it versity was looking into the incident. “We tried to be on social media. as transparent as we could,” he says. Second, crisis experts say, colleges should have The university was able to move strategically, a triage plan. Communications-staff members and enlist supporters, and help shut down rumors, Mr. senior administrators should work out in advance Betzner says, because administrators had worked who does what when something flares on social me- through various options in advance. “When the dia. Teresa Valerio Parrot, head of TVP Commu- bad stuff starts,” he says, “is not when you can be- nications, tells presidents they should get to know gin thinking about your social-media presence and their social-media staff now, so that responses in your action in those channels.”

Originally published on September 8, 2015

o c t ob e r 2017 / t he chron icl e of highe r e duc at ion p r of e s s or s a nd f r e e s p e e c h 27 THE CHRONICLE of Higher Education®

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