FIRE Investigates ASU

And ASU's Press Release

In my previous post, I looked at the bullet points ASU was sending the media. Now ASU has a press release. Much of it is the same, but I want to look at a couple of the new additions ASU made:

This is an especially troubling statement: “ASU employee Ann Atkinson has lost the distinction between feelings and fact in her recent comments about what prompted her loss of employment at the T.W. Lewis Center at Arizona State University.” That sounds like she is being dismissed because she is too emotional. Ms. Atkinson gave many facts in her WSJ article; why didn’t ASU respond to those instead of insulting her?

“Ms. Atkinson is correct that this event was opposed by many faculty, students and others who are part of the ASU community. She is right to say that this opposition was vocal. This is not uncommon in a university setting.” No Oxford Comma? And what is uncommon is that people are let go because of this. Ms. Atkinson had secured funding for the Center for the coming year. ASU isn’t looking at why Lewis pulled funding. They should list the insults ASU faculty called Lewis. Free speech? Sure, at the third-grade level. This is a university. Provide a robust argument.

“As a public university, ASU is committed to free, robust and uninhibited sharing of ideas among all members of the university’s community. The university values and adheres to the First Amendment to the U.S Constitution, which provides freedom of speech. These values apply to the students and other members of our community who helped to organize the speaker program -- and to the faculty who expressed strong opinions about the event.” The faculty who expressed strong opinions used class time, insulted the speakers as bigots and white nationalists, and took down all advertising for the event. Does ASU support this?

FIRE is opening an investigation into ASU’s conduct here. FIRE has supported me this semester and addressed the chilling effect at ASU. I’m looking forward to seeing the outcome of their investigation.

.