On Rex Tillerson and Scott Pruitt: A Letter and Video to the House and Senate

Dear Honorable Members of the House and Senate,

First video ever.  I hate it. But desperate times...

My name is Laura, and I am a professor at Western Carolina University in North Carolina. You may remember North Carolina for, in the past, having one of the most stellar public university systems in the nation, and, more recently, as that state that was purchased by the Koch Brothers and then managed by Art Pope and his puppet governor, Pat McCrory, who signed into law some of the most racist, sexist, homophobic legislature in the state’s history. And most recently, even though he lost the election, McCrory and our republican legislature enacted policies to limit the power of our incoming governor Roy Cooper.

Anyway, I thought about simply writing you a letter, but I thought that maybe you’d like to see me, to recognize (possibly) that despite the fact that it’s become clear that in many of your eyes I’m just a woman whose body you fear without cause and whose rights you are actively working to abolish, I’m also a citizen of your country, a constituent to whom you owe your time, your concern, and your service. You are, after all, public servants. 

I am a registered democrat, and I voted for Hillary Clinton. Until you repeal the 19^th amendment (and at this point, I feel that as long as you are rolling over for the Nazi who is advising our president, my right to vote might just go poof along with my right to have an abortion, to obtain health care, to be protected if I’m abused by a man), I will remain a democrat. That said, if you are a republican, my life, my rights, and my livelihood are nonetheless in your care. You have a responsibility to represent all Americans, not just the ones in your party.

And I mean this with the most sincerity imaginable: at this point in history – and particular at this point in our nation’s history – it’s imperative that we stop thinking in terms of the binary oppositions that do nothing more than place us at odds with one another: we are not just republicans or democrats, conservatives or liberals, men or women, native born citizens or immigrants. We are all human beings. We have a lot more in common than not. We owe an ethical obligation to one another, and the divisiveness of party affiliations works only to undermine that fact.  Focusing only on our differences gets in the way of our ability to recognize our commonalities.

Ok, so now that I’ve got us all holding hands and singing kumbaya, let me get to why I’m writing.  I’ll try to be brief, but I have a lot to say, and I hope that you will hear me out.

I am an educator, an English professor.  Despite these things, I’m not really contacting you about Betsy DeVos’s nomination to serve as Secretary of Education or about the fact that there’s talk of eliminating both the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, something I hear excites Paul Ryan to no end.  All of these things are horrific; DeVos is wildly unqualified – but that doesn’t really distinguish her from any of the rest of our president’s cabinet picks, and the attention being placed upon her possible appointment is simply a well-orchestrated distraction to take the focus off of something much, much more terrifying.

I’ll get to that in a minute.  A bit more about me, since you don’t know me and I know lots about many of you: I’m a 46-year-old long distance runner.  I don’t eat meat; I don’t smoke.  I’m one of the healthiest people you’re likely to meet.  In 2013, however, I had a massive heart attack and nearly died; I had to be airlifted from the rural campus where I teach to the cardiac hospital 50 miles away.  I had the heart attack they call the widow maker, and dollars to donuts it would have felled every single man still listening to me. I was definitively diagnosed with Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection (SCAD) a year later by Dr. Sharonne Hayes at the Mayo Clinic.  SCAD is genetic and has nothing to do with lifestyle.  It primarily affects otherwise healthy women who have no risk factors and no history of heart disease.  It’s likely to happen again, by the way, and the next time it happens (if it happens), I probably won’t survive it.

Thank gods that I had health insurance, by the way.  Thank gods that there was funding for medical research.  But as is the case with DeVos et al, I’m not really here to beg for you not to repeal the ACA because it’s clear that you really want to show that black guy who implemented it who’s boss now.  How dare he want to provide the citizens – your constituents – with health care?  He’s a black man!  How uppity of him!  And Steve Bannon, the aforementioned Nazi, says you gotta put that black man in his place, so because you seem to be rolling over and doing whatever he says anyway, you’ll do what you’re going to do.

And I’m not really here to beg you not to cut funding for Planned Parenthood or beg that instead that you tell your constituents that abortion is not subsidized by government funds in the first place, because, just like the uppity black man (I know what you call him, so go ahead and insert the N word in place of “black man” if you want), you gotta put us terrifying women in our place.  Cut the funding for PP, and you will show us for real how much you don’t care about whether we live or die.

As an aside, access to abortion has been a cause of mine for a very long time.  Full disclosure: I’ve never had an abortion, never been placed in the position of having to make such a decision, and for that I’m thankful.  For many women who haven’t had to make that decision, PP has likely played a role, providing affordable contraception, education, and resources.  But you know that already, and many of you don’t care. So whatever, cut funding.  Let our incompetent president and his Nazi advisor give us a supreme court justice that will give Pence, Ryan, and the rest of you so-called “pro-life” men the chance you’ve been waiting for to overturn Roe v. Wade.  Go ahead.

Because right now, I can’t be distracted by this noise either.

But to be clear: around 5 million people marched for women’s rights the day after the election. About 1 in 100 Americans marched.  The women who marched and the men who marched with them are your constituents.  Ignore them if you want, but I wouldn’t if I were you.  And here’s why.

As I said already, I almost died in 2013.  I actually almost died twice, once from the heart attack and then again after surgery when I nearly bled out through the incision in my femoral artery.  And I’m not afraid to die. I’m really not. And I imagine that that’s probably a good thing because if anyone actually watches this video, in addition to being trolled by any number of people who will tell me how ugly I am, I’ll also told that I should get raped and murdered, that I should have died from that heart attack, that, well, any number of other horrors that can be hurled at me because I’m a woman and daring to say something.  The threats to women who say things are getting worse and worse, enabled, certainly, by the rhetoric of our president.

I’m not afraid, and neither are a lot of other people. What you are doing by enabling policies that disenfranchise your citizens is creating an ever growing populace that will feel more and more that it has nothing to lose.  And people with nothing to lose are dangerous. I am not saying this as a threat; I am as concerned for what happens when you’ve enabled the creation of a rogue populace as I am of anything that your policies will do to that populace.

I’m not afraid.  Can you imagine what that would feel like, Paul Ryan?  Do you know that someone edited the Wikipedia entry on invertebrates to include a picture of you?  Do you know what it would be like, Marco Rubio, not to be afraid?  I hear that Greenpeace showed up and presented you with an actual spine.  And, I’m sorry to say this, but John McCain and Lindsey Graham, even though I respect you both immensely, where are your backbones with regard to the appointment of Rex Tillerson? He and Scott Pruitt are the reason for this message.

I would not be afraid to place my body in harm’s way if I thought for one single second that doing so might stop you from allowing the appointment of Rex Tillerson to be Secretary of State and Scott Pruitt to head the EPA. 

My fear for a long time has been that all of you are owned by the oil industry.  And thanks to that Koch Industries shill from Utah, It’s clear that there’s a move afoot to eliminate the Bureau of Land Management and the forest service and sell off PUBLIC LANDS so that some of the richest men in the country can get even richer.  Do Charles and David really need more money?  If so, can someone please tell me why?  What are they giving you guys in return? 

The White House has scrubbed climate change information, has put a gags on government agencies, and has given the all clear to complete the Keystone and Dakota Access Pipelines.  Native peoples be damned!  Tillerson and Pruitt are deniers of human made climate change, which effectively means that despite the fact that they know that human beings are causing the planet to warm by continuing to depend on fossil fuels, they don’t care about whether the citizens of the US and the rest of the world die as a result of that warming, as long as a few already rich white men can be made richer.

If you do not resist these appointments, if you allow our president to move forward with the implementation of policies that turn public lands over to private ownership, you are complicit in the destruction of our planet. And, if that doesn’t matter to you, maybe this might: you will be complicit in the largest, most all-encompassing act of genocide in the history of our species. It will happen slowly enough at first that you’ll be able to deny that it’s happening, at least for a while. 

But it’s already taking lives; look at the recent tornados that killed people in the south. You can pretend all you want that those had nothing to do with a warming planet, but you would be wrong – and you know it.  The genocide that you will enable by doing nothing to stop it will first harm the poor. Never mind that you are also responsible for the poor, but it will eventually harm everyone else. 

Appoint DeVos, defund Planned Parenthood.  Hell, build that stupid wall at the expense of tax payers (and at the expense of the 100s of endangered species that will die when they can no longer migrate).  Do anyway with funding for the arts and the humanities. Bring it on.

But do not appoint these men to these posts. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that the entire world and our entire species are counting you not being afraid to stand up and do what’s right.  Do not be afraid.  I’ll be right here with you.

Thank you,

Laura Wright

Pat McCrory is holding North Carolina Hostage

If you want to email the entire NC legislature, you can do that here.  Here's why you should email the legislature.

Here's NC's governor, Pat McCrory, falling off of a chair

Dear NC Legislature,

As you already know, while it is apparently constitutionally legal, what our governor is doing is unethical, disgusting, and reprehensible. If you enable this power grab by passing legislation that disempowers Roy Cooper, you will be doing so against the explicit directive of the majority of citizens in this state.

My family has been in North Carolina since the 1700s. I grew up here; I work for the University of North Carolina system, and I have been so proud of the historically progressive nature of my home state. 

What has happened under McCrory’s time in office is representative not of the care of North Carolina’s citizens but of abject greed (enabled by Art Pope and the Koch brothers), intolerance, and blatant discrimination. This administration fired Tom Ross. It passed racist legislation to keep African Americans from voting. It placed limitations on women’s access to health care. It passed HB2, a bill that is not only discriminatory but has made our state a laughing stock and pariah — and has caused businesses to look for homes elsewhere. 

And now that we have shown this body that we do not support these injustices, the governor attempts to override the will of the voters in order to continue his unconscionable treatment of the people who live in North Carolina. The voters handed this legislature a mandate. I ask that you respect it and stop allowing this racist, sexist, intolerant administration from doing further damage to us.  

Sincerely,
Laura Wright

The Charles Koch Foundation, the Pope Center, Western Carolina University, and my email

“Thanks.  I can see the OneDrive.  Quick question: I haven’t looked at these yet, but is there any reason why I can’t or shouldn’t just go ahead and publish this material myself?”

-- Laura Wright to Shea Browning, Legal Counsel, Western Carolina University (2/9/16), about the email that she was to turn over to the The John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

***

The letter ordering me to turn over my email.

On Thursday, January 21, 2016, along with another colleague in the English Department, the Chair of the Faculty Senate, and the Head of the Department of Philosophy and Religion, I received an email from Western Carolina University’s Legal Counsel office notifying me that a public records request had been made for my email by the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.  The request was made by Jay Schalin, a guy who holds a BS in Computer Science and an MA in Economics, and who writes for the Pope Center on such topics as “The Decline of the English Department,” a report that “examines a troubled discipline.” But more on Schalin and the Pope Center in a bit.  First, back to the public records request for my email.

The players: This is our boy Jay.

I was informed that Schalin’s request asked for “…all emails concerned with or mentioning the following:  the Center for Study of Free Enterprise, Dr. Ed Lopez, the name 'Koch,' 'BB&T,' and Ayn Rand.  The time period is from July 1, 2015 to the present.”  The reason for this request, as far as I can tell, is the fact that I have been somewhat outspokenly opposed to a $2 million gift offered to WCU by the Charles Koch Foundation for the establishment of a center for the study of free enterprise.  The reasons for my opposition are numerous and grounded in extensive research about the Koch Foundation’s gifts to institutions of higher education as well as research into the ways that the Koch brothers have bought huge influence in my state’s political machinery,  which has led to the dismantling of environmental policy, higher education funding, and public school curriculum.

The players: Dr. Ed Lopez, WCU's BB&T Distinguished Professor of Capitalism 

Here's Dave Levinthal in the Atlantic on the subject of the Kochs' higher ed donations: It is well-known that the Kochs’ network has invested hundreds of millions of hard-to-track dollars in conservative political nonprofits that influence elections. The brothers, who earned their billions leading private oil, chemical, and manufacturing conglomerate Koch Industries Inc., were dominant forces in recent election cycles. They’re now poised to rank among the most influential Americans shaping next year’s presidential and congressional vote. Much less well-known are their activities on college campuses.

The Kochs’ giving . . . focuses on an ideological approach to free-market economics in a way that’s distinctive among political mega-donors. Koch officials routinely cultivate relationships with professors and deans and fund specific courses of economic study pitched by them.

***

 Tax returns, as well as emails and private documents exchanged among Charles Koch Foundation officers and various college and university officials, indicate the foundation’s commitment to funding academics is deep and growing. Koch education funding, which is almost singularly focused on economics, also sometimes comes with certain strings attached.

At the College of Charleston in South Carolina, for example, documents show the foundation wanted more than just academic excellence for its money. It wanted information about students it could potentially use for its own benefit—and influence over information officials at the public university disseminated about the Charles Koch Foundation.

It sought, for one, the names and email addresses—“preferably not ending in .edu”—of any student who participated in a Koch-sponsored class, reading group, club or fellowship. The stated purpose: “to notify students of opportunities” through both the Charles Koch Foundation and the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. 

The players: Dave Levinthal reports for The Center for Public Integrity

In October of 2015, WCU held an open forum on the proposed center, which was moderated by Dr. Brian Kloeppel, Interim Dean of the Graduate School and Research. Dr. Ed Lopez, the BB&T Distinguished Professor of Capitalism, told those of us in the audience that he had been approached by the Charles Koch Foundation about establishing the center, and then he tried (rather unsuccessfully) to answer questions about why WCU would want such a center when it already has a Public Policy Institute, when numerous other centers had been recently eliminated within theUNC system, and when the cost to the institution would be about $1.4 million in funds allocated for faculty lines to support the center (I should note that “a job posting for a WCU economics professor openingappeared in early October — two months before the free enterprise center wouldcome before the board of trustees for a vote.” Language in the ad also specified that this person would be part of the center, but that language was later removed from the ad after faculty cried foul). 

And then the forum devolved into what I can only call an attack led by Lopez and his colleagues against Dr. John Whitmire, the head of the Department of Philosophy and Religion for a carefully crafted and thoughtful statement against establishment that he had presented to the Faculty Senate prior to the forum. The whole thing was surreal and unsettling – and you can read about it in my email.

The series of events that followed went something like this:

1. Responses from faculty who attended the forum were collected by Dr. Kloeppel and forwarded to the administration for information. 

2. I contacted the media. The people with whom I was in contact over the course of several weeks include David Levinthal whose Atlantic article cited above provides a comprehensive examination of the ways that Koch donations function to undermine academic freedom, genuine scholarship, and higher education more broadly. I also contacted Jane Stancil at the Raleigh News and Observer (the state’s newspaper of record) and convinced her that despite the fact that WCU is way out in the western reaches of the state (an area not generally covered by the N&O), that that was, in my estimation precisely why WCU had been chosen for this gift: no one would notice.  I asked that she please notice, and she did.  I contacted reporters at the Asheville Citizen-Times, the Sylva Herald, and the Smoky Mountain News, all of whom covered the story.

3. Shortly after the open forum, the faculty senate voted overwhelmingly against the center (21 against, 3 in favor).

4. At the beginning of December, “despite faculty opposition, Western Carolina University’s Board of Trustees approved the creation of a center on free enterprise likely to be funded by the conservative Charles Koch Foundation.

The board voted unanimously Friday to approve the WCU Center for the Study of Free Enterprise. The center, to be led by an economics professor, was previously endorsed by the university’s provost and Chancellor David Belcher." See this story.

5. Dr. Whitmire made the faculty senate aware of the existence of Policy 104, which states, “If a proposed gift has curricular implications, that is, if it contains any restrictions, conditions, implications, and/or suggestions with regard to academic content, the Chancellor, or his/her designee, will immediately be informed and will inform Legal Counsel. The Chancellor, or his/her designee, will then appoint an ad hoc committee of five faculty members to review the curricular implications of the gift and to make specific recommendations regarding the acceptability of such implications. One member of this committee should be drawn from the curriculum committee of the affected department, one should come from the curriculum committee of the affected college, and two should come from curriculum committees from other academic units. The committee will be chaired by the Chair of the Faculty, or his/her designee, providing that the committee chair is not a member of the potentially affected academic unit. The chair will serve as a voting member of the committee. This ad hoc gift review committee will act with consideration of the need for confidentiality and speed in the negotiation process. It will make recommendations to the Chancellor concerning the implications of the gift on the curriculum as well as the need for any further review or modification of any proposed agreement.” 

The Simpsons' Ayn Rand School for Tots

This policy was instituted after the 2008 hiring of Dr. Lopez, as a stipulation of his position (funded by BB&T) was that he teach the works of Ayn Rand, which faculty felt was overreach and compromised academic freedom. Here’s more from the Smoky Mountain News:

“The criteria initially imposed by the BB&T Foundation in exchange for its $1 million gift in 2008 was ultimately rewritten as a result of faculty pushback.

It initially required WCU to make Atlas Shrugged — considered a Bible of libertarian economic philosophy — required reading in College of Business courses and required a copy of Atlas Shrugged to be given out to every business major their junior year.

That criteria was tempered as a result of faculty pushback that maintained outside donors should not be permitted to dictate what professors teach, or force professors to teach a particular viewpoint to students.”

The policy had been utterly ignored with regard to the establishment of the current center.

6. On December 8, Interim Dean Kloeppel notified everyone who had submitted feedback after the forum that “documents pertaining to the Authorization to Plan and the Authorization to Establish the Center for the Study of Free Enterprise have been the subject of multiple Public Records Act requests. Documents, including your emailed feedback to me during the comment period, have been released to the requesters as required by the North Carolina Public Records Act.” 

A colleague asked who had submitted these requests and was told by legal counsel that “We have received public records requests from the Sylva Herald, the Smoky Mountain News, and the Charles Koch Foundation.”

7. December 10: WCU's Provost, Alison Morrison-Shetlar, sent an email to faculty senate asserting "I write to share with you my sincere concern about what I read in one of our local newspapers. The article, I can assure you, does not represent my beliefs about the role of Faculty Senate and its role in representing the faculty. " This statement came in response to an article in the Smoky Mountain News, which indicated that the Provost "questioned whether McCord’s views reflect those of the faculty at large and whether his comments should be extrapolated as applying to all faculty. Morrison-Shetlar even questioned whether the faculty senate vote was indicative of faculty sentiment. Casting doubt on the clout of faculty senate could have made it easier for the chancellor and board of trustees to justify their own decision that ran counter to that of the faculty senate."

8. December 11: John Hardin, Director of University Relations for the Koch Foundation, writes an op-ed in the Citizen-Times called “Why we Partner with Western Carolina University.”  In it he says, “our work is sometimes mischaracterized and singled out, frequently by activists with a partisan agenda, leading to genuine concerns from well-intentioned people. Events often follow a familiar path. Instead of engaging with the ideas and professors directly, a Freedom of Information Act request is filed with the school, seeking correspondence with school administrators and faculty along with any other documents that might bear on the academic center. ... FOIA requests are a favorite tool of special interests who already have a pre-determined idea of a story to tell. They then go on a fishing expedition to validate their original narrative. It doesn’t matter what’s actually transpired.”  He adds, “When this happens on a college campus, a professor or administrator’s private correspondence can be weaponized against them and the school.” (all emphasis is mine) 

The players: John Hardin

9. January 19: Journalist Jane Mayer published Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Mayer’s argument, according to Alan Ehrenhalt’s NYT review, is that “the Koch brothers and a small number of allied plutocrats have essentially hijacked American democracy, using their money not just to compete with their political adversaries, but to drown them out.”  Mayer discusses in Rolling Stone the ways that the Kochs tried to intimidate her, to accuse her of plagiarism; they had spies follow her and harass her as she researched her material for the book.

The players: Jane Mayer

10. January 21: My email is requested by the Pope Center which is necessarily and completely affiliated with and, in many ways, controlled by the Charles Koch foundation.  Charles Koch sat on the board of directors until very recently, and many of the current members of the board have Koch affiliations. Art Pope, who founded the center, was hand picked by the Kochs to serve as NC’s budget director. Further, the current president of the center, Jenna Ashley Robinson, “joined the Pope Center in January 2007 as campus outreach coordinator and later became the center's director of outreach. She was previously the E.A. Morris Fellowship assistant at the John Locke Foundation, where she had worked since 2001. . . .  Robinson is also a graduate of the Koch Associate Program sponsored by the Charles G. Koch Foundation.”  Check here for how Art Pope ran the NC government for years.  And here and here for information about Art Pope more generally.

11. 9. January 20: the Chancellor addressed the faculty senate and indicated that mistakes were made in the way that the process for approval of the center was handled. He continues to insist that academic freedom is his highest priority, and he promises that to make sure that there are no strings attached.  

12. January 23: WCU shows up in the Daily Kos in a story about Becky Johnson's coverage of this whole debacle in the Smoky Mountain News.  The piece notes that Johnson's story "is exactly why the Koch brothers worked so hard to keep their vast network of extreme anti-government organizations so secret. It's a local news story investigating the infiltration by the Kochs into the local university."  The article notes the complete initial omission of and the utter disregard for faculty voice in the process of approving the center.

Here's Rabbit battling Papa Doc in 8 Mile.  It's a preemptive strike, which inspired this blog. Please watch and then read below.

So here’s the thing: Jay Schalin has submitted a public records request for my email so that he might do the very thing that John Hardin criticizes: “cherry pick” from my correspondence to tell a “pre-meditated” story about me and my colleagues who have chosen to speak out against our institution’s acceptance of Koch money.  As Hardin notes, “When this [a freedom of information request] happens on a college campus, a professor or administrator’s private correspondence can be weaponized against them and the school.” In this case, my correspondence will not be weaponized against WCU, I don’t think (as the Koch Foundation doesn’t want to alienate the school), but it will certainly be used against me to serve whatever ends Schalin, the Pope Center, and the Charles Koch Foundation deem appropriate.  Feel free to see what he says about English professors in his aforementioned article about the demise of my profession: it is, in his estimation, because we’ve stopped teaching the great works, are all democrats, and are engaging in cultural studies explorations that he finds utterly ridiculous. 

The players: Laura Wright

And here I am, a really excellent target: a postcolonialist ecofeminist, whose latest book is about veganism.  I am the antithesis of everything that Schalin, the Pope Center, and the Charles Koch Foundation want to see in an educator.  I’m also, apparently, scary.

As always, please buy my book.

So without further ado and after consulting with legal counsel, I present all of my email that was submitted to the Pope Center after its request was made to interim Dean Kloeppel.  There are over 100 pages here, most of which is just me forwarding various news stories to people.  Some of it might be interesting, but the majority of it won’t be.  Choice bits include my comments after the forum, the text of a blog post on the NC lapel pins that McCrory sent state employees, and various other anti-center commentaries by my colleagues (mostly leftwards leaning English types).  Legal counsel redacted anything in my emails that contained personal information, and I have redacted the names and emails of my colleagues with several exceptions: David McCord, Chair of the Faculty (whose emails are also the subject of this request) has given me permission to keep his name on his correspondence.  I have likewise left Interim Dean Kloepple’s name public, as he’s done nothing more than collect feedback and let us know that the Koch Foundation requested that data.  Members of the WCU’s Legal Counsel Office, the Chancellor, the Provost and members of their offices remain named, as do the various reporters with whom I’ve corresponded.  

The material covered in this blog is provided merely for context.  

Have fun.  

Part 1 is here: 

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2AdcX7mKWI-bkg2ZXIzdjQ5NTQ

Part 2 is here: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2AdcX7mKWI-Vm9JcWFJd0Q2Zlk/view?usp=sharing