It’s been a bad end of the year for conservatives. After deluding themselves into thinking they were going to win the presidential election by a landslide, they instead found themselves routed by a president they’d labelled “socialist” and claimed that he “palled around with terrorists.” And then in the wake of a national tragedy which left twenty-eight people dead, among them 20 children and six educators, politicians decided that they were no longer willing to sacrifice the lives of American citizens so that a few people could own assault rifles. Mike Huckabee’s remarks that the removal of Christian worship from public schools was to blame for the Sandy Hook massacre didn’t go over that well.
In the face of these failures, the right wing fell back to the cultural warfare they so successfully waged during the 1980s and 1990s. With Christmastime a few weeks away, it wasn’t hard to resuscitate that narrative. Now, with gun control looking to be increasingly likely, conservatives needed a target. Enter University of Rhode Island professor of labor and environmental history Erik Loomis. A perfect target for the “universities are indoctrinating our children” theme of conservative writing.
Prof. Loomis, known best in left wing circles for his political blog, Lawyers, Guns & Money, tweeted that he wanted Wayne LaPierre’s (CEO of the National Rifle Association) head on a stick and that the NRA should be classified as a terrorist organization (he has since deactivated his twitter account).
In the civilized world, this is what is known as “hyperbole.” In the conservative world, this is calling for Mr. LaPierre’s assassination. Anchor Rising’s Marc Comtois postulated that Prof. Loomis was merely seeking attention. How did Mr. Comtois prevent him from receiving that attention? With a broadside blog post, that was later redistributed and linked to by “traditional” media on their Twitter accounts and websites.
Better people than I have already written in Prof. Loomis’ defense such as Prof. Daniel Nexon at the Duck of Minerva and Prof. Loomis’ colleagues Robert Farley and Scott Lemieux at Lawyers, Guns & Money. The academics who write for Crooked Timber issued a joint statement that went a bit further; they asked readers to contact URI’s Dean Winnie Brownell (winnie@mail.uri.edu), Provost Donald DeHays (ddehayes@uri.edu), and President David Dooley (davedooley@mail.uri.edu) in a polite, civil, and firm manner and tell them to protect free speech.
That’s the right manner of response. The wrong response was URI’s shameful and cowardly statement that played directly into the conservative bullies’ hands, while also elevating what was essentially a story contained to right wing loudmouths and left wing reactions into “real news”.
Let me be clear, the right wing are being bullies here. These are the same people that use hyperbolic language every day. These are the people who claimed that our President assists terrorists and was one himself, that he’s an Islamic Kenyan sleeper agent who hates America, that he’s destroying the nation with his godless socialism, that he’s a fascist fostering a cult of personality so he can end the American Republic forever.
If URI buckles to the demands of these hypocrites it will be a blow against intellectual freedom that will reverberate across the United States; and I do not believe I am being hyperbolic here. No academic’s opinions are safe, regardless of whether they’re left, right, or center. It will prove to the right wing that intimidation works, that no use of hyperbole that the right can portray as offensive anywhere should be protected speech. And tactics that work are often copied. The left will push back in the exact same manner, and then it will be a battle over who can collect more heads.
Universities and colleges need to be centers of academic freedom regardless of political belief, if only because we are all enriched when they can have debates that political discourse is too soundbite-based to have. It’s a near-sighted and hypocritical game the right is playing. And they should be condemned for playing it.
While I would never call for his firing, let’s reverse rolls here. If he were a conservative calling for a liberals head, you would be screaming from the hilltops. The left were the kings of whining about vitriol in the ’08 election complaining about bulls-eyes on political ads. As a representative of the URI community, his remarks, while free speech, are unacceptable and therefore left URI no alternative but to put out a disclaimer. Mr. Loomis needs to keep the vitriol between he and his brethren and avoid social media outbursts.
I’m with dd on that one.
I’d be inclined to agree with you two, but there’s some vast differences there. First, let’s take a look at the SarahPAC reaction to being called out about their crosshairs map of districts that included Rep. Giffords. Ginned up controversy? Yes, it was bad timing on their part and would’ve been unremarkable had the Tuscon assassination attempt not happened. But their response? These weren’t crosshairs, these were “surveyor’s marks“. If Palin had continued to double down on the crosshairs, and argued “yes, we were targeting districts, and crosshairs denote targeting. It would be ridiculous to think that we were suggesting that someone shoot these Reps,” then I’d say the two “controversies” were equal. When they were accused of using violent rhetoric, SarahPAC attempted to spin their way out of the controversy, rather than condemning the attacks as bad faith.
Loomis, on the other hand, took full responsibility for his remarks as they were in context, and pointed out that they were hyberbolic remarks, not violent rhetoric. That he is being attacked by people who engage in hyperbolic speech virtually every day is hypocritical, and would be hypocritical whether it comes from the left or the right.
My problem with URI’s statement is multiple. My main issue is that by releasing the statement, it took a story that at that point was mostly contained to right wing and left wing opinion media and made it reportable news; so now you see RIPR, the AP, or The Journal reporting on it (though The Journal story was mostly the AP’s story with some extra bits at the beginning). As a non-controversy, URI could’ve neatly avoided it, and avoided more media mentions of it while reprimanding Loomis as they saw fit. Contained mostly the blogosphere, they could’ve let the story die on its own.
Instead, they lent legitimacy to the attacks on Loomis by making it news. They further lent legitimacy by implying that Loomis’ remarks constituted “acts or threats of violence” (which URI doesn’t condone). Anyone who can read the English language can see that the remarks are not acts or threats of violence. Saying “Erik Loomis does not speak on behalf of the University” is essentially all they need to say (the third sentence is essentially a warm fuzzy statement tacked on to draw contrast with the first sentence). URI is handling this the wrong way.
Context goes both ways. Had Loomis made his statements two weeks ago, I doubt the University would see fit to respond. In fact, I don’t think the University ever issued a statement regarding Loomis’ twitter account, and there was no shortage of such hyperbole from Prof. Loomis in the past. However, Loomis’ hyperbole regarding the NRA President’s head on a stick came from a teacher at a school in the immediate aftermath of a horrifically violent attack at a grade school. In light of that context, URI sought to distance itself not only from the statement, but from the use of acts of violence, even as metaphor, hyperbole or some other literary device. I thought their public response was measured, all things considered. I can’t take issue with that.
To suggest that if URI only issued the second sentence of the response the story would not have gotten pick up by the mainstream media is purely speculative. URI not responding at all because it’s afraid story picked up by the mainstream media, that would have been cowardly.
I don’t agree. I don’t think it’s cowardly not to issue to the media a statement about an issue that isn’t really an issue. If alumni are inquiring, say “Prof. Loomis’ opinions don’t reflect the University’s and we’re reviewing our policies around Twitter, etc., taking appropriate action, etc.” If the media inquires, then that’s really all you have to say, depending on the inquiry. But the point of a statement is usually to reach the maximum amount of media possible with the least amount of work; that’s why you issue one. In the meantime, conservative media has twisted this statement into “an apology” while continuing to construe Loomis’ tweet as a “death threat”.
While Loomis’ metaphor was hyperbolic, it is the sort of thing you might say if, you know, you were angry and wanted someone held accountable (like Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds suggesting that “heads should roll” over Benghazi, a set of words when put in context of the events of his statement, next to no one freaked out over). In the meantime, the RI State Police “are concerned about the ‘antagonistic’ communications sent to Loomis”. I’m not sure increasing the exposure of these events is a wise choice for URI.
Prof. Loomis wrote the hyperbolic tweet and he put the university in a position to respond. He is not some private schmo that saw a statement take off. He is an experienced blogger and twitterer, well versed in antagonizing the right and both being critical of and engaging in spin. He is a big boy. I don’t think he wrote the tweet with the hope that it would receive no attention and no reaction. He is letting this drama play out on his blog, which no doubt has seen an increase in hits. To suggest URI’s rather bland press release is the primary force responsible for this ”non-story” becoming an issue is a stretch. In fact, I think your suggestion that the univeristy issue a statement that it will review its policies and take appropriate action would be wrong reponse – the school shouldn’t punish Loomis for what he said or try to restrict his writing, in whatever medium. The school should simply distance itself, as an institution, from the statement and its byperbolic message, which it did.
I don’t see how you can suggest with a straight face that a tenured professor at a state university calling for the head of the NRA and calling them murderers is not worthy of media attention. Something tells Mr. Loomis thought it was.
What was URI’s “shameful and cowardly” response?
“The University of Rhode Island does not condone acts or threats of violence. These remarks do not reflect the views of the institution and Erik Loomis does not speak on behalf of the University. The University is committed to fostering a safe, inclusive and equitable culture that aspires to promote positive change.”
Who is pushing fake rage now?
URI’s response was boilerplate. I think don’t think that not demonstrating bravery and simply following policy necessarily constitutes cowardice. At the same time I find that, while I personally agree with the sentiment and admire the conviction of Professor Loomis, his hyperbolic remarks were too emotionally charged for such a dangerously flammable time of sensitivity on both sides of the issue. Having some recent experience with how quickly and easily these issues can spiral out of control, such a vitriolic backlash can only fuel those who can use it as (dare I use the metaphor?) ammunition against a movement towards second amendment discussion that may lead to life saving changes at this point in American history. Of course Loomis had the right to say what he said. And many agree with the ideals behind the statement. But, unfortunately, I don’t believe his choice of language furthered his cause. Or mine, for that matter. And we can never be surprised by the hypocrisy of the right wing agenda. Can we?
“I think don’t think … ” should just be replaced with “I don’t think …” I obviously wasn’t thinking.