BY HANK REICHMAN
Historian Lora Burnett has been completing a book on the culture wars and the conflict over “western civilization.” She never thought she would have to add a chapter to her book about her own experiences as a professor. Until yesterday.
Burnett, who goes by L.D. Burnett on Twitter where she has over 16,500 followers (I’m so jealous; I only have 739!), teaches at Collin College, northeast of Dallas. During the vice-presidential debate, to which Vice President Pence arrived with an obvious case of pink eye, or conjunctivis, Burnett tweeted:
Shortly after she added this:
On Friday morning Burnett’s tweets made it into an article on Campus Reform, the right-wing website that specializes in fomenting the harassment of liberal and left-leaning faculty members of whom it disapproves. The story was picked up by Fox News later that afternoon. Sadly, what happened next is hardly surprising, given what we know about the targeted harassment of faculty members. Burnett began to receive an avalanche of hate mail via tweet, Facebook, and her college email account. Many of these were also sent to her college administration. Here’s a small sample:
Many of the harassing tweets came from accounts with few or no followers; perhaps they are bots. But her college administration took note and, alas, their response was not in the least admirable.
Yesterday, an email went out to all members of the Collin College faculty over the signature of the college president, Neil Matkin. It read:
Recently, one of our faculty members chose to post some political and other statements on her social media accounts. One of the posts referencing Vice President Pence was picked up by national media and has been in broad circulation among some of our college constituents. Emails, complaints to the Board, calls and contacts from legislators, and voicemails poured in over the weekend. Most of the emails are asking us to terminate the faculty member although a handful are encouraging us to uphold “academic freedom” and “free speech” or are writing to tell me that the faculty member in question is an amazing scholar.
We are not aware of an issue with academic freedom nor is the scholarship of the faculty member in question. The college’s execution of its personnel policies will not be played out in a public manner; however, we will address what has become an intense public issue by posting the following statement on our website. As always, regardless of our political or social viewpoints, my encouragement is to act with civility, patience, and forbearance. The statement follows:
“Collin College is aware of the hateful, vile and ill-considered Twitter posts by one of its faculty members. As a community, we cannot and will not ignore them. We deeply apologize for the offense her comments have created. The faculty member’s expressed views are not consistent with the values of Collin College, particularly our Core Values of dignity and respect. Further, the views were not conveyed in any manner we wish members of our faculty and staff to express themselves.
“Free expression is a cherished right guaranteed by our Constitution, but that does not lessen our individual responsibility to protect such rights through our own care and consideration. At the very least, in our free exercise of expression, professionalism should dictate decorum rather than resorting to profanity.
“While this instance of unfortunate speech may be protected, incendiary comments such as these do not best serve our community, nor do they advance any positive solution. Hate and profanity are never welcome, especially during this time when we, as Americans, are searching for the best path forward for our Nation. Such comments make it that much more difficult for all who hold diverse views to come together, as our country so desperately needs. Notably, these comments are a setback to the hard work and dedication of our campus community and all that Collin College has achieved this year.
“Faculty members, as representatives of their profession and of our distinguished institution, have a special obligation to remember that their public statements reflect on their unique roles both in educating students and modeling behavior, as well as on the college that provides them with the opportunity to educate. Hateful and profane speech expressed in any forum is not how we should strive to conduct ourselves.”
In this challenging period, Collin College urges all to express themselves with grace, civility, and respect for others in a manner worthy of this Nation and the core values we share.
President Matkin did not have the common courtesy to contact Professor Burnett in advance of this statement, which was posted prominently on the school’s website. When she emailed him to point out that he might have done so, he brusquely ended communication.
While it is encouraging that the statement does not threaten disciplinary action and acknowledges, it would seem, that Burnett’s tweets are protected under the Constitution, it is not at all clear that she is out of the woods. Experience suggests that when institutions issue these kinds of condemnatory statements the harassers are only encouraged to push harder. And it’s difficult to be optimistic about any future institutional response.
To put it bluntly, the notion that Burnett’s joking tweets about Pence’s pink eye were “vile” and “profane” is ridiculous on its face. Profane? Uh, I’m an atheist Jew but doesn’t the word “demon” appear in the Christian Bible in a few places? Burnett ought to know, for she’s not only an historian and a teacher but also an ordained minister who serves as the college minister for her church. (Hardly the flaming radical of the Fox imagination.) And didn’t the President of the United States refer to Pence’s debate opponent, Sen. Kamala Harris, as a “monster?” I guess for the tiny demographic for whom The Exorcist was a documentary there may be a difference, but if the president can be free to publicly label a Black woman a monster why can’t someone call a white guy with pink eye a demon?
But what is really shocking is how this alleged “educational leader,” a college president, could evidence such rank disdain for the academy’s and society’s most precious core values by placing the words academic freedom and free speech in scare quotes. That’s not what his institution’s policies suggest. Take a look at the Collin College policy on academic freedom. It tracks pretty closely the principles of the 1940 AAUP-AAC Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure:
Outside the classroom, faculty members are free from institutional censorship or discipline for exercising their rights as private citizens to express themselves freely on matters of public concern, to associate with persons or groups as they so choose, and to participate in political or other kinds of activities.
The statement adds,
The College District accepts the responsibility to foster and to encourage faculty and support staff to exercise their freedoms and to protect against acts that deny freedom of speech and the related freedoms to be heard, to study, to teach, to administer and to pursue scholarly activity. Faculty members acknowledge their responsibility to maintain professional competence in their fields of specialization and to be committed to effective teaching and student service.
That policy statement is followed by a second “Statement of Purpose,” which declares that “Faculty members must be free from the fear that others might threaten their professional careers because of differences of opinion . . . ” The statement then adds the following points:
Faculty members are citizens, and, therefore, possess the rights of citizens to speak freely outside the classroom on matters of public concern and to participate in lawful political activities.
Prior restraint or sanctions will not be imposed upon faculty members in the exercise of their rights as citizens or duties as teachers. Nor will faculty members fear reprisals for exercising their civic rights and academic freedom.
Faculty members have a right to expect the Board and the College District’s administrators to uphold vigorously the principles of academic freedom and to protect the faculty from harassment, censorship, or interference from outside groups and individuals.
Can anyone argue with a straight face that the college’s statement and Matkin’s email served even slightly to protect Professor Burnett from harassment from outside groups and individuals? Quite the opposite; they threw her under the proverbial bus. So much for living up to commitments. Oh, and in case you might think this was an old and largely forgotten policy statement, it was most recently revised in May 2020. Apparently, at Collin College policies are just empty verbiage, to be discarded when “convenient.”
Just last month Collin College was named “a 2020 great college to work for,” an accomplishment the school’s PR people trumpeted with pride. “This is very satisfying affirmation of Collin College, but our real goal is not recognition,” Matkin responded, “it’s being an educational institution that values the needs and contribution of every individual.” Really? Maybe every individual except those whose speech as a citizen causes you a bit of discomfort. What a shameful display of moral cowardice.
In conclusion, if you want to know a bit more about Lora Burnett as teacher and historian, you might start by reading this nuanced and careful blog post, “To Become a Better Historian,” that she posted in December 2018 on her “Saved by History” blog and which she quixotically shared with some of her online tormentors in the no doubt vain hope that she might even educate them too. And to see her thoughtful treatment of Vice-President Pence and “demonic” language in politics, posted in late August, please don’t miss her extraordinary discussion of “Stars and Stripes and Blasphemy.”
I wish that pseudo-liberals and most Democratic leaders would grant the same exemption to right-wingers as they seem to want to grant to their allies: the comedy exemption.
The “demon” reference was an obvious joke — and a “B+” one at that. Yet when Trump or professors make a joke, use irony, or are sarcastic, it is often taken seriously and condemned.
I once emailed an INCOMPETENT IT aide that if he didn’t solve my problem — after three attempts — “heads MAY roll.” My email was forwarded to the Provost; it was thought that I wanted to restore the guillotine, even when using the conditional tense! And, of course, my IT problem was not solved; after 2 hours of trial and error, I finally resolved it myself.
Just one question. Is Dr. Burnett correct in her criticisms of VP Pence? Why?
Ken Zimmerman, PhD
Nicely done Mr. Reichman! Clearly the profanity used in this exchange are those assaulting Dr. Burnett. Any fifth grade student could see this. That Mr. Matkin can’t or won’t is equaling damning. His inability to defend academic freedom says something about his true commitments. Kudos Mr. Matkin, you’re in lockstep with spineless bureaucrats throughout the ages.
Those who wrote the US Constitution were quite correct the put the first Amendment first. Freedom of speech, to publish, to discuss, to assemble and protest peacefully, and to petition our government for a solution to perceived grievances are paramount, along side the right to vote in any democracy. Many university administrators have been perverted by ‘neo-conservatives’ and ‘neo-liberal’ economists so that they no longer either recognize this essential or choose to ignore it in the name of making their lives easier. Living in a democracy, particularly as a leader is never, can never be easy. Democracies are constant targets of groups with narrow political, economic, racial, ethnic, etc. interests. They view democracy as an obstacle to be overcome, murdered if possible. We must never relax our vigilance for a moment if we want to continue to live in a democracy.
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Here’s Prof. Burnett’s response to her disgracefully craven administration: https://www.chronicle.com/article/right-wing-trolls-attacked-me-my-administration-buckled
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