It seems like Temple University is becoming synonymous with controversy after a barrage of incidents and scandals involving the university in the past few years.
Last semester, Temple’s trustees took aim at Marc Lamont Hill, whose comments on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stirred national outcry. Chairman Patrick O’Connor said because of Hill the university could stand to lose significant funding from donors.
But did he forget the $5.4 million-and-growing price tag on the Fox School of Business’ data reporting scandal? Or the two years of Bill Cosby’s trial, during which Temple — unlike dozens of other schools — refused to take any action until a jury returned a guilty verdict?
What about the ongoing conflict between Temple and our North Philadelphia neighbors as the school pushes for an on-campus stadium? There was also that time former president Neil Theobald fired former provost Hai-Lung Dai, the Board voted no confidence in Theobald, and Dai then sued the president.
“One more headline risk or legal risk with Temple, I’m withdrawing my promise gift,” alumna Ronnyjane Goldsmith told The Temple News. Goldsmith agreed to donate $2 million to the university at the time of her death, a hefty individual donation that could be in jeopardy.
She said liabilities before Hill’s speech, like Temple’s proposed stadium and cuts to Temple Athletics in 2014, had already put her donation on shaky ground.
While Temple’s current controversies will have a lasting impact, it’s inaccurate for O’Connor and the Board to claim Hill’s comments are the main reason for donors losing confidence in the university. Internal missteps have been leading up to this moment for years, and several donors’ testimonials are evidence of this.
Hill’s comments are simply one more challenge for the university added to an existing pile of reputational problems. Instead of pointing fingers and laying the blame on one man, the university should instead focus on improving and moving forward after each controversy.
I am dismayed by both what is in this editorial—a broad-brush attack on the Trustees’ work—and what isn’t: recognition that Marc Lamont Hill should be fired ASAP because he is a vile anarchist who incessantly demonstrates moral turpitude (by consistently fomenting violence) and violates his contract (by inter alia failing to disclaim explicitly that he is a Temple spokesperson).
While Trustees donating personal time and money to promote education and research are besmirched, crass ignorance is championed by an Editorial Board that has FAILED to perform due diligence scrutiny of Hill’s admittedly-“radical” speeches that overtly undermine rule-of-law while advocating abolition of prisons and the policemen who protect the citizenry. [https://tinyurl.com/y2dmrpgo]
Notwithstanding his support for Jew-hating Farrakhan, his advocacy for the destruction of the State of Israel, and his devotion to a cop-killer fugitive … Hill conveyed disdain for the need to optimize quality “communication” in the “media” regarding “urban” affairs—undermining both the spirit and the letter of his departmental responsibilities—when he led a “F*** CNN” chant on 1/17/2019 (which starts @ 2 minute mark). [https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=marc+lamont+hill+youtube+2019&view=detail&mid=138F546FCA36F6B0E32E138F546FCA36F6B0E32E&FORM=VIRE]
He claimed that Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. actually emulated the views of Malcolm X WITHOUT citing a source, characteristic of promotion of the intersectionality of his self-image, the Black Palestinian; he wants oppressed peoples around the world, particularly fellow Muslims, to do MORE than to emulate the non-violence of MLK-Jr. and Gandhi. [https://tinyurl.com/yd4m6np4]
Trustees can multitask, to wit, that they can be “pointing fingers and laying the blame on one man” when condemnation is indicated AND can continue to “focus on improving and moving forward after each controversy” pursuant to their duties as mandated by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
{Documentation cited herein was provided personally by its author to two Temple-News reporters at the NW corner of Broad St. and Cecil Bassett Moore Ave. at the terminus of a pro-Hill march; he was not contacted thereafter and these trenchant data were not conveyed in any subsequent article on this topic.}
It is greatly appreciated that this letter was published; it would be a source of GREATER appreciation were it to prompt publication of a probe of the rhetoric MLH has been promulgating, as detailed in multiple letters available on the Internet @ the above sites.