A campus “cancel culture” bid to block former acting intelligence chief Richard Grenell from a one-year fellowship at a Pittsburgh university failed this month when officials determined that, while controversial, he has a “right to free speech.”
The selection of Grenell, a diplomat who was President Trump’s first ambassador to Germany, to a fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University’s Institute for Politics and Strategy drew an outcry from students and faculty upset with his aggressive social media and likely his ties to the president.
University President Farnam Jahanian called for an investigation and cleared Grenell to join the college last week.
“By virtue of his right to free speech, Mr. Grenell is able to speak his mind about matters of public concern, in language he thinks is appropriate for achieving his purpose. But so long as he is a member of the CMU community, as the committee noted, ‘we fully expect him to follow all university policies and the more general principles of academic freedom,’” Jahanian determined.
Grenell, who declined to comment, is no stranger to controversy, largely due to his ties to Trump and friendliness with the president’s family. He recently joined the Republican National Committee to head gay and transgender outreach. He speaks to the RNC tomorrow.
When he left government service in June, Trump praised Grenell for being the first gay Cabinet member ever. Grenell, in a tweet, said the president told him, “You are the First Openly Gay Cabinet Secretary and it’s a big deal.”
3.2 million views
— Benny (@bennyjohnson) August 20, 2020
He came under fire as the acting intelligence chief but ignored the critics and moved fast to fix problems he saw and provide unprecedented transparency.
When named a CMU fellow, for which he is expected to speak at and join in the college communities in Pittsburgh and Washington, professors and students signed letters in opposition, irked at some past comments on social media.
The probe by a university committee cited three tweets that were far from outrageous and not cause for ending his fellowship.
“Although each of these individual tweets can be excused as (at most) minor infractions, the general tone of many of his communications is dismissive and disrespectful of the opinions of others,” said the investigation.
They noted that Grenell wasn’t operating in the sometimes touchy academic world, but instead the raging battlefield of politics where his comments weren’t considered outrageous.
“Mr. Grenell has operated in the realm of politics and government, rather than in academia, for his entire career. A fundamental question is whether we would expect someone coming from outside academia to have abided by its principles beforehand as a condition of employment,” said the report on his hiring.
It hasn’t pushed Grenell off Twitter, where he has been posting regularly on the Republican convention and media.
Democrats love to silence people they don’t agree with.
It’s a crisis of tolerance. https://t.co/N6GfRbzscw
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) August 24, 2020
The episode stirred debate in the city over the “cancel culture” movement and has prompted a further review of the university’s free-speech and hiring policies, and the president appeared to make clear that having voices from all sides, including those the community doesn’t like, must be available.
Jahanian wrote, “We are not the first university community to face issues like these, and certainly we won’t be the last. Although they are neither simple nor clear cut, these are the type of issues that CMU excels at tackling. I am confident that our community will be able to work through them civilly and with rigorous debate. As we do, let us also commit to developing opportunities for members of our community to become better acquainted with the principles of academic freedom, and the interplay and distinction between the rights of academic freedom and freedom of speech, as these freedoms lie at the very foundation of the academy — and our democracy.”
