Ball State Prof Urges School to Disinvite MLK Jr. Day Speaker
“None of his talks are positive and unifying … his talks make me sick to my stomach.”
The school has invited Michael Eric Dyson to speak. One professor is objecting on the grounds that Dyson is a divisive figure.
The Star Press reports:
Prof urges BSU to disinvite MLK speaker
A Ball State University professor is calling the school’s choice of a Martin Luther King Jr. Unity Week speaker “a disgrace.”
MLK admirer Ramon Avila, the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Marketing at BSU, told university officials that “it is a disgrace for BSU to honor Dr. King with a man that is known to be so polarizing.”
Avila was referring to MLK speaker Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University sociology professor, a New York Times contributing opinion writer, and reportedly one of the 150 most influential African Americans in the nation.
“Dr. Dyson uses the N-word regularly because he can,” Avila wrote to BSU officials. “You can look him up on YouTube or on the web. None of his talks are positive and unifying … his talks make me sick to my stomach. In light of what the campus went through with John Schnatter, this is a bad message to send across our campus.”
After it was disclosed last year that BSU alumnus “Papa John” Schnatter had said the N-word, Ball State in August stripped his name from an institute and from a distinguished professorship of free enterprise. The school also returned a Schnatter Family Foundation gift of more than $2 million. Many older alumni defended Schnatter.
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Comments
“it is a disgrace for BSU to honor Dr. King with a man that is known to be so polarizing.”
In his time, King was quite polarizing himself. We honor him now anyway.