President of Lyon College Now Being Ousted Over Comments in CHE

[apl68]

W. Joseph King, President of Lyon College in Batesville, Arkansas, has been forced to resign after comments he made in a CHE interview to the effect of the region being a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan and Trump activity angered the community.


https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2021/08/26/joey-king-resigns-as-president-of-lyon-college


I can't read or link to the CHE article, but apparently some of his comments were both inflammatory and untrue.  For one thing, he evidently spoke of a mass Trump rally, complete with Confederate flags, etc. that didn't actually happen.  King says that CHE misquoted him.  They say they didn't.


https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2021/08/23/lyon-college-president-on-the-hot-seat-for-remarks-about-white-supremacists-trump


Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist John Brummett, who is the farthest thing from a conservative firebrand or Trump apologist (And whom I also can't link to here), has taken King to task for needlessly antagonizing his region's community.  Based on what I know about the situation, it does seem that King's comments were unfair to the people in the region.  He apparently already had detractors on the faculty as well.  The flap over the CHE article may have been something of a last straw.

[Hibush]

The comments in the 23 August article in the local paper suggest that locals know he was stating the obvious when he said "While Lyon and the surrounding Batesville community might be welcoming and inclusive, we cannot pretend to expect the same in all areas of the state."

[mahagonny]

How does one prove he is inclusive? Does someone give you a badge with a score on it that you can wear to avoid trouble?
I expect we will see a lot more problems of this sort in the future.
ETA: People are getting sick and tired of academics telling them and others how everyone rates, morally. I don't blame them.

[Hegemony]

Yeah, people calling racism exclusionary — how could they? Outrageous! Judgmental!

[marshwiggle]

Yeah, people calling racism exclusionary — how could they? Outrageous! Judgmental!

I think mahagonny's point was that in our current climate, no-one can safely claim to be "inclusive", since anything from the name of a building to the kind of food served on campus can be deemed "racist" or at the very least "problematic". (In fact, calling oneself "inclusive" is probably itself an example  of "privilege".)

[mahagonny]

Yeah, people calling racism exclusionary — how could they? Outrageous! Judgmental!

Instead of throwing stones, which I'm tempted to do, I'll just let you know what question was prompted in my mind.
Does anyone doubt by now that liberal academics, which in humanities is something like 29 of 30, as a rule, consider rural whites in such states as Arkansas to some kind of inferior species?

[ciao_yall]

Pretty obnoxious to diss one's community like that. Someone slept through "Town and Gown 101."

[mahagonny]

Pretty obnoxious to diss one's community like that. Someone slept through "Town and Gown 101."

1. Respect is earned not coerced. 'White supremacy' is a fringe thing. Those people, what few of them there are, are ostracized. Yet we hear about them all the time. No names. Who are they? Where are they meeting? Do they even have a slogan? Nevetheless 'white supremacy' is still being portrayed as a looming threat by certain academics, Hollywood preachers and others who are in the racism gold rush. It's getting very stale. This mania doesn't get my respect.

2. Laying aside the obvious, that higher ed workforce claims to community hood are weak, which community am I required to belong to? Someone has relatives in Arkansas.

3. The college president has dissed his state. They don't think much of it either. Surprised?

[Hegemony]

Instead of throwing stones, which I'm tempted to do, I'll just let you know what question was prompted in my mind.
Does anyone doubt by now that liberal academics, which in humanities is something like 29 of 30, as a rule, consider rural whites in such states as Arkansas to some kind of inferior species?

Hahahaha, I actually am a liberal humanities person is a very rural town in a state like Arkansas. The only people I consider not up to par are those with an obsessive bee in their bonnet about various groups.

[mahagonny]

Instead of throwing stones, which I'm tempted to do, I'll just let you know what question was prompted in my mind.
Does anyone doubt by now that liberal academics, which in humanities is something like 29 of 30, as a rule, consider rural whites in such states as Arkansas to some kind of inferior species?

Hahahaha, I actually am a liberal humanities person is a very rural town in a state like Arkansas. The only people I consider not up to par are those with an obsessive bee in their bonnet about various groups.

If that's a reference to me you understand perfectly. Thank you. I don't like what the academic culture has been doing to race relations. With some exceptions of course. Glenn Loury, Carol Swain, John McWhorter, Wilfred Reilly are wonderful, sane people to read and listen to.
ETA: Whereas apple's opening post acknowledges Dr. Joey King may be a bit off the rails, we agree. I can't access the CHE article either. If faculty are not defending him for misstatements of fact, that's good.

[spork]

Lyon College continues to operate only because it received $56 million in contributions in FY 2020, compared to less than $2 million in FY 2019. This effectively doubled its endowment to $75 million. Its annual total expenses are about $27 million, and tuition revenue doesn't come anywhere close to that. For FYs 2017 through 2019, it had multimillion dollar deficits of up to 25% of its operating budget.

Lyon is a sinking ship and the trustees decided to give its captain a severance package instead of letting him go down with it.

[kaysixteen]

Where might this school have gotten 26x more donations in 2020 than it was able to get only one year earlier?

[apl68]

Where might this school have gotten 26x more donations in 2020 than it was able to get only one year earlier?

I don't know a great deal about the place (It's in-state, but nowhere near here).  I'd guess they did some kind of emergency rescue fundraising push that invoked the COVID emergency.  If Lyon has been running structural deficits of the sort that spork identifies, and they've now tapped their alumni to the fullest extent that's feasible, then they're probably not going to last many more years.

All this tends to confirm the sense that the controversy the school's president stirred through his ill-considered comments was only the last straw that broke this camel's back.

[mahagonny]

Where might this school have gotten 26x more donations in 2020 than it was able to get only one year earlier?

I don't know a great deal about the place (It's in-state, but nowhere near here).  I'd guess they did some kind of emergency rescue fundraising push that invoked the COVID emergency.  If Lyon has been running structural deficits of the sort that spork identifies, and they've now tapped their alumni to the fullest extent that's feasible, then they're probably not going to last many more years.

All this tends to confirm the sense that the controversy the school's president stirred through his ill-considered comments was only the last straw that broke this camel's back.

Princeton, where the real kick-ass race baiting takes place, is still in business though and its finances are fat and sassy. (This probably deserves its own thread)

Dreher:
"This guy, Padilla Peralta, and his colleagues are the tormentors of Joshua Katz, and the radical ideologues valorized by Princeton University's leadership. The university wants incoming freshmen to adopt these radicals' views on the university, and on education. It is unconscionable, and it is profoundly decadent.

Imagine being Joshua Katz, returning to semester this fall to a campus whose freshman class has been instructed by the university to regard you as a racist. What an evil place Princeton is becoming."

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/persecution-propaganda-princeton-joshua-katz-racism/