Academia, Free Speech

Gettysburg College Under Fire After Anti-Trump Postings from Admissions Counselor

Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania has been struggling for years with falling revenue and difficulty attracting applications. It has had to reduce faculty and even shutdown a historic journal to stay afloat. Students have raised the alarm of how their institution is “slowly inching toward a financial precipice.”  In the midst of this crisis, the college is now facing a new controversy after its admissions counselor and representative for Long Island and New York City went on a tirade against any supporters of former President Donald Trump as “pieces of s**t.”

Lupe Lazaro previously featured on the college website as a “first-generation student” who came to Gettysburg and was wowed by being able to see stars: “it was the first time I’d ever seen the stars. I love the stars, but I live in New York City. On my bus ride home, I applied Early Decision immediately because I knew [seeing the stars] was my sign.” That feature appears to have been removed from the website but can be seen here at another site.

If the claim seemed a bit hyperbolic, it was downright restrained given her recent tirade on Instagram. Lazaro notes that “[n]ot all Trump supporters are xenophobic. But they all decided that xenophobia wasn’t a deal breaker.” She added that “homophobia . . . misogyny . . .  rape . . . [and] overthrow[ing] democracy” are also not “deal breaker[s].” According to the conservative site Campus Reform, she accused Trump supporters of having little problem with “misogyny,” “rape,” “homophobia,” “xenophobia,” attempting to overthrow democracy or trying to “lynch the vice president.”

She declared that “You are no different than the piece of s**t human you stand behind.”

Pennsylvania is famously divided right down the middle between Trump and Harris supporters.  Long Island also has some of the highest numbers of supporters for Trump in New York. It is difficult to see how some applicants would feel that they had a fair chance with the college if they are openly supporters of the former president.

The fact is Lazaro is just a counselor and her views should not be ascribed to the college. Moreover, I have long supported the right of academics to speak on social media and outside of their institutions, even when they espouse hateful views.

The problem has been a double standard that often seems to apply to controversial statements from the left as opposed to the right. As previously discussed, such statements include professors writing about “detonating white people,” abolish[ing] white people, denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements.

We also discussed the free speech rights of University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis, who defended the murder of a conservative protester and said that he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. (Loomis was later made Director of Graduate Studies of History at Rhode Island).

Even when faculty engage in hateful acts on campus, however, there is a notable difference in how universities respond depending on the viewpoint. At the University of California campus, professors actually rallied around a professor who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.

When these controversies arose, faculty rallied behind the free speech rights of the professors. That support was far more muted or absent when conservative faculty have found themselves at the center of controversies. The suspension of Ilya Shapiro is a good example. Other faculty have had to go to court to defend their free speech rights. One professor was suspended for being seen at a controversial protest.

I just finished a debate at Harvard over that school’s lack of diversity among the faculty and the maintenance of an academic echo chamber. The vast majority of faculty today run from the left to the far left.

The difference is that Lazaro is the face of the college for new applicants and the snarling social media posts send a message of intolerance at the college. If you are one of those little Trump-supporting “pieces of s**t,” the controversy may lead you to think twice about applying.

I am still opposed to sanctions for students and faculty generally for social media postings expressing their political views. Lazaro is a representative of the college and has added obligations as part of that public role outside of the university.

As a recruiter, the college can ask for Lazaro to avoid public comments that denigrate or abuse groups of applicants. It can also issue a statement that these views are not those of the institution. However, it does not appear that Lazaro’s comments  specifically referred to students or applicants and she should be allowed to be actively and vocally involved in this election.

It is admittedly a tough line to walk as an administrator, but labeling all Trump supporters as democracy-killing, rape-supporting, women-hating people is not exactly conducive toward drawing more applicants to the struggling school.

It does not help an already tarnished image for the school. Gettysburg College ranked a dismal 217th on the annual ranking of colleges and universities on free speech. The school is already viewed as intolerant of opposing viewpoints by many and this does not help. Yet, it will have to establish a clear guideline on how public comments are addressed on social media for admissions personnel.

As I discuss in my book, The Indispensable Right, the trust of higher education is at an all-time low.  Academics are destroying our institutions with a culture of viewpoint intolerance and orthodoxy.

Gettysburg College is an old and revered institution. It is now struggling like many to maintain its faculty and programs. Administrators seem willing to do most anything but restore free speech and intellectual diversity as part of the appeal to new students.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

 

187 thoughts on “Gettysburg College Under Fire After Anti-Trump Postings from Admissions Counselor”

  1. They do not have a right to exist any more than America does. We can be obliterated any day of the week, and obliterate back, but we are “over”. Having said that, that institution stands on its own two legs or disappears, or it doesn’t. They have to face facts: their faculty has poisoned their own well, and they let them. Now they are dying.

  2. I have published papers on topics related to the fabrication of memory address logic in silicon for advanced memory chips.
    I have patents on the implimentaion of content addressable memory.
    I might be out of my depth in some very narrow areas of cosmology, but I can assure you that I have no problems with sitting in a graduate level physics class in the best universities in the country.

    My partner is both more brilliant and more conservative than I am.

    If you are actually on the left THAT is compelling evidence of an inability to think logically or critically.

    In debates that are settled by facts – it is pretty much always the left that is on the wrong side of the FACTS.

    In debates that rest on probabilities that eventually are resulved to FACTS – it is pretty much ALWAYS the left that is on the wrong side of FACTS.

    It is not an accident, but a sign of poor critical thinking skills that those on the left bought the collusion delusion nonsense.
    There was ALWAYS a long list of unlikely things that had to ALL be true for the Collusion Delussion to be true.

    It took very little in the way fo critical thinking to immediately conclude – it is highly improbable that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election.

    The same was true of the Hunter Biden laptop – it required only ordinary critical thinking skills to conclude that the probability of the laptop being :”Russian disinformation” was very near zero.

    In February 2020 as Covid was just starting, I reviewed some relatively simple mathematical models of infectuous diseases online and rapidly concluded that stopping a respiratory virus with a transmission rate of nearly 3 was not going to happen, and that ALL public health measures to contain covid would fail – that includes masks, lockdowns, …. Online information indicated that the laboratory condictions effectiveness of N95 masks was about 77% (per exposure) – that sounds good – but again basic math tells you that masks will not work. And that was N95 masks in a laboratory. The initial reports on the Vaccine indicated that it had an effectiveness of 97% and a half live of 9-18 months.
    Again basic math will tall you that the Vaccine was NOT going to work as a means of defeating Covid.
    I would note that as individual choices – wearing a mask or getting vaccinated (presuming zero risks) could still be excellent INDIVIDUAL choices, but that trying to force them societally was actually BAD public policy and would result in MORE deaths not less.
    Again do the math.

    While the hunter biden laptop and the collusion delusion have political elements to them, a critical thinker blind to the politics, could properly evaluate each of these.

    For the past decade+ we have seen the rise of what Naseem Talib calls “IYI’s” Intellectual yet idiot.
    These are people with IQ’s arround 120 – the Unabomber Ted Kazinskies IQ was 135, who through poor education are unable to think critically, and constantly get lost on the first order impacts of their “ideas”.

    And.or who are ignorant of an important principle of human conduct that Adam Smith noted 250 years ago

    “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

    Human beings act on INCENTIVES, not good intentions.

    Any plan or policy that you have that is drenched in “good intentions” but oblivious to the incentives it creates of destroys is certain to fail – and probably spectacularly.

    Just understanding that is why the ordinary person on the right is far more likely to “get it right” than those on the left.

    The rant about homophobia etc is itself evidence of the unhinged nature of the left.

    Most forget that Jim Crow was a series of racist LAWS – why ? Because post civil war southerners were happy to discriminate against blacks up the whazzo – until it was in their self interests not to. The force of law was necescary to preclude southern stores from looking after the needs and wants of their black customers as well as their white ones.

    All discrimination fails slowly and naturally UNLESS it is fully in the self interest of those doing it.
    And it is only in their self interests when government makes discrimination a requirement.

    Put more simply for slow lefties, Discrimination that does not produce societal NET positive benefits such as discriminating against felons or discriminating against people with recent bankruptcies, will end on its own without government to prop it up.

  3. In 4 years of Presidency he never started any wars and helped develop more amicable relations with both Russia & North Korea.

    In the same time frame Bidens brought us to the brink of World War III and thermonuclear war with Russia.

    This week as Russia warns of impending nuclear war Biden continues to move ahead with placing Nuclear missiles near Russia. Russia planes are flying over our borders and NATO waters pressing an incident and this week Biden moved a US nuclear armed carrier group into NATO waters to further escalate the crisis.

    We’re nearly at war, .. the final war if the nukes fly. We’re about to incinerate the planet so Joe Biden can act tough and sell nukes to the Ukraine.

    So if standing behind the guy talking peace and who’s proven once he can talk intelligently to Russia without starting World War III makes one a piece of s##$ to this guy the what does standing behind the lunatic about to fry the planet make you?

    1. Kamala says at a rally: “We will move forward because ours is a fight for the future“ … and what was she referring to specifically? Killing the babies who would actually be our future, except they can’t because they’re dead.

  5. “WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, IN ORDER TO FORM A MORE PERFECT UNION…SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY.”

    Tell me if the American Founders were “white supremacists” and if their “white supremacy” was valid and constitutional, understanding that the Founders wrote the Constitution and the Naturalization Acts of 1790, 1795, 1798, and 1802.

    Do you know exactly what country you’re in; perhaps you should reconsider?

    The direct and mortal enemies of America live to throw out the remnants, images, symbols, and effects of the American Founders and their fundamental law, and impose the Communist Manifesto.

    Are you their posterity?

    1. I love headlines…

      “Kamala, anointed by the democracy-saving party after getting a grand total of 0 votes, is the lowest IQ politician in American history. She proves it everyday with vapid, meaningless word salads and an inability to speak coherently without reading off a teleprompter.”

    2. yea, that’s a great article you linked. It defends Kamala flunking the bar exam by noting that, “Like many people, including the late President John F. Kennedy, Harris failed the bar the first time, but she passed it on her second try. (JFK failed it twice.)”

      The “late President John F. Kennedy” was not even a lawyer, never went to law school, and did NOT fail the bar twice.
      This is what happens when gullible simple minds fall prey to partisan propaganda and lies. Are you gigi in disguise?

    3. “Thank God Fo Willy And His Great Big…Intellect!”

      – Camela “Nose Under The Tent” Harris

    4. ATS – Harris’s IQ is with near certainty lower than Biden’s – and Biden probably has the lowest IQ of all US presidents.
      I beleive his IQ is about 120.

      The important FACT that Trump go right was that Harris is not very smart.
      Are you claiming he is wrong about that ?
      Unless you are the details do not matter.

      This is common with left wing nuts. Anything someone else says that you do not like must be 100% false,
      if you can find one detail that YOU conclude is inaccurate.

      How much does it matter if 3.5M or 7M jews died in the Hollocaust ?
      It is still massive genocide.

  9. Kkkamala is a pathological liar, a fraudster and her husband a rapist. Kkkomunist!!!!

  10. On the surface, it’s somewhat easy: I think it’s generally a good thing to let people expose themselves, good or bad, by what they post, with some restrictions.

    If it exposes the poisonous minds welcomed as employees at places like this college, I think it’s better that prospective students and their parents can see it than have it hidden.

    Alternately, if they love these poisonous minds, then what a great way to let them know they’ll feel right at home! Allow them to gather together, rather than spreading the poison.

    On the other hand, what if taxpayer funding gets paid to the colleges that agree with their employees speaking like this about prospective students? Because the money from taxpayers is fungible, taxpayers who she describes in these terms are being forced to contribute to her paycheck.

    One more reason I believe that these colleges and universities should be cut off from taxpayer funding and made responsible for funding themselves.

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