In the wake of the presidential election, we as faculty at Boston College declare our unequivocal opposition to racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and all forms of identity-based hatred and discrimination on and off this campus. We believe in the power of constructive political dialogue and the imperative to organize and act in strategic, collective ways, but we refuse to engage in dialogue or action that sanctions hate speech or bigotry in any form.
The present political moment calls for an explicit and unambiguous statement of these principles. In the leadup to the election, one candidate, President-elect Trump, ran a campaign designed to pit Americans against one another along the lines of race, religion, ethnicity, and immigrant status. One candidate, President-elect Trump, refused to publicly condemn the hate crimes against Muslims, people of color, and LGBTQ individuals that his campaign emboldened. One candidate, President-elect Trump, failed to unambiguously disavow his boasts about sexually assaulting women. In the wake of the election, President-elect Trump has appointed a chief strategist whose media outlet traffics in racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, and other toxic forms of bigotry. These and other dangerous failures of leadership at the national level demand that we renew our responsibilities to our students, each other, and the wider world in which we live by affirming and upholding our basic values.
In this spirit, we call on the Boston College administration to immediately adopt a zero-tolerance policy against hate speech. We also call on the administration to take proactive measures to counter the climate of hatred and violence generated by this election and its aftermath. Such measures should include a promise of safety and protection to groups under threat, as well as a statement of empathy for and meaningful solidarity with such individuals and communities. We further call for policies that encourage and support student and faculty action in pursuit of substantive social justice and political transformation. At stake at this historical juncture are not only the rights of women and minoritized groups, but the future of our planet, the welfare of the poor, and many other matters of urgent concern. We believe that actively addressing such issues of fundamental human importance is at the heart of our work as educators, and we call on the Boston College administration to join us in this effort.
Signed,
Faculty for Justice:
Alphabetically,
Allison Adair, English
Treseanne Ainsworth, English
Lillie R. Albert, Lynch School of Education
Shawn Copeland, Theology
Marla De Rosa, English
Charles Derber, Sociology
Nicole Eaton, History
Robin Fleming, History
Dacia Gentilella, English and Learning to Learn Office
Laura E. Hake, Biology
Lori Harrison-Kahan, English
Mary Ann Hinsdale, IHM, Theology and Catholic Studies
Anne Homza, Lynch School of Education
Marjorie Howes, English
Régine Jean-Charles, Romance Languages & Literatures and African & African Diaspora Studies
Marilynn Johnson, History
Tom Kaplan-Maxfield, English
Priya Lal, History
Deborah Levenson, History
Robin Lydenberg, English
Brinton Lykes, Lynch School of Education
Paula Mathieu, English
John McDargh, Theology
Shawn McGuffey, Sociology and African & African Diaspora Studies
Patrick McQuillan, Lynch School of Education
Karen Miller, History
Yajun Mo, History
Sara Moorman, Sociology
Prasannan Parthasarathi, History
Leigh Patel, Lynch School of Education
Stephen Pfohl, Sociology
Deborah Piatelli, Sociology
Patrick Proctor, Lynch School of Education
Virginia Reinburg, History
Sarah Gwyneth Ross, History
Dana Sajdi, History
Juliet Schor, Sociology
Sylvia Sellers-García, History
Kalpana Seshadri, English
Min Hyoung Song, English and Asian American Studies
Eve Spangler, Sociology
Martin Summers, History and African & African Diaspora Studies
Lad Tobin, English
Anjali Vats, Communication and African & African Diaspora Studies
Eric Weiskott, English
Fr. James Weiss, Theology
Ling Zhang, History
Featured Image by Heights Archives
Really? These people teach in an American college? Hitler would have been so proud of these folks. Censorship and intolerance are alive and well in our institutions of higher learning! By the way: who gets to decide what constitutes hate speech? Perhaps this comment I am making now would be labeled as such. It really is rather chilling.
Very soon we’ll be reading about “nooses” in dorms, swastikas on walls, victim groups wailing about reeewy scaywy things that might happen to them…. all staged by undergraduate flagellants who so badly want approval by their faculty lords. It’s so predictable. Who knows? Maybe they’ll get lucky and BC will have an article written by that bastion of the “free” press, Rolling Stone Magazine.
“HIre Education”…. can be so very disappointing when it’s privileged class of faculty parakeets (and they know who they are) start cheeping and peeping about “their” society. They are proof to me that the wrong fetuses were aborted.
Who knows, may even get a Mizzou-like poop swastica on a bathroom wall that will be cleaned up before evidence can be documented
The names are above. Pick a name and find it on Facebook or Twitter. Send some “accurate media”. Post the name you sent to and type DONE
Treseanne Ainsworth (Facebook) DONE
Charles Derber, DONE
So what is hate speech? Anyone who disagrees with “educated” professors?
So is there anything we can say?
‘Substantive social justice and political transformation’ …. any professor who co-signed this letter should be embarrassed by the vague meaningless demands it made.
Liars lie. Trump is showing everyone that the king has no clothes.
And while he is at it he’s sitting on your collective faces to prove to you that you prefer it when a half-white poser does it and tells you that reason you can’t see is because of global warming.
Outrage Porn Exhibit A:
(Courtesy of Faculty for Justice Twit Allison Adair, English, Boston College)
” At stake at this historical juncture are not only the rights of women and minoritized groups, but the future of our planet, the welfare of the poor, and many other matters of urgent concern. ”
Minoritized? WTF. Shouldn’t edit such rhetoric while pounding the pinot and droppin’ oxy, Dr. Adair.
As a veteran of campus culture wars, affirmative action travesties, and perpetual outrage by the privileged academic elites of the American political Left, it never fails to amuse me that these well-paid, dilletantes go to absurd lengths to perch on the head of a pin that *NO ONE* who is struggling to survive, feed their kids, save for retirement, and build a life give a flying f.uck about.
Allison Adair— I am calling you out for promoting the same brand of inconsequential douche baggery that has been perpetrated on college campuses since the days of the free speech movement at Cal Berkeley in the 60s. It has led to a wholesale degradation of your education, the quality of the American university, and blindness to the greatest hoax ever played on the American people.
Congratulations, you are members of a marginalized fringe party without vision, substance, or political guts to move the nation forward.
Thank you for playing. At least one American is calling out your stale, dried out bull shitake. It might make for dreamy looks from hazy suburban sophomores— but it doesn’t play with a silent majority that has more work ethic in our pinkie fingers than any of you degenerates have in your entire family history.
Have a wonderful time during the next four years as sand castle legacies *eat the big one.*
My will is just about to get modified. BC will be removed from it completely. I was stupid enough to give away 100% of all my real estate, stock holdings and other assets to BC to create a scholarship. That is my humble contribution to the 1st Amendment. My single vote. Having escaped from a communist country, I WILL not support any kind of socialist utopias. BC gets $0 from me. Respectfully, BC MBA Alumni
Instead of signing it “faculty for justice” it would have been more appropriate if they signed it Totalitarians-R-Us.
You’d think the Marxists would have the common decency to let the man be inaugurated before launching an all out whine on Trump and the First Amendment. No matter, Trotsky wasn’t very couth either. Our hate speech haters might also try banning the color pink cause when the new sheriff rolls into town the days of federally funded garbage like womyn’s studies and diaspora studies become as anacharistic as their Mao suits pink slips are sure to follow. And how convenient of write out the layoff roll by name and department. The Left is dying — and eating their own — but could they bleat a little quieter. The rest of us are getting fitted for the great America that is here.
When you condemn the ACTUAL violence from the left, I may listen, but then I am smarter than you( I didn’t go to college).
I hate stupid pseudointellectuals who use the term, hate speech.
And, I hate liars.
I like Trump.
To the editors: Strike “to Trump Rhetoric”; Insert “First Amendment.”
Oh my, the Safe-Space University System is malignant.
Meanwhile, who were the groups that disproportionately ATTACKED people physically?
Who were the people that spit on, hit, threatened, attacked cops, damaged property, stopped traffic, acted like TERRORISTS toward their political rivals?
It was the DEMOCRATS, by a 10-1 margin. But yeah “Hate Speech”…FU CK YOU
A liberal college banning the 1A, while ranting about rights.
They don’t even the intelligence and awareness to grasp the humor, tragedy & irony here.
The Goebbels 50 and their oppression!
Trump exposed the left in ways none of us could fathom. The left is forced to be honest about how they hate civil right, and hate fair elections. The left is attacking people because of their political beliefs all over this country! The left is being caught for hate crime hoaxes all over the country!
Thank God for Trump!
“It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words.”
―
George Orwell,
1984
Figures that vast majority of signers are women. Useless over-emotional hysterics. What
is it with women faculty members ? And not even one of them from a home economics program.
I’m sure theses “professors” at the Boston Snowflake Factory are all for about stopping the violent and hateful inciting rhetoric against Trump supporters….
“Minoritized Groups”?
WTF is that?
Have these imbeciles cited any violence or hate? do they have any legitamate examples
My son is discussing a sports scholarship with BC
I guess they have helped us decide….
Zero tolerance… Zero! Red flag, red flag, red flag.
Should not academia substantiate and document their viewpoints? I see none of that in this letter, just hateful emotion. Are we sure that professors wrote this? Sounds more like it was written by a angry child. Is the snowflake generation old enough to be professors?
That letter should embarrass any intelligent student. Aside from misstating facts, the message is: “We support everybody’s right to agree with us, but there should be a zero-tolerance policy for other points of view.” If you need to prevent those with whom you do not agree from speaking, because you can’t win the debate on the merits of your own position, you are probably wrong.
Unwilling to listen to opposing viewpoints that’s the biggest number one sign of brainwashing that there is.
BC faculty think this a Pre-Trump world. They don’t realize that there is a movement towards national self-interest. sovereignty and American values. They can’t get away with this inflammatory rhetoric and not be called on it
How come Obamas hate talk is never band
He’s hate talk about law-enforcement his hate talk against people that believe in their religion and much more
This letter seems like a pretty clear cut felony to me: conspiracy to deny the 1st Amendment protected speech rights of others under the color of law. USC 18, 242.
These evil morons should by fired and arrested.
This faculty letter is anti-white, anti-male, anti-heterosexual, anti-American, anti-Christian and anti-gentile.
Fascist professors who want to suppress free speech…
Just about every few days, another “hate crime” is exposed as a hoax.
If not for the Fake Hate Crimes that people perpetrate “to make a point”, there would be hardly any Hate Crimes.
LOL!
Look at the title of the Profs. Only ONE is a hard science. The rest are various “Studies”.
The faculty of BC and other universities across the nation are reigning over cesspools of hate for any and all do not agree with their Stalinist thinking. The days are coming to an end for the corrupt, arrogant, pompous, ignorant and intellectually dishonest faculty members.
Hopefully Trump will find ways to give grants only to productive faculty, like in the sciences and for only projects that serve the needs of OUR country and culture, and deny the Humanities/Social Sciences free money for nothing but promoting hate and division