To the Editor: Writer defends article on BGSU faculty emails
The following letter to the editor has been published by the Bowling Green Sentinel-Tribune:
To the Editor:
I write to respond to Robert Gomez’s letter addressing my article published at BuckeyeFirearms.org regarding an issue which should be of concern to all taxpayers.
I addressed three main issues, only one of which Gomez even barely touches on.
First, our public records request uncovered the fact that faculty at BGSU have been using @bgsu.edu email addresses and an @bgsu.edu listserv to coordinate a lobbying effort against House Bill 48, legislation that would, among other things, afford universities the right to choose their own safety and security plans instead of having the State choose for them. BGSU policies specifically prohibit use of the university email system for lobbying activity, and yet at least 29 faculty members sent emails to Rep. Tim Brown using @bgsu.edu email addresses, and many more discussed and coordinated their efforts via the [email protected]. Ohio taxpayers will send BGSU over $70 million next year, and it’s not intended to support lobbying activities.
Second, through our open records request, we learned, and have since confirmed through multiple other sources, that, to quote one of our sources, “The BGSU campus is a very hostile workplace to anyone who [is] not on the very left side of everything. If anyone ever offers a moderate or conservative view on this listserv they are verbally attacked.” Institutions of higher learning are supposed to be places where students are exposed to a variety of opinions and different ways of thinking, where new ideas are entertained and controversial views are aired. Anyone who thinks these folks are capable creating that type of atmosphere for students should think again.
Finally, my article featured a quote from one of the faculty members, who informed Rep. Brown that he considers the National Rifle Association (NRA), which is the nation’s oldest and largest civil rights organization, to be “a murderous terrorist organization that is a threat to national security.” Evans also accused Rep. Brown of an “unbelievable conflict-of-interest” “because of campaign donations from the NRA.” The problem with that claim? Rep. Tim Brown has never received a single penny from the NRA.
Instead of reading Mr. Gomez’s poor, biased, inaccurate paraphrase of my article, I invite Sent-Trib readers and concerned taxpayers to read the article itself. The headline, with which Mr. Gomez takes issue, is “Public university professor labels NRA a “murderous terrorist organization” and “threat to national security” and it is 100-percent accurate.
Chad Baus
Archbold
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