University of Pennsylvania professor Anthea Butler is at the center of another controversy after going on Twitter to suggest that the delay in rescuing the children in the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas was due to racism. She asked if the police “didn’t give a damn” about the children because they were “predominantly brown kids.” While she later deleted the Tweet, Professor Butler has a long history of offensive racial statements. While some have previously called for her termination, these comments (including this disgraceful tweet) should be protected under principles of free speech and academic freedom. However, this is another example of the double standard often applied at universities, which are quick to investigate, discipline, or fire conservative, libertarian, or dissenting faculty members in such controversies.
As the rest of the country was still mourning the massacre, Butler took to Twitter to re-cast the tragedy in racial terms. She wrote: “Since no one else will ask, I will. Did those children die because most of them were Mexican American and the police didn’t give a damn about a school w predominately brown kids? I mean, because it’s Texas … and if you think everyone who isn’t white is illegal …”
Critics have pointed out that Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodríguez is Latino as is Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Police Chief Pedro Arredondo. Many of the officers at the scene were Latino. Butler’s suggestion of racism was even more offensive given the stories of officers with children at the school and among the dead.
Last year, Butler publicly condemned what she called “colorblind racism” of people who insist that they do not judge on the basis of a person’s skin: “When people say to you, ‘I don’t see color, I see what Jesus sees in you,’ that really actually means that they just see white.” She lashed out at evangelical Christians who, she claimed, “may end up killing us all” due to their “racism, sexism, homophobia, lack of belief in science, lack of belief and common sense.”
This weekend, we discussed the different treatment given liberal and conservative speakers at Boston University after students passed a resolution calling a conservative speaker a danger to their safety. They further declared that “intentionally incendiary speech and rhetoric” is unprotected by free speech principles. Yet, Boston University Professor Saida Grundy the same week made incendiary comments to justify criminal acts, including looting, as racial justice. Grundy has a history of racial statements against white students and faculty. As I noted, both speakers should be protected by the same free speech values.
The support enjoyed by faculty on the far left is in sharp contrast to the treatment given faculty with moderate, conservative or libertarian views. Anyone who raises such dissenting views is immediately set upon by a mob demanding their investigation or termination. This includes blocking academics from speaking on campuses like a recent Classics professor due to their political views. Conservatives and libertarians understand that they have no cushion or protection in any controversy, even if it involves a single, later deleted tweet.
One such campaign led to a truly tragic outcome with criminology professor Mike Adams at the University of North Carolina (Wilmington). Adams was a conservative faculty member with controversial writings who had to go to court to stop prior efforts to remove him. He then tweeted a condemnation of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper for his pandemic rules, tweeting that he had dined with six men at a six-seat table and “felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina” before adding: “Massa Cooper, let my people go.” It was a stupid and offensive tweet. However, we have seen extreme comments on the left — including calls to gas or kill or torture conservatives — be tolerated or even celebrated at universities.
Celebrities, faculty and students demanded that Adams be fired. After weeks of public pummeling, Adams relented and took a settlement to resign. He then killed himself a few days before his final day as a professor.
Likewise, Georgetown Professor Ilya Shapiro remains suspended after a poorly worded tweet that he also deleted. He also apologized but it was not enough to protect him from a national campaign for his termination.
The professors who have called for such terminations are conspicuously silent when controversial tweets or statements come from the far left. Dissenting faculty know that few of their colleagues will step toward to defend them against such attacks.
In the case of Professor Butler, she knows that she can write and advocate without fear of university actions to remove her. That is precisely what all faculty should enjoy as a matter of academic freedom and free speech. However, it is a privilege often exercised selectively today. Universities are often quick to denounce conservative or libertarian faculty while ordering investigations and other measures in response to such controversies.
The confidence (rightfully) enjoyed by Professor Butler is the inverse of the constant threat faced by the dwindling number of conservative and libertarian faculty at schools like Penn.
As Henry Ford II said, many years ago: NEVER Complain, NEVER Explain. I think that that wise and cogent statement stands the test of time an is still applicable today.
Well, let’s see here…an Hispanic shooter went after a school of mostly Hispanic kids while mostly Hispanic cops lingered outside as the massacre went on. Then a white guy came and killed the shooter, ending the terror. Yep. Sounds racist to me. Get a clue you stupid social “justice” warriors!
What has happened is odd from my perspective. I grew up in the military and joined it. I got to watch what was admittedly a fledgling meritocracy develop into what is probably as close to a real meritocracy as we can get.
On the outside, I watched people struggle with embracing content of character over color. I also watched that struggle contaminated with things like affirmative action. I watched a small segment of the population learn that whisperings “racist” was the new way to take people out of office or jobs. It worked in the same way whispering “homosexual” worked in decades earlier. That small number of people grew and they no longer whisper.
I don’t have answers, but I do know that when folks find something that works, they use it. The left has swung “racist” as a bat for a long time, and has now added “white supremacist” to the repertoire.
I know that it is easier to embrace entitlement than meritocracy. One takes no effort. The other takes work.
It’s easy to get drunk on power and that includes social power.
It’s hard to keep standing up when you are getting punched in the face. Stand up we must.
Thank you for your service and for your insight.
I mean, Democrats aren’t really interested because they were black people living in a progressive paradise. Whose deaths don’t advance the political narrative.
Over just the last twelve months, 604 black people were the victims of homicide in the once great city of Chicago, Illinois. Here are the names and ages of black homicide victims so far in the month of May:
Jeremy Benson, age 33. Derrick Washington, age 29. Carl King, age 38. Brandon Foley, age 32. Bruce O’Neil, age 27. Rashaun Johnson, age 21. Cortez Barber, age 17. Antonio Wade, age 30. Anthony Allen, age 31. Cliff Lee Williams, age 20. Kiyasha Truitt, age 21. Cedric Myles, age 36. Brian Henderson, age 40. Emmanuel Scott, age 19. Allen Woodard, age 34. Seandell Holliday, age 16. Jalen Mims, age 17. Antonique Alexander, age 16. Turon Taylor, age 33. Jere Buford, age 33. Jessica Hudson, age 21. Devel Jones, age 34. Antwan Gee, age 35. Marquita Davis, age 27. Charles Mondane, age 20. Jayarion Huddleston, age 20. Brandon Slater, age 26. Larry Purnell, age 64. Melody Joiner, age 42. Marryanne McCoy, age 33. Jamarion Loston, age 22. Jarell Watkins, age 34. Corey Xavier Finley, age 32. Chaundry Gentry, age 25. Brittany Nicole Kinlow, age 23. Jaylen Perkins, age 19. Kejaun Carter, age 18.
This is the true cost of progressive racism. All lives matter.
Democrats have their axe to grind and ‘blame whitey’ is the go-to response on most social issues. When you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Eventually they will rhetoricize themselves into a corner and people will reject their agendaganda and look for more reputable public information sources that are generally less prejudicial
Lord have mercy on us, but particularly on the people who suffer and the people who are powerless in the face of the godless and the worldly.
Everything is racist to our liberal college professers. They have dis educated a whole generation of people that don’t know which bathroom to use or have had their genitals altered. These are the cretins from the baby boomer anti war generation and should die a horrible death, far worse than the hell they cowardly ran from.
The most bigoted group of people in America these days are black women from the northeast. Not all of them, but a very large number of them are full of nothing but hatred for others, especially whites. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.
Yes to free speech
Yes to academic freedom.
But there might be a legitimate reason for canning a professor who is simply too stupid to work in any university other than as a janitor.
This appears to be one.
And I am not sure she would be any good as a janitor. After her first week on the job we would probably be hearing that brooms are racist.
Anonymous says:
“Every day, Turley writes columns that feed the “age of rage” he complains about.”
True enough. I hope one day someone will ask him why he does not condemn the rage in his “blog family”? Probably, he will not do so for the identical reason he will not condemn the rage provocateurs among his Fox News colleagues.
Turley will continue his willful blindness and abject hypocrisy UNTIL someone publicly confronts him. Were I a student in his class, I would stand up and demand an answer.
JeffSilberman: Great idea! Perhaps we should demand Turley hold a town hall meeting for his followers who comment here almost every day. I have a long list of Qs for him.
He won’t do it because his ignoring the Ted Nugents in his “blog family” is indefensible and his silence in the face of the rage provocateurs at his network is inexcusable.
Jeff: “Were I a student in his class, I would stand up and demand an answer.”
++
He doesn’t teach grade school.
Zing! Good one! Where have you been?
Libera nutjob here……..He thinks its OK for the libs to steal elections, lie on a president about Russia, frame people like Papadapolous, Flynn etc. He man, how did Muller and Wiseman spend 40 million dollars and investigate for 2 years when Hillary’s Campaign manager Robby Mook just told a courtroom all these lies were ORDERED by Hillary Clinton? Because they were appointed to STOP Trump from getting to the truths and chumps like you fell for it.
So long as Turley does not believe the crap that you do, I am confident that you can be dismissed as a lying Trumpist.
Hi Jeffy, would you like a tissue?
RE:””Hi Jeffy, would you like a tissue?……” David, It’s clear that he hides his own rage within airy persiflage. It surfaces from time to time when he charges “Trumpist’ accompanied by the appropriate quotation marks. His agenda and purpose are clear, notwithstanding. We have seen the enemy, and it is not us. I’ve given him to talk to the hand. Tiresome.
Illegal deportation is as legal and moral as illegal immigration.
“Abudyipabudyip (Prestissimo), That’s All, Folks!”
It’s time to go home now.
UofP certainly does not have a very high threshold for faculty appointments.
For a college Professor, Butler is extremely injudicious in her use of words. She chips away at the excellence that one was her university.
If I were a UP student, I wouldn’t hesitate to put a fart bag on her chair. And, I would lambast her promotion of pejorative racial essentialism in the student newspaper. In class, every time she expressed her jive ideas, I would have to conspicuously clear my throat.
Ersatz, fabricated, false, sham, factitious, fake, illusory, non-existent, incoherent and hysterical “white guilt” is the cause.
It is a physical axiom; there always have been and there always will be, by definition, superior and inferior entities – some are larger, some are smaller, some are shorter, some are taller.
People must adapt to freedom; freedom does not adapt to people, dictatorship does.
Freedom, free enterprise, free markets and free and open competition constitute the American thesis, and are precisely and singularly what the Constitution provides.
Why in the world would any actual American listen to their irrational and equivocal prevarication.
Abrogate generational welfare, affirmative action, and the rest of the “crutch” they require for persistence; allow constitutional freedom, free enterprise and free competition.
Individual favor, “assistance,” charity and “alms for the poor” are deleterious, counterproductive, treacherously antithetical utterly unconstitutional.
The Constitution guarantees no success or failure.
The American thesis is freedom and self-reliance.
It takes a “real” racist like Anthea, posing as an educator, to accuse everyone in sight of being racists. People like her are responsible for the divisiveness in play as some of us resist being dubbed racists and mourn that too many others are led to believe they are victims.
I have no question or doubt regarding the veracity of this contributor, understanding the depth and scope of her experience and expertise with all things racist.
She uses every facet and aspect of racism for her own personal benefit on a daily basis.
Why? Because actual Americans acquiesce to the deception and allow it.
Before the initiation of the incremental implementation of communism in America by Karl Marx and Abraham Lincoln, 1860 – 1865, this type of fraud and subterfuge would have been simply and comprehensively ignored.
In fact, Lincoln undertook such a magnificent effort in the favor of Marx’s communism that, in 1864, Karl Marx sent Lincoln a letter of congratulation and commendation related to the “RECONSTRUCTION of a social world,” most notably part and parcel of Lincoln’s successors’ illegitimate and unconstitutional “RECONSTRUCTION Amendments.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm
Black Teacher’s Racist Rant Against Mexican Cop
“You’re always gonna be a Mexican. You’ll never be white, ya know that, right?”
“Just the facts, ma’am!”
– Sergeant Joe Friday
New from the DOJ:
“At the request of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin, the U.S. Department of Justice will conduct a Critical Incident Review of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. The goal of the review is to provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and responses that day, and to identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for and respond to active shooter events. The review will be conducted with the Department’s Office of Community Oriented Policing. As with prior Justice Department after-action reviews of mass shootings and other critical incidents, this assessment will be fair, transparent, and independent. The Justice Department will publish a report with its findings at the conclusion of its review.”
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-statement-mass-shooting-robb-elementary-school-uvalde-tx-0
Jonathan: What you give with one hand you take away with the other. On one hand you say professor Butler (who is Black) is “protected under principles of free speech” you then condemn her because she “has a long history of offensive racial statements”. “Offensive” to whom? Probably to some white people, like you, who feel uncomfortable when Black professors remind them of the continuing institutional racism problem in this country.
I think it is a little premature to assign racial motives to the Uvalde police who waited almost an hour outside the barricaded room while Salvadore Ramos was conducting the wholesale murder of little children. It took federal Border Control agents to go in and take out Ramos. Why did the local police tell the federal agents not to go in? The fact that the Uvalde police chief is Hispanic is an irrelevant diversion. An Hispanic police chief doesn’t guarantee police officers and their white superiors won’t engage in racism. Just ask Medaria Arradondo, who was the Minneapolis police chief when George Floyd was murdered by a white racist police officer. Trying to divert attention from the real questions is not your strong suit.
If you want to discuss extreme statements about what happened in Uvalde you should focus on Rep. Paul Gosar, the white nationalist conspiracy theorist, who said Ramos was a “transsexual leftist illegal alien”. Gosar wears his racism and homophobia on his sleeve. Factcheck: Ramos was born in North Dakota. He was a US citizen. There is nothing yet to indicate the shooter’s sexual identity or his political affiliations. Some on the right claim, without any evidence, that Ramos was a card carrying member of MS13–a theory being pushed by right-wing white nationalist websites. Why not discuss Gosar who also has a “long history of offensive racial statements”? I suspect it is because Gosar is white and professor Butler is Black. Draw your own conclusions.
Then you use this column to talk about your favorite subject: How conservative and libertarian professors are being besieged by the “mob” on university campuses. You attribute this the “dwindling number of conservative and libertarian faculty at schools”. They are in a distinct minority. And why is that? Maybe if conservative ideas had more appeal conservative professors, like you, would have a greater presence. The fact is university students and administrations have generally become “woke”. They understand the danger of continuing racism–and those conservative professors who espouse it. They are pushing back against the racist views of people like Georgetown professor Shapiro who you defend. More power to them!
Dennis,
Turley *presumably* would draw the line with people whom he regards as lunatics such as Ted Nugent:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/29/i-mean-because-its-texas-penn-professor-alleges-police-may-have-delayed-rescue-in-uvalde-due-to-racism/comment-page-1/#comment-2188395
The difference between us and Turley is that we believe there are more people exhibiting the kind of lunacy which Turley sees in a Trumpist like Nugent who should be ignored, shunned and ostracized.
It’s a pretty sad reflection on Turley’s values that he writes a column titled “‘I Mean, Because it’s Texas’: Penn Professor Alleges Police May Have Delayed Rescue in Uvalde Due to Racism,” while choosing not to condemn the delay in the police response, which resulted in more kids being killed. (I’m not saying that the delay was due to racism, but the LEOs clearly f’d up and should be criticized for it.)
It seems anonymous wants Turley to create news rather than analyze it. To date the public is not sure where the failures arose. Turley is a legal analyst not a forcaster.
Anonymous: There were 19 Uvalde police standing in the hall outside the barricaded room where Ramos was holed up systematically killing innocent school children. It took one off-duty Border Patrol agent to go in and stop the carnage. What is wrong with this picture?. Those at the NRA convention scream about the need for “good guys with guns to stop the bad guys with guns”. Well, where were the “good” guys while students and teachers were pleading for help? They were waiting outside in the hall. What were they waiting for? “Dirty Harry”? Maybe the explanation is that the local police were just COWARDS. But hey, guys, you are trained for this kind of situation. That’s what you train for–it’s in your job description. There is a lot of explaining to do–starting with Ulvade’s chief of police. Then Donald Trump, the NRA and Ted Cruz need to explain how more guns will solve the mass shooting problem. By the way, did you see that during his speech to the NRA convention Trump danced to the 1966 song “Hold on, I’m Comin” by Sam and Dave? He danced during or just after he read off the names of those murdered at the school in Uvalde. Maybe Trump was thinking of Stormy Daniels while he danced! And this lunatic wants to run again in 2024? And the other “anonymous” says you want Turley “to create news rather than analyze it…Turley is a legal analyst not a forcaster (sic)”. Did you see any “legal” analysis in Turley’s column about Uvalde? I apparently missed it.
What was it you said the other day in another comment, that you called your wife? She who shall not be disobeyed or something?
That’s part of what’s wrong with these “men” with guns and body armor whose job it is to run towards the “fire” yet none of them bucked any so-called “authority” or “stand down” orders to run toward the shooting and calls for help. They all stood down….waiting…obeying orders….why?
Because this is what is happening to “men” today. They were a bunch of men married to “she who must be obeyed” emasculating women, so they sat back and “waited for orders.” You know, like yourself.
The cops in the hallway no doubt heard the gun shots. The children were pleading for help. These cops “waited” because “orders.” Well you know what? Duty calls “men” to act. Especially “mean” whose very “job” is to run towards, not “sit back and wait.” But it is unlikely that you understand this concept.
*Especially “men” whose very “job” is to run towards, not “sit back and wait” when children are being slaughtered by a madman.
You’re quite the misogynist. Are you going to join George in calling for the 19th Amendment to be repealed?
Thanks for reading. And no, not a misogynist. Just troubled by emasculated men and Soy Boys. The role of the masculine is to protect. It should be instinctive. Those highly trained men standing around outside and in the hallway for what, 45 minutes? I don’t know what they were, but that kind of inaction – for whatever reason – in the face of children being slaughtered? Is not a masculine man.
They tell us we don’t need more guns. The government will protect us. Law enforcement will protect us. Two words: Bull Sh*t.
The off-duty CBP officer who went in and took down the shooter was a “masculine man,” responding instinctively, to defend and protect the innocent. The man deserves a Medal of Honor, with emphasis on the word ‘honor.’
Oh and Dennis, I have no idea what the CBP officer’s “race” is. But you, of course, pay very close attention to this kind of utterly inconsequential detail.
“He danced during or just after he read off the names of those murdered at the school in Uvalde.”
No, he did not. Why you feel the need to lie like that?
“Then Donald Trump, the NRA and Ted Cruz need to explain how more guns will solve the mass shooting problem.”
You can start with the fact that it was a Gun Free Zone. Courtesy of Democrats.
So why did the killer pick the Cinemark theater? You might think that it was the one closest to the killer’s apartment. Or, that it was the one with the largest audience.
Yet, neither explanation is right. Instead, out of all the movie theaters within 20 minutes of his apartment showing the new Batman movie that night, it was the only one where guns were banned. In Colorado, individuals with permits can carry concealed handgun in most malls, stores, movie theaters, and restaurants. But private businesses can determine whether permit holders can carry guns on their private property.
No doubt you still have a Black Lives Matter sign proudly and prominently displayed on your manicured front lawn. And it makes you feel so good inside.
Last comment, you have a clear case of Donkey Pox. Get it checked out.
None have you have mentioned the law enforcement officers who went in and got their own children while arresting people outside who wanted to do the same? There are a number of both explanations and denials but it did happen to some degree. As to whether brown children were left to die, I don’t think the person in charge on the scene made a decision in a vacuum though he will be thrown deep under the bus. For those who claim Texans would never make so callous a decision, look at their decisions to make it harder for Hispanics to vote, get health care, and an immigration policy that put kids who looked like them in cages (some of whom died)? I don’t know that it happened, but it wouldn’t be impossible to believe.
BTW, Turley claims he loves free speech. He represents how those on the right are so burdened by attacks on their speech while he points out those on the left to his audience of millions on an almost daily basis. Sure he says he respects their right to say things while pointing and screaming like they are ghouls from “The Night of the Living Dead.” Turley’s rants are as much of an attack on free speech as they bless hate speech. Nobody has done more for the rights of racists to have their say (though he sometimes finds it objectionable).
“None have you have mentioned the law enforcement officers who went in and got their own children while arresting people outside who wanted to do the same?”
Blacks would have looted, set on fire, stolen whatever they could find, then upload videos online showing them in the act set to rapper music denigrating women as whoes, bjtxhez, and so forth
Enigma does not mention any of this because he is dishonest.
““None have you have mentioned the law enforcement officers who went in and got their own children while arresting people outside who wanted to do the same?”
Blacks would have looted, set on fire, stolen whatever they could find, then upload videos online showing them in the act set to rapper music denigrating women as whoes, bjtxhez, and so forth
Enigma does not mention any of this because he is dishonest.”
I see we can’t count on you to offer solutions. You and George should hook up.
Camp town racers sing that song. Do dah!
Schools are made for chumps.
If you believe that, then you are clearly in need of schooling.