BY HANK REICHMAN
George Ciccariello-Maher
“All I want for Christmas is white genocide.” That was the content of a tweet posted Christmas eve by George Ciccariello-Maher, associate professor of politics and global studies at Drexel University. Ciccariello-Maher was trying to make an ironic political point and was not in fact calling for mass killing, but that didn’t stop the tweet from going viral as conservative websites and individuals condemned it, with Cicciariello-Maher receiving death threats.
On Christmas day Drexel issued a statement disavowing the tweet, which it called “utterly reprehensible.” “Drexel became aware today of Associate Professor George Ciccariello-Maher’s inflammatory tweet, which was posted on his personal Twitter account on Dec. 24, 2016,” the statement said. “While the university recognizes the right of its faculty to freely express their thoughts and opinions in public debate, Professor Ciccariello-Maher’s comments are utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing, and do not in any way reflect the values of the university. The university is taking this situation very seriously. We contacted Ciccariello-Maher today to arrange a meeting to discuss this matter in detail.”
Ciccariello-Maher has removed the tweet and made his feed private, but he responded to the university’s statement in emails to Inside Higher Ed:
On Christmas Eve, I sent a satirical tweet about an imaginary concept, ‘white genocide.’ For those who haven’t bothered to do their research, ‘white genocide’ is an idea invented by white supremacists and used to denounce everything from interracial relationships to multicultural policies (and most recently, against a tweet by State Farm Insurance). It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I’m glad to have mocked it. What I am not glad about is that this satirical tweet became fodder for online white supremacists to systematically harass me and my employer, Drexel University. Beginning with Breitbart.com … and running through the depths of Reddit discussion boards, a coordinated smear campaign was orchestrated to send mass tweets and emails to myself, my employer, and my colleagues. I have received hundreds of death threats.
While Drexel has been nothing but supportive in the past, this statement is worrying. While upholding my right to free expression, the statement refers to my (satirical) tweets as ‘utterly reprehensible.’ What is most unfortunate is that this statement amounts to caving to the truly reprehensible movements and organizations that I was critiquing. On the university level, moreover, this statement — despite a tepid defense of free speech — sends a chilling message and sets a frightening precedent. It exposes untenured and temporary faculty not only to internal disciplinary scrutiny, but equally importantly, it encourages harassment as an effective means to impact university policies.
Drexel’s response is indeed more than “worrying.” It is simply wrong. To be sure, the university has every right to disassociate itself from extramural comments made by members of its faculty. But, unless a duly constituted faculty hearing committee determines those comments to be evidence of genuine professional irresponsibility, the university must not pass judgment on the content of such expression. To label these comments as “reprehensible” or even just “disturbing” is both to take sides in an essentially political dispute and to pass judgment on the private views of its instructors. If the university publicly labels one faculty member’s tweet “reprehensible,” is it not obliged now to comment on other tweets by faculty members? Who will judge where the boundaries between reprehension, neutrality, and approval lie? If, for example, another faculty member tweets that he wishes harm to Cicciariello-Maher, will that person also be called out? Or what will happen to a faculty member who chooses to simply tweet “I agree with George Ciccariello-Maher?” In such cases a simple reaffirmation that the personal political opinions of faculty members do not necessarily reflect the views of the institution or of other faculty members should be entirely sufficient.
Even more troubling is the university’s announcement that it takes such comments “very seriously” and will meet with Profesor Cicciariello-Maher “to discuss this matter in detail.” What is to be discussed? The obvious implication is further disciplinary action. If so, that will amount to an extremely serious violation of academic freedom. Indeed, the only discussion that should take place would be to assure the professor and the entire faculty that no matter how virulent and truly reprehensible attacks on their views and threats to their livelihoods and lives may become — from whatever outside source — the university will resist calls for discipline and defend their right to free expression, even when their views are controversial or unpopular with some group. And, in this case, Drexel should apologize to Professor Cicciariello-Maher for its cowardly and, yes, “utterly reprehensible” initial response to the attacks made against him.
I don’t think you get it. Communists like Cicciariello-Maher mass murdered about 100 million people on behalf of their utopian dreams. People like him are dangerous and need to be removed from teaching positions where they can be allowed to persuade others that white genocide is a joke or – more significantly – that it is okay to defend white genocide. Think of all his white students. He can’t teach white students after wishing for their genocide.
So sad you believe “white” students to be so fragile that they’re endangered by a professor’s single tweet. Somehow I doubt the professor’s own students, of whatever color, will share your paranoia.
My Armenian relatives were murdered in a genocide. As a political scientist, I would be happy to explain to Cicciariello’s students exactly why we have good reason to have zero tolerance for this sort of dangerous nonsense. Cicciariello tweeted that he is a Communist too. I take him at this word. It is not worth the risk to have people like this on a university campus…not at a time when BLM folks are encouraging the followers to murder cops.
“For those who haven’t bothered to do their research, ‘white genocide’ is an idea invented by white supremacists and used to denounce everything from interracial relationships to multicultural policies (and most recently, against a tweet by State Farm Insurance). It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I’m glad to have mocked it.” — George Cicciariello-Maher . . . .
If we listen to the context and explanation of the tweet — and we try to understand it honestly — it becomes very clear that it is not the scandal that scandalous people are making it out to be.
Really? LOL. I think we all know what is meant by the words “white genocide.” Cicciariello is simply trying to normalize feelings of violent rage against whites. He believes such feelings are justified by his ideology. Given the left’s history, I think we have good reason to be frightened of people like this, people who have shown themselves to be so easily persuaded to do the unthinkable simply because it’s all for what they see as the long-term best interests of all.
Communists? When you throw in something like that, John Drew, you throw out any possibility of being taken seriously.
And he was not wishing for group’s genocide.
I don’t know about that. Cicciariello has self-identified as a communist. Communist ideology facilitates mass murder because of its secularism, utopianism and low moral restraints. I’m a former Williams College professor, a publish author and a successful businessman. I didn’t achieve any of these things by being naive about dangerous people. Besides, his subsequent comments made his earlier “joke” even worse. Even his response to Drexel shows that he doesn’t get it.
Cicciariello-Maher has self identified as a Communist.
See, http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/12/professor_tweets_all_i_want_for_christmas_is_white_genocide.html
I’m an award-winning political scientist. I think I’m pretty good at figuring out who is a potential threat to humanity.
When you drag in something like “communist,” you turn the discussion in a useless direction. It does not matter whether or not he is a communist. It would be the same if you had called him a “liberal,” “conservative” or “libertarian.” None of these labels has anything to do with the question at hand. Your insertion of “communist” is a red herring.
Although I see no basis for characterizing Cicclariello-Maher as a “Communist,” I agree with John Drew that those who make satirical remarks about genocide, whether white, black, or otherwise, should not be teaching in a major University. For all I know of Cicclariello-Maher, he may be a “White Supremacist,” a member of the Ku Klux Klan, a Neo-Nazi follower of David Duke, or some other form of degenerate “Hate Monger.”
I see several references to Steven Salaita, who has called for genocide of Jews and eradication of Israel, and the response of the University of Illinois to dismiss him for his anti-Semitic tweets. Genocide is a serious issue, irrespective of whether it is recent as in South Sudan, more distant, as in Rwanda, or historic, such as the Nazi Holocaust. No responsible University administration would want to be associated with perceived advocates of genocide, which I presume includes the administration of Drexel University.
The calling of the modern University is to teach critical thinking and enlighten students in understanding and tolerance of others; it is not to propagate hate and intolerance, which no credible University has done since the “Third Reich.” If Drexel University chooses to terminate its relationship with Ciccliarello-Maher, it would be an understandable move to disassociate itself from someone perceived, whether accurately or not, as a bigot. Just as the University of Illinois chose to disassociate itself from Steven Salaita, established as an anti-Semitic bigot by his own tweets, Drexel University must carefully examine the facts and carefully make the decision whether to retain Cicclariello-Maher’s services.
Thanks. That makes a lot of sense. I hope Drexel fires him. Too often it seems to me that white kids on college and university campuses are the objects of a dizzying level of hate speech. Given the results of the last electon, we should remember that it looks like Democrats hate white people only because of all the times that Democrats say they hate white people.
I think Drexel should fire him and then, for good measure, they should fire everyone who didn’t go out of their way to condemn him too. We can’t be in a situation where we normalize white genocide as something that is OK to promote or joke about.
Mike’s “response” to the attacks on Prof. Cicciarella-Maher ends up smearing another professor. Since when did Steven Salaita call for the genocide of Jews and eradication of Israel? Do you even have a clue what he said? OK, I know it’s pretty hopeless to expect most people to go to the source and find out what someone actually said and in what context. However, in this case we’re on an AAUP blog and it might be wise, before sounding off, to check whether Salaita won his lawsuit (yes, he did, for $875,000).
We as people with a lot more education than average have to remember that a lot of people don’t get our jokes and don’t know enough to comprehend our satire. Maybe Cicciarella-Maher and Salaita weren’t sufficiently aware of the vastness and diversity of the online world. It’s not a classroom. When students in our classrooms don’t get the joke, we usually see their confused looks (or blank stares), so we can explain and bring them up to speed. But in the new context where someone receives hundreds of death threats for a little post, I’m beginning to feel very shy indeed about cracking jokes or using satire online . . . and maybe even in the classroom. Nevertheless, we need to insist that our university and our country defend our freedom of speech.
Good satire includes hints that mark it as such. This guy may have intended his tweet as satire, but it included nothing that would give a clever reader a reason to think he was joking, let alone an average reader. It was foolish and inflammatory, and he should have known what would happen, or at least guessed. I support the right to academic freedom, but his employer is right to question his judgment and to condemn a statement that readers were very likely to interpret unironically.
Mr. Reichman – do you also believe that the University of Oregon acted inappropriately last week when it suspended a professor for wearing blackface at an off-campus costume party?
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/11/04/u-oregon-suspends-professor-who-wore-blackface-party
I personally find much that is patently offensive about the actions of the respective faculty members at both Oregon and Drexel and believe that both should be roundly condemned and criticized for what they did. At the same time though, academic freedom includes the freedom to hold distasteful beliefs. I’m just curious whether you and the AAUP adhere to a similar standard in other cases that involve something other than a far left Hugo Chavez activist.
The two examples are quite different. Drexel responded to the personal tweet of a faculty member by joining his white supremacist critics rather than simply reminding people that faculty members who engage in what AAUP calls extramural expression do so as individuals and do not represent the institution. On AAUP’s position see http://www.aaup.org/report/committee-statement-extramural-utterances (membership required to access).
In the Oregon case, which I learned of only today, the faculty member’s behavior involved direct contact with students and the charge was harassment, which legally must involve persistent conduct. Conservative First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh has discussed the case quite thoroughly on his blog (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/12/26/at-the-university-of-oregon-no-more-free-speech-for-professors-on-subjects-such-as-race-religion-sexual-orientation). Although I will wait to learn more specifics and hear other viewpoints on what appears to be a more complicated matter, I found Volokh’s take compelling. Indeed, there are other concerning aspects of the story, including the lack of faculty participation in the investigation. l might add parenthetically that the Oregon case involves the law school, whose faculty opted out of joining the rest of the university’s faculty in being represented by a union affiliated with the AAUP. Had they been included in the bargaining unit, this faculty member would have had the protections offered by a union contract and a formal grievance procedure.
Interesting. There certainly seems to be a pronounced eagerness by the AAUP to jump to the Drexel prof’s defense. I’d simply note the lack of a parallel enthusiasm for the Oregon prof, with deference instead to a need to hear “more specifics” and “other viewpoints” before passing judgment. Of course “more specifics” and a level-headed review of procedure as it pertains to what actually happened is always warranted in complicated cases such as these. I do find it odd though that you are pleading caution with one yet, arguably, jumping the gun to mount a vigorous defense of the other.
To clarify, as the blog notes, I and others who post here do so only as individuals. I do not speak for the AAUP as an organization unless so indicated. Nevertheless, Drexel’s response to the tweet so clearly violates the spirit of AAUP policy that it’s an easy call, no matter how foolish many people may think the tweet in question to have been. The Oregon issues are more complex, but as I said, still cause for concern. And precisely because I am aware that the AAUP may be asked to get involved more directly there, I am reluctant to prejudice such potential involvement by prematurely expressing even my personal views of the case at this time.
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I doubt that conservatives would be so bothered by this tweet if universities had taken the same tolerant attitude toward speech by conservative academics. Just look at the University of Northern Colorado professor who tried to play devil’s advocate with his students in a classroom discussion on “The Coddling of the American Mind.” That’s basic pedagogy, and the administrator pretty much told him you’ll keep getting called in for these meetings if students keep complaining that you are playing devil’s advocate. As you know, this adjunct did not get rehired.
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