Attacks On Trinity Professor: Free Speech Or Intimidation? – Hartford Courant

Trinity Professor Johnny Williams was added this week to a national "Professor Watchlist," a list that academic leaders say conservative groups use to attack professors with views antithetical to theirs.

Williams, who made national headlines last week because of two controversial Facebook posts, joined a roster of 200 faculty members who have been selected for advancing "a radical agenda in lecture halls."

Academic leaders say the Watchlist is part of a playbook employed by conservative groups and publications that threatens academic freedom if it causes professors to self-censor their remarks to avoid threats or possible job loss.

The longtime Trinity sociology professor was in the news after a conservative online publication called Campus Reform picked up the two Facebook posts, including a profane hashtag and, Williams says, misconstrued them as saying things he never said or intended: that he endorsed the idea that nothing should have been done to save white victims in the recent shooting at a Congressional baseball practice.

Williams tried to clarify his position saying that he wants to see an end to white supremacist ideology not to let white people die as the online publication said but the Facebook posts and Campus Reform's interpretation of them went viral, resulting in death threats to Williams, threats to the Trinity Campus, and calls for Williams to be fired.

Trinity President Joanne Berger-Sweeney shut down the campus for a day and has launched an investigation into whether Williams violated college policies, while Williams and his family are in hiding far away from Connecticut to protect their safety.

The targeting of left-leaning professors like Williams and what some professors say is a misreading of their words is a scenario that Williams' supporters and national experts say is becoming more common, and has made minority professors with views that may be discomforting for some all the more vulnerable.

"I do think there is a concerted campaign to try to target and intimidate certain kinds of public intellectuals," Maurice Wade, a Trinity philosophy professor, said. "They want a certain kind of right-wing orthodoxy to be the curricular and education agenda in higher education."

Williams, who is married to a white woman, has taught at Trinity about race and racism since 1996 and is known as an outspoken opponent of white supremacist ideology who challenges students to explore territory related to race that can be uncomfortable for some.

Landing On The Watchlist

Hans-Joerg Tiede, an associate secretary with the American Association of University Professors, said "it's not new that public remarks that professors make somehow cause controversy. ... It's not even completely new that news outlets specifically try to find instances and quote them out of context or even incorrectly."

What is new, he said, is that such instances "generate this response of inundating individuals with threats and harassment... There are often threats of violence." He noted that The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash., was shut down for several days earlier this month because of threats and security concerns after comments by a professor.

"It is already disconcerting for individuals to be subject to such threats. ... But then to also basically cause entire institutions of higher education to close because of them that's really an attack on higher education quite broadly," Tiede said.

He said there have been instances in which students have recorded professors' comments in class and then posted excerpts on social media that cause an uproar.

"All of these are concerns that faculty increasingly have," Tiede said, "that they are going to be subject to surveillance by students recording things, surveillance of social media posts ..."

The impact of the Professor Watchlist, which many have likened to McCarthy-era blacklists, is hard to assess, Tiede said. "As you know with the way it is with blacklists, no university will publicly say that they are not hiring somebody because they are [on the list] ... but it could in principle dissuade someone from hiring. I certainly don't know whether it does."

Noel Cazenave, a UConn sociology professor, said he is concerned that such efforts could threaten academic freedom and the diversity of faculty.

In letter to Trinity College Faculty Dean Tim Cresswell, who will be reviewing Williams' case, Cazenave wrote that organizations such as Campus Reform and Turning Point have launched a highly organized effort "to remove critical voices from college campuses."

He said Williams is the fourth "progressive faculty of color to be attacked by such groups within the last month or so." Cazenave said he sees the developments as tied to the election of Donald Trump as president. While that is unclear, the Professor Watchlist was established soon after the election on Nov. 16.

Cazenave said he's concerned that Berger-Sweeney is going to get pressure from Trinity alumni and possibly significant donors. "They may take punitive action against Johnny, and I think the African-American community is going to put Trinity on notice that that we are not going to stand around idly and let that happen."

Who Gets Targeted?

Matt Lamb, who manages the Professor Watchlist for Turning Point USA, said in an email that "professors are on the list for targeting students, shutting down debate, or otherwise using hyperbolic language which would tend to silence debate."

He called the list "a wonderful example of free speech because professors can say whatever they want, news outlets can report on what they said (free speech as well), and then we can post what is said (using our free speech rights) and people can then make a decision for themselves."

Their website says that students parents, and alumni "deserve to know the specific incidents and names of professors that advance a radical agenda in the lecture halls."

Lamb said he relies on news stories done by other organizations such as Campus Reform to determine which professors make the list.

The listing under Williams' name on the Professor Watchlist quotes the Campus Reform story as saying that Williams said first responders "should have let the congressmen die for being white" and that Williams said white people should "[expletive] die."

Williams did not say those things, though he shared on Facebook an online essay titled "Let Them [expletive] Die," which was written by another writer and explored those topics, and used that title as a hashtag in a post. That article, on Medium.com, discussed the Congressional shooting, asked what it means "when victims of bigotry save the lives of bigots" and urged a show of indifference to the lives of bigots.

Williams has said he did not defend or support the article but shared it as a "teaching tool" for readers. He said his Facebook posts, which called for an end to the "white supremacy system," referred to the fatal police shooting of a black mother in Seattle on June 18. He said the use of the hashtag and sharing the article were meant simply to offer another point of view.

Sterling Beard, the editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, said the the goal of the online publication is to "operate as a higher education watchdog and expose liberal bias and abuse in America's colleges."

The publication has student journalists on campuses all over the country who work with professional journalists to produce stories.

Beard stood by the Campus Reform story, saying the "juxtaposition" of Williams' Facebook share of the controversial essay and the hashtag constituted "an endorsement" of the essay and, coupled with the Facebook posts, backed up the story.

He added that he "condemns in the strongest terms any and all threats" received by Williams and his colleagues. "We do not advocate for any harassment of the subjects of stories on campusreform.org and we are sorry to hear that he's received that harassment."

Williams' Message Lost?

A professor's message condensed in a Facebook post or a tweet is often misunderstood because academic language can be technical and theoretical, experts say.

Wade, the Trinity philosophy professor, said it was clear to him in Williams' Facebook posts that he was attempting to make a distinction between white "as a skin color and a socially constructed white identity, deeply rooted and tied to white supremacy."

"Johnny is a dogged and relentless opponent to and critic of white supremacy," Wade said. "You know Johnny does not attack people on skin color. This is ludicrous. ... He attacks white supremacy, a certain kind of socially-constructed white identity that is linked, tied to white supremacy."

Wade said he is deeply disappointed by the "vitriol and threats that are directed at a professor because of his legitimate exercise of his freedom of speech, when there is far less distress and concern shown over the murders of innocent black people."

Cazenave said he doesn't think "European-Americans understand how racially tense the situation in the U.S. is for people who perceive that they are under constant attack by their president and by his followers. ...

"Today we have African Americans trying to respond to the intense anguish that has been caused by these police killing. That's what Johnny Williams was trying to express, that outrage."

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Attacks On Trinity Professor: Free Speech Or Intimidation? - Hartford Courant