Baylor students received an e-mail last Wednesday, the day after Barack Obama’s victory in the general election, concerning three reported incidents of racism on the Baylor campus that were “deeply disturbing to us and are antithetical to the mission of Baylor University.”
These events included a reported burning of Obama/Biden yard signs in a barbecue pit, a shouting match outside Penland Hall between white and black students, and, most importantly, the discovery of a rope in a tree that was supposedly fashioned into a noose.
Although facts surrounding these incidents were scant, Garland saw it fit to warn the entire student body that “we categorically denounce and will not tolerate racist acts of any kind on our campus.” Local media obviously picked up on the e-mail and covered the incidents. I don’t know how widely the e-mail was reported outside of Waco because I was in the middle of finals, but I know it was covered by the Austin American-Statesman, one of the papers I check in on daily.
Today, Garland sent out another e-mail that granted resolution to noosegate. Apparently, a student came forward saying he found the rope in the debris resulting from homecoming weekend and tied it to a tree branch to make a rope swing. “The student explained that he had been spending time with a group of friends on Fountain Mall the evening before the election and had discovered a rope he believed to have been from one of the tents used during the university’s homecoming activities,” Garland said. Student leaders have also apparently accepted this explanation. In a separate e-mail, the Baylor student body president, the president of the Association of Black Students and the president of the NAACP jointly wrote that they were “grateful that this incident proved to be innocent.”
What about the other two incidents? Well, we have yet to receive an exhaustive explanation of the shouting match outside Penland Hall, but the Obama/Biden sign burning, which wouldn’t have necessarily been racist even if it had taken place, never even happened. “Contrary to some initial reports, police have not been able to produce any solid evidence that Obama/Biden campaign signs were burned in the barbecue pit adjacent to Brooks Flats. Investigators have learned that what were originally reported to be Obama/Biden campaign signs were actually empty computer boxes,” Gardland said.
When Garland’s original e-mail went out the day after election day, I was immediately skeptical. I said nothing, of course, because if the events turned out to be true then I would make myself out to be a racist at worst or just a naive white boy at best. Such is life in today’s politically correct America. Nonetheless, like many other students who run the Bear Trail through campus at night, I took note of the decorations put up all over campus in celebration of homecoming weekend. This elaborate decorating contest included homemade effects mounted to and tied in the branches of trees around campus, and I silently bet myself that the supposed “noose” was simply the vestiges of one of these decorations and not a blatant message of hate from an era past. One day I’m sure I’ll stop being right, but it’s not going to be today.
Baylor students who were furious over the implications of these incidents that never actually happened should still be furious. Their anger should be redirected toward Interim President David Garland, whose knee jerk reaction to what he admits were “initial reports” dragged Baylor’s name through the mud in who knows how many media outlets that covered this story. I wonder how many of those media outlets will follow up with the rest of the story? Even if they do, how many readers will catch the follow up? Sadly, the damage is done.
We don’t need a president who is overeager to air our dirty laundry to the public before checking to see whether the laundry is in fact clean. Garland should be aware that the mainstream media would gleefully pounce on any opportunity to paint a conservative, Baptist school as an institution of intolerance. Our president showed neither judgment nor temperance, and his actions have deeply embarrassed the Baylor community in front of a public whose attention span will remember only the noose.
As the world’s largest Baptist university, Baylor will always have its hands full in protecting its public image against misconceptions about the Baptist faith as well as the stereotype that everything from Waco is backwoods and backwards. We don’t need our own president fueling the fire with a reactionary and speculative response to incomplete information. Garland owes this campus a deep apology, and I’m not convinced that he doesn’t also owe us his job.
