University Issues Stunning Response After Professor Celebrates Barbara Bush's Death
She’s a professor of literature who doesn’t know what “manners” means.
While the adults of the country acknowledged the loss of former first lady Barbara Bush with respect from the White House on down, a professor at California State University Fresno was taking to social media to cheer about the death of a 92-year-old woman who’d spent her life serving her country.
That was bad. But the university’s response was worse.
Randa Jarrar, a tenured professor at Fresno State, kicked off a lengthy Twitter harangue about Bush’s death Tuesday with an obscene Twitter post. She has since made her Twitter account private, but not before news outlets grabbed screen shots. This is first, from Fox News. (The “f-word” has been redacted here.)
Really classy, right?
In another Twitter post, according to the Fresno Bee, Jarrar bragged about the attention she was getting, and made sure to note that she is both an Arab-American and a Muslim, as though either characteristic gave her the right to disrespect the dead.
“If you’d like to know what it’s like to be an Arab American Muslim American woman with some clout online expressing an opinion, look at the racists going crazy in my mentions right now,” she wrote.
OK, so the woman has some personal problems with the politics of the country. She apparently considers George W. Bush a “war criminal” for defending the United States against Islamic terrorism. It didn’t stop there.
Check out another of Jarrar’s now-protected tweets, as published by Fox News (“s-word” redacted):
She’s an unhinged liberal, in other words, like so many of her fellow instructors in academia (including a fellow Fresno State professor who defaced a pro-life student group’s message on the campus in November).
University administrators, however, are a different story. And that’s what makes the statement by Fresno State President Joseph Castro so appalling.
“On behalf of Fresno State, I extend my deepest condolences to the Bush family on the loss of our former First Lady, Barbara Bush,” the statement said, according to the Fresno Bee. “We share the deep concerns expressed by others over the personal comments made today by professor Randa Jarrar, a professor in the English Department at Fresno State.
“Her statements were made as a private citizen, not as a representative at Fresno State.”
It’s wonderful to know that the university president shares “deep concerns” over a professor calling a grieving family “pieces of s***.” And if a university professor wants to go out to the whole world and say “I’m happy the witch is dead. Can’t wait for the rest of the family to fall to their demise,” it’s great to know her boss wants everyone to know she was speaking as a private citizen.
But here’s the real kicker in Castro’s statement:
“Professor Jarrar’s expressed personal views and commentary are obviously contrary to the core values of our University, which include respect and empathy for individuals with divergent points of view, and a sincere commitment to mutual understanding and progress.”
That’s such a whitewash it’s almost stunning.
Granted, Castro can’t fire Jarrar for simply expressing an opinion (tenure and all that), but he could have the decency to express something a little stronger than shared “concerns” over what is clearly a hate-filled rant.
He could also go a little further than more mealy-mouthed jargon like “respect and empthy,” “a sincere commitment to mutual understanding,” and all the other boilerplate, blathersnot nonsense that passes for academic conversation in 2018.
Morbidly cackling over the death of an elderly woman, and taking open pleasure in the idea of her family’s personal suffering, doesn’t deserve “mutual understanding.” It deserves denunciation, in the strongest possible terms.
Something like conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s no-nonsense response to Jarrar’s rants.
Obviously, a university president in California can’t go as far as predicting Professor Jarrar is facing eternal torment. (A public university president California probably couldn’t even publicly say he believes hell exists and still keep his job.) But something a little more than a limp-wristed expression of concern is definitely in order.
Professor Jarrar obvsiously doesn’t know what “manners” means, which is bad enough.
But her university administration is too weak and insecure to teach her — and that’s even worse.
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