VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A private Facebook post by a Virginia Wesleyan University dean has gone public, creating a firestorm at the university.
It wasn’t so much that Paul Ewell asked all Biden voters to “unfriend” him. After such an emotional election, people on both sides have done plenty of that.
But Ewell, a business professor and dean of the university’s Global Campus, called anyone who voted for Biden “ignorant, anti-American and anti-Christian” and accused them of corrupting not only the election but “our youth … our country.”
Judging by comments posted on the university’s Facebook page, that hasn’t gone over well at the small, private liberal arts and sciences school in Virginia Beach.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Emily Ann Myer, a VWU alumna now working toward a master’s degree in business administration at the school.
Myer is Methodist — the same religion VWU has historically been associated with — and objects to a faculty member labeling her Biden support as “anti-Christian.”
But more than that:
“College is a place where open minds and different points of view are supposed to be encouraged,” she said. “This is the opposite of that. It’s flat-out name-calling by someone in a position of authority.”
It’s not the first time Virginia Wesleyan has been embroiled by politics or bitten by social media.
During a rally for Bernie Sanders in March, a university security guard was charged with assault after a confrontation with a Trump supporter turned physical. This summer, after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the school was criticized for deleting comments on its Facebook page from students and alumni complaining about racism on its campus.
In an email, Ewell declined to comment for this story. His post was made on his personal Facebook page, which has since been taken down. The page was set to “private” — open only to invited friends — but someone took a screenshot of the post and circulated it publicly on social media.
The response — 150-plus comments on the university’s Facebook page — has been largely outrage, calling such a post by a “high-ranking, high-profile member” of the university’s administration “unacceptable” and “embarrassing.”
Alumni are threatening to withhold donations. Parents are reconsidering enrolling their kids. Students are pondering a protest.
Stephanie Smaglo, a VWU spokeswoman, said that while the university “cannot speak to personnel matters, this incident is being addressed through our internal processes and policies.”
According to the university’s website and faculty directory, Ewell is a VWU alumnus who was appointed to the full-time instructional staff in 2008. He’s a professor of management, business and economics, director of the school’s MBA program, and dean of the VWU Global Campus, which “serves online, evening and weekend, international, early enrollment/advanced scholars, and non-credit learners.”
Smaglo, in emails to the newspaper, said the university confirmed that “the faculty member who made the original post has issued an apology on Facebook.”
On the institution’s own Facebook page, the university posted a statement saying it’s “aware of a recent comment made on social media by a member of the campus community. These views and opinions are expressly the individual’s own. Civic engagement and religious freedom are at the core of the University’s values, and we remain an inclusive and caring community that empowers meaningful relationships through listening, understanding, and communication.”
That only seemed to further incense.
Courtney Herrick, a 2017 grad, said the school’s statement was “watered down” and “only emboldens people, their faculty included, to post things like what Ewell did.”
Faculty should be held to a higher standard than everyday folks, Herrick said, because teachers “are entrusted with shaping the minds of today’s youth.”
Whatever personal opinions might be, “at the end of the day, they have an obligation to set the right tone,” Herrick said, “especially given the current political climate, with the nation already so divided.”
A commenter named George Kimball defended Ewell, saying the professor made it a habit to avoid discussing his politics in class.
“Many of his current and former students have contacted him in support of him,” Kimball wrote.
Another commenter opened up the subject of freedom of speech, but others shot back that words have consequences.
VWU’s social media policy, found in its staff handbook, deals mostly with conduct directly associated with the university.
It does, however, caution faculty that even on personal sites, “keep in mind nothing is truly private in social media. Consider your comments, photos or shared content carefully before posting. If it’s something you wouldn’t want shared or re-posted for a broad audience, it is best not to share it in the first place.”
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