George Washington U. President Pressured to Resign Over Supposedly Racist Remarks
“More than 100 faculty members want University President Thomas LeBlanc to resign. We agree.”
As you’ll read below, it sounds like this anger is really about the president’s unwillingness to divest from fossil fuels.
Campus Reform reports:
GW president pressured to resign after ‘racist remarks’
More than 100 faculty members at George Washington University have signed a petition circulated by the GWU Faculty Association demanding that the university’s president, Thomas LeBlanc, resign immediately.
Disapproval and frustration expressed by faculty and students had already been growing; however, in early February, after a first-year student asked LeBlanc whether the school would divest from fossil fuels if most students favored doing so. “Doesn’t matter,” LeBlanc responded. “What if the majority of the students agreed to shoot all the black people here? Do I say, ‘Ah, well, the majority voted?’ No.”
This sparked outrage among students and faculty, prompting calls for his resignation.
The petition goes on to list other reasons for demanding LeBlanc’s resignation.
“We understand LeBlanc’s comment to be just the latest evidence of his disregard for both diversity and democracy at GW,” the petition states. It goes on to list several items dating back to the beginning of his administration, one of which would reduce undergraduate enrollment by 20 percent while increasing the percentage of students in STEM programs by 30 percent. The frustrations expressed by the faculty stressed the decrease in diversity and harm to the humanities departments along with the lack of transparency between the president and the faculty.
The Editorial Board for GW’s student newspaper, The GW Hatchet, even weighed in on the calls for LeBlanc’s resignation in an editorial titled, “LeBlanc was never the right fit for the University”. The first line of the piece states, “More than 100 faculty members want University President Thomas LeBlanc to resign. We agree.” It also goes on to address the “laundry list of reasons” for the president to resign.
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Comments
“What if the majority of the students agreed to shoot all the black people here? Do I say, ‘Ah, well, the majority voted?’ No.”
Maybe he should have (hypothetically) said “yes”.
If he had said something about shooting all the White students, there wouldn’t be such an uproar. To the contrary, he would be celebrated.
.
“The frustrations expressed by the faculty stressed the decrease in diversity and harm to the humanities departments”
There you go….that’s your story line, not fossil fuel divestment. I think you buried the lede. I suspected this was the real issue when I saw “cutting enrollment by 20% while raising STEM majors by 30%”.
However, it was just stupid to say what he said, especially in a contested environment.
He doesn’t seem that stupid. Perhaps he did it on purpose to angle for a buyout?
If you think about it, it’s a perfect kind of remark for a buyout. If they tried to terminate him over it, he’d have a slam dunk wrongful termination suit for it. However, in the wokeness bubble, it’s the kind of un-PC statement that may make it worth the severance to the university to avoid that bad PR.
This article illustrates why, as a graduate of GW’s law school, I have ceased donating to the institution. Its students and faculty (with the exception of Turley and one or two others in the law school) are anti-intellectual idiots posing as intellectuals.
I’ve stopped donating to my alma mater for the same reason. I got sick and tired of the woke bragging by the faculty.
As another GW Law graduate, I echo your comment. Same with my undergrad alma mater, although I do support the rowing program.
Clearly, LeBlanc used a poor choice of words. Instead, he should have told students that the management of College affairs is the responsibility of the Trustees and the Administration who have a long term perspective and experience. Students don’t get to make those types of decisions. After all, students are there a few years than gone.
Huh? I don’t get it. How can anyone spin that as racist?
Someone with no contextual reading fluency.
Those people are idiots. That’s how.
He doesn’t fit because he’s rational and not part of the mob de jour.
The word “diversity” itself has become a code name for an anti-intellectual leftist agenda with no deviation allowed. Like “aryan,” “proletariat,” “eugenic,” and “colonial,” one can be reasonably sure that whatever statements accompany it are misrepresentations or outright lies. Such words—and the ideas that accompany them—should be banned from academic discourse.
Can’t he just invoke “LeBlanc privilege”? Oh, wait … that doesn’t exist.
How about the MelBlanc Privilege? (“Ain’t I a stinkah?”)
Poor George Washington.
I think they should rename the school PATRICE LUMUMBA UNIVERSITY.
Much more appropriate.
That name’s already taken. How about Mummia the Cop-Killer University?