An Ivy League professor is at the epicenter of a Twitter storm after suggesting Uvalde police were slow in responding to the slaughter at Robb Elementary and allowed children to die because many of the students were Mexican American and Texas police “don’t give a damn” about “brown kids.”
In a now-deleted tweet, Anthea Butler, an associate professor of Religious Studies and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of the book White Evangelical Racism, responded to news that local police waited for over an hour to storm the fourth-grade classroom in which the shooter had locked himself with a racist attack on Texans.
“So since no one else will ask, I will,” she wrote. “Did those children die because most of them were Mexican American and the police didn’t give a damn about a school w predominately brown kids? I mean, because it’s Texas.. and if you think everyone who isn’t white is illegal..”
The condemnation came quickly.
“Disgusting,” wrote one user.
Anthea Butler – in a now deleted tweet from a newly locked down profile…
Disgusting
She teaches at @Penn and works with MSNBC. Big surprise. pic.twitter.com/gjhnxYglTe— Sue N 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@SueNez75) May 29, 2022
In a blog, George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley noted that “Professor Butler has a long history of offensive racial statements” and said the MSNBC contributor’s “suggestion of racism was even more offensive given the stories of officers with children at the school and among the dead.”
While Butler’s comments may be reprehensible, Turley believes her “disgraceful tweet” should fall under the protection and principles of “free speech and academic freedom.”
But as Turley points out, Butler’s tweet “is another example of the double standard often applied at universities, which are quick to investigate, discipline, or fire conservative, libertarian, or dissenting faculty members in such controversies.”
University of Pennsylvania professor Anthea Butler is at the center of another controversy after suggesting that the Uvalde police “didn’t give a damn” about the children because they were “predominantly brown kids.”https://t.co/vOzTUXYReK
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 29, 2022
“The support enjoyed by faculty on the far left is in sharp contrast to the treatment given faculty with moderate, conservative or libertarian views,” Turley writes. “Anyone who raises such dissenting views is immediately set upon by a mob demanding their investigation or termination.”
“This includes blocking academics from speaking on campuses like a recent Classics professor due to their political views,” he continues. “Conservatives and libertarians understand that they have no cushion or protection in any controversy, even if it involves a single, later deleted tweet.”
While Butler’s many racist remarks may be Constitutionally protected, they are also all-too-often irrational.
According to Professor Watchlist, a website dedicated to exposing and documenting “college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom, “Butler claimed that evangelicals believe the police are ‘ordained’ by God to kill black people.”
In her book, White Evangelical Racism, Butler argues that “the history of Christianity in the United States is interwoven with the institution of slavery and support of the Ku Klux Klan,” the website reports.
Online, Twitter users have pushed back against Butler so fiercely and effectively, the professor has now protected her tweets.
“@AntheaButler you are a horrific human being,” wrote one user.
“Anthea Butler seems to be a mind-reading, closed minded race hustler,” tweeted another. “Congrats UPenn.”
“Anthea Butler is the new kind of College intellectual racist, dumb and absolutely wrong,” a third replied, while a fourth said, “These are horrible people attempting daily to divide us.”
“The only acceptable answer for many today is race,” said yet another. “That is all they see. Around every corner. The specifics of the situation do not matter. This is a clear example — and from a highly educated educator.”
@AntheaButler you are a horrific human being.
— JLH (@JLH0008) May 29, 2022
Anthea Butler seems to be a mind reading, closed minded race hustler. Congrats UPenn.
— MATTHEW PANARELLA (@PanarellaDVM) May 29, 2022
https://twitter.com/johncxgx/status/1530868709593686016?s=20&t=sYeDvK5w7ZaZkIqKHSc5Sg
The only acceptable answer for many today is race. That is all they see. Around every corner. The specifics of the situation do not matter. This is a clear example – and from a highly educated educator.
— TheAngryMiddle (@angry_middle) May 29, 2022
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