How professors, led by Winthrop Poll director, pushed back on dean’s ‘Wuhan virus’ article
A month ago, prominent South Carolina Republicans, S.C. Sen. Wes Climer and U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman, descended on a Winthrop University board meeting to argue that the administration’s retraction of a dean’s opinion column stifled free speech and silenced conservative thought.
Late last week, Winthrop professors pushed back.
At a Board of the Trustees meeting Friday, political science professor Scott Huffmon asserted that now-retired Dean of Library Services Mark Herring’s column — which referred to the novel coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus” — was not removed in an effort to suppress a conservative opinion, like Climer and Norman suggested. Rather, it was removed because the column’s language was racist.
“It was implied that the removal of the opinion piece was because it was conservative in nature, and the university was preventing the flow of conservative ideas,” Huffmon, who directs the Winthrop Poll initiative, told the board. “I personally reject this claim because as far as I could tell, the opinion piece contained no ideas that were, by their inherent nature, conservative. It was retracted by the publication because it was deemed racist.”
Herring wrote the column, titled “The Wuhan Wilding,” in May, detailing his reaction to the then-unfolding pandemic. Herring referred to the virus by multiple names healthcare professionals have publicly deemed inappropriate, including “Kung flu.” And within a few days of publication in the library science journal Against the Grain, Herring’s piece was taken down.
Against the Grain did not specify why the article was removed. The journal states on its website Herring’s piece was retracted by editors. And days later, Winthrop erased Herring’s piece from the university’s digital archive.
Winthrop’s provost Adrienne McCormick sent an email, obtained by The Herald, to faculty and staff, calling the column “ethnically offensive.” However, she did not name Herring or include any identifying information.
In response, Herring, who retired in June, said on Twitter he was “censored” by the university.
“When we got the email from Dr. McCormick, nobody knew who she was referring to or what she was referring to,” Jeannie Haubert, a sociology professor at Winthrop, told The Herald after Friday’s board meeting. “I took it as a reaffirmation of Winthrop values, but nobody knew the specific circumstances or the person behind it.
“I agree that it was not made public, that it was Mark Herring’s piece until Mark Herring made it public.”
‘The article was blatantly racist’
Friday, Huffmon argued that it would have been impossible for McCormick and the university to “censor” Herring as his piece no longer existed after Against the Grain retracted it.
“To house an unpublished opinion in a scholarly archive seems nonsensical,” Huffmon said. “If I were to simply write, ‘I think bacon is good,” and send it to the digital commons, it would have as much merit as the unpublished ‘Wuhan Wilding’ opinion piece.”
Huffmon also cited a statement from the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association that condemned Herring’s piece shortly after it was published.
“The article was blatantly racist and xenophobic during a time in our country when discrimination, racism and hate crimes against Asians and Asian Pacific Americans are on the rise,” the statement said. “People of all races and ethnicities — including Asian and Asian Pacific Americans — are dying and to trivialize the disease by calling it by racist names like the ‘Wuhan virus’ and ‘Kung flu’ is the epitome of ignorance and white supremacy in our profession.”
Huffmon told the board he’s taught and currently teaches both liberal and conservative students, and the university, particularly the political science department, welcomes an array of political thought and the retraction of Herring’s writing does not suggest otherwise.
“I am more disturbed by the claim that removing a racist piece from the digital commons somehow amounted to silencing a conservative voice,” Huffmon said. “This, in my opinion, is patently absurd and, frankly, disgusting. Racism has no place in true conservative thought.”
At the August board meeting, Herring stood by his piece. He acknowledged that several people had told him that his comments in the article “pointed to so-called casual racism,” but he said he does not consider himself a racist.
Professors stand by Huffmon
Although he didn’t solicit support, about a dozen faculty members attended Friday’s meeting to stand with Huffmon.
“I only told three people I was going to do this, and one of them is not even here,” Huffmon told The Herald. “People were coming in and saying ‘Oh I’m here for your speech,’ and I was like, ‘How the heck did you know I was giving a speech?’ I did not tell anybody.”
Haubert attended the meeting and said she found out about Huffmon’s speech from several other professors. She said faculty did not know Republicans would be speaking at the earlier board meeting, and had they known, more faculty would have been present to refute the politicians’ comments.
“It’s very difficult for faculty to attend board meetings,” Haubert told The Herald. “It was particularly difficult for faculty to attend the last board meeting because it was held on the first day of classes.”
Casey Cothran, chair of Winthrop’s English department, said she attended the meeting to stand in solidarity with Huffmon, but more specifically her Asian-American colleagues and students, who may have been offended by Herring’s words.
“We do support a diversity of ideas, but I don’t think we support hurtful speech toward minority groups,” Cothran told The Herald. “That’s my concern is that that kind of hurtful document had been described as a conservative document. And I thought Dr. Huffmon did an excellent job pointing out, as a conservative, that he did not see this as a conservative document.”
Winthrop’s response
After the Republican lawmakers and Herring made their comments at the August meeting, without opposition, the board voted to implement its resolution to “affirm Winthrop’s commitment to freedom of speech.”
Board chairman Glenn McCall told The Herald Monday that the board does not intend to take any more action related to the matter.
“As it relates to a specific matter that Dr. Scott (Huffmon) had brought to us, that matter has been addressed through the president’s office and the provost, and we have moved on,” McCall, a member of the South Carolina Republican National Committee, told The Herald in a phone call earlier this week. “We passed our freedom of speech resolution and everyone on campus has that right, and of course, those who come to public comment. That’s what that period is for.”
Alex Zietlow contributed reporting.
This story was originally published September 30, 2020 at 7:44 AM.
