Professor Removes Tweet About Justice Sotomayor

[simpleSimon]

Professor Removes Tweet About Justice Sotomayor
By Scott Jaschik

A professor at George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School has removed his entire Twitter account and apologized for a tweet about Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

The tweet, according to Above the Law, was about the leaked draft this week of a Supreme Court decision. Frank Buckley, the professor, tweeted, "So the question is, why was it leaked. Because doing so makes it harder to persuade one of the members of the majority to pull a Roberts. So which was it—a crafty conservative or a stupid Latina?"

Ken Randall, the Allison and Dorothy Rouse Dean of the law school, sent an email to the law school in which he said, "Last night one of our colleagues, Professor Frank Buckley, sent a tweet from his personal account that uses language not reflective of the law school's or the university's values. I have received many emails expressing upset, hurt, and concern. Many of us found the language discourteous and racially insensitive at best."

He said, "The executive team is meeting and fully reviewing this matter."

Randall also said Buckley had apologized for the tweet: "I regret that my foolish remarks have caused great sadness. I fully support the principle of inclusion and respect for every student."

The president of George Mason, Gregory Washington, sent a campuswide email that did not name Buckley. "Earlier today, a member of the Mason faculty shared a personal opinion on Twitter that does not represent the inclusive community that we as a university should strive to achieve at all times. We appreciate, foster, and welcome diversity of background and perspectives, and dialogue that builds on the merits of a civil society, makes us stronger as individuals, and allows us the great successes we have achieved so far. Definitive divisive language does the opposite and will tear down our efforts to be part of something greater than ourselves, and our ability to create something greater for society," Washington said.

Via email, Buckley told Inside Higher Ed, "I agree entirely with the beliefs about diversity and inclusion expressed by the president of my university and very much regret any pain caused by my thoughtless comment."

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2022/05/06/professor-removes-tweet-about-justice-sotomayor
https://abovethelaw.com/2022/05/law-professor-responds-to-supreme-court-leak-with-racist-commentary-gee-i-wonder-which-law-school/

[simpleSimon]

Why do people like law professor Frank Buckley make hostile racist comments/posts only to turn around and tell us that he is not racist and supports the principles of inclusion and respect?  Does he really expect anyone to believe that?  Is this just a "cover your ass" maneuver because he fears retribution from his employer or blow back from colleagues and students?  Rushing to delete a tweet does not erase the sentiment behind it... and it doesn't really delete it either because the tweet was screen captured and widely shared.

[apl68]

Twitter really does seem to make people stupid by encouraging thoughtless and impulsive communications.  The old word "Twitterpated" comes to mind.  We all say stupid things that we immediately find ourselves wishing we could take back.  How much long-term harm these stupid things do depends on how many people hear them and how much grace and understanding they are willing to extend to us when we try to apologize.  Thanks to Twitter and many, many other social media platforms, it is now ludicrously easy to say stupid things for the whole world to see, things that will never go away the way episodes of mere verbal stupidity sometimes can, and which will be seen by many who will never extend any grace or forgiveness.  It's why I stay away from social media, apart from the occasional message board like this one.

[simpleSimon]

apl68:
Your point is well taken.  Still, a random utterance in conversation (perhaps over a cocktail) is very different from the deliberate effort one has to go to in order to scribe and post a tweet isn't it?  As someone who does not tweet, I often wonder what motivates these abbreviated screeds.  Vanity and narcissism certainly come to mind, yet it all comes undone when the effort predictably backfires, and the poster hastily deletes the tweet or, as in this case, removes his entire twitter account—drawing even more attention to the offensive post which has been copied and widely shared.  With a few key strokes Buckley has undermined his professional credibility, jeopardized his career, and painted himself as racially hostile toward one person in particular and all Latinos (students) in general.  Who in his right mind would want to be in his classroom now?

[Puget]

This tweet did not happen by accident-- the obvious parallel to "conservative" in that sentence was "liberal", which would have made it unexceptional. Instead, he chose to type what he typed.

George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School

This tracks.

[financeguy]

This is an absurd comment, but slightly less offensive if one knows the context is mocking her own "wise Latina" statement.

[Hibush]

This tweet did not happen by accident-- the obvious parallel to "conservative" in that sentence was "liberal", which would have made it unexceptional. Instead, he chose to type what he typed.

George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School

This tracks.

George Mason has been working on becoming a hub for conservative legal scholarship. That is a reasonable area to develop strength. The name of the law school is consistent with that goal.

They have had some challenges with donors who are not that interested in scholarship, and seem to recognize those challenges.

That tension does make observers note whether faculty tweets are scholarly or Kochian dog whistles. Clever allusions on Twitter may not play to a receptive audience.

[Parasaurolophus]

This tweet did not happen by accident-- the obvious parallel to "conservative" in that sentence was "liberal", which would have made it unexceptional. Instead, he chose to type what he typed.

George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School

This tracks.

Yup, totally.

[Parasaurolophus]

This tweet did not happen by accident-- the obvious parallel to "conservative" in that sentence was "liberal", which would have made it unexceptional. Instead, he chose to type what he typed.

George Mason University's Antonin Scalia Law School

This tracks.

Yup, totally.

Twitter really does seem to make people stupid by encouraging thoughtless and impulsive communications.  The old word "Twitterpated" comes to mind. 

I'd never heard it before. Thanks! It's really not bad.

[dismalist]

Twitter really does seem to make people stupid by encouraging thoughtless and impulsive communications.  The old word "Twitterpated" comes to mind.

Marsh Mcluhan explicated that: The medium is the message.

I've long thought what he meant was that various media have different comparative advantages, a term from international trade theory. Not that you can't write the Bible on Twitter, but it's relatively more effective to curse at somebody in an under 280 word tweet than to make a long thread and write the Bible. Thusly, Twitter attracts that stuff -- people who curse and material that curses, not write the Bible. Not exclusively, of course, but more than other media.

This is not terribly far fetched. McLuhan likely absorbed the broader idea from Harald Innis, the grandfather of Canadian economics, who was also into communications. Marsh took a course or courses from Innis in Toronto. They may even have been house neighbors. They corresponded just before Innis' death. Marsh certainly read Innis' work.

As I said on another thread, I do not tweet.

[marshwiggle]

Twitter really does seem to make people stupid by encouraging thoughtless and impulsive communications.  The old word "Twitterpated" comes to mind.

Marsh Mcluhan explicated that: The medium is the message.

...

As I said on another thread, I do not tweet.

Sizing Up Twitter Users

Some interesting results:

Twitter users are younger, more likely to identify as Democrats, more highly educated and have higher incomes than U.S. adults overall. Twitter users also differ from the broader population on some key social issues. For instance, Twitter users are somewhat more likely to say that immigrants strengthen rather than weaken the country and to see evidence of racial and gender-based inequalities in society.

The median user tweets just twice each month, but a small cohort of extremely active Twitter users posts with much greater regularity. As a result, much of the content posted by Americans on Twitter reflects a small number of authors. The 10% of users who are most active in terms of tweeting are responsible for 80% of all tweets created by U.S. users.

Individuals who are among the top 10% most active tweeters also differ from those who tweet rarely in ways that go beyond the volume of content they produce. Compared with other U.S. adults on Twitter, they are much more likely to be women and more likely to say they regularly tweet about politics.

I have never had a Twitter account, and see no reason to do so.

[Anon1787]

This is an absurd comment, but slightly less offensive if one knows the context is mocking her own "wise Latina" statement.

That is the context. It would have been better to reference the "evil Nino" sobriquet used by one of Blackmun's law clerks while discussing Casey since the source of the leak was probably a law clerk or staff.

[dismalist]

This is an absurd comment, but slightly less offensive if one knows the context is mocking her own "wise Latina" statement.

Good example of what I meant:

Suppose that is correct. I think a James Joyce or William Faulkner is needed to make that clear in under 280 words. Write a law review article. The guy's a moron.

A while back an eminent economist got in trouble for his tweets. There were financial consequences. I think the reaction to his tweets was absurd, but then again, so were his tweets. Write another macro theory paper. Moron. In his case some of his friends claimed he had a difficult personality. Well, yeah, come to Twitter.

And all this tweeting into an environment known to be ideologically hostile [see Marshwiggle, upthread] -- if these tweeters didn't know, they're double morons.

Thank you. I feel much better.

[Caracal]

This is an absurd comment, but slightly less offensive if one knows the context is mocking her own "wise Latina" statement.

Good example of what I meant:

Suppose that is correct. I think a James Joyce or William Faulkner is needed to make that clear in under 280 words. Write a law review article. The guy's a moron.

A while back an eminent economist got in trouble for his tweets. There were financial consequences. I think the reaction to his tweets was absurd, but then again, so were his tweets. Write another macro theory paper. Moron. In his case some of his friends claimed he had a difficult personality. Well, yeah, come to Twitter.

And all this tweeting into an environment known to be ideologically hostile [see Marshwiggle, upthread] -- if these tweeters didn't know, they're double morons.

Thank you. I feel much better.

Well, yes and really that context only helps a little. I can think of a couple of comments I made, among close friends, which still make me wince years later. Nobody else remembers them, because I didn't write them down and post them in some public forum. The moment I said them, I wished I hadn't.  If I'd typed them, I would have erased them right away.  Even here, I keep in mind that there's no absolute degree of anonymity. I've posted things over the years I'm embarrassed about, but nothing that I would worry would get me fired, or that would make me seem like a bigot.

I also just don't really get it...

[Wahoo Redux]

Why do people like law professor Frank Buckley make hostile racist comments/posts only to turn around and tell us that he is not racist and supports the principles of inclusion and respect?  Does he really expect anyone to believe that?  Is this just a "cover your ass" maneuver because he fears retribution from his employer or blow back from colleagues and students?  Rushing to delete a tweet does not erase the sentiment behind it... and it doesn't really delete it either because the tweet was screen captured and widely shared.

He's scared.  There is nothing unusual here.  This belongs on the cancel culture thread.