Opinion: Institutional failure on display at Penn State with Baker ‘debacle’

A culture of white supremacy and misogyny is growing in our country. It is sadly infecting our institutions. From the attack on reproductive rights to the recent horrific shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde, our institutions are failing to stem the tide of this rising hate.

In State College, we are witnessing a similar institutional failure to address this rise in hate. This failure is creating unsafe conditions on campus. Led by the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Clarence Lang and Provost Nick Jones, Penn State administration is allowing white supremacy and misogyny to fester on campus in order to justify their unethical decision to fire an anti-racist professor, Dr. Oliver Baker.

Administration is participating in a national trend of attacking educators who teach the histories of racism, inequality and movements for social justice. This attack on “Critical Race Theory” educators like Baker combined with a failure to curb the rise of white supremacy and misogyny is an alarming trend. It’s incredibly troubling that we’re seeing this trend spread to Penn State.

What has led to this? On Aug. 27, 2021, a right-wing extremist provocateur disrupted a campus rally while brandishing a sign of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones shooting a gun at people with the caption “Shut the F--- Up Liberals.” In previous social media posts, the provocateur expressed his desire to “shoot up a school” and praised the Stoneman-Douglas shooter, saying “he only killed 17 people, we’ll get ‘em next time!”; he also said that “whites must remain dominant” and that he would “rape a bunch really hot girls” and murder them if he could get away with it, as documented here: tinyurl.com/safepennstate. Luckily, Baker, who is known for supporting students and defending the marginalized, was also at the rally. Baker saw these red flags of hate and intervened to protect people.

The twist? Lang and Jones chose to back the right-wing extremist, while retaliating against Baker whom everyone else on campus saw as a good Samaritan for protecting people.

After, the provocateur made false allegations against Baker, leading to baseless charges. The DA’s office easily dropped the charges and a court of law cleared Baker of any wrongdoing. Baker’s exoneration demonstrated that the police report was false and a video of Baker grabbing the provocateur’s sign was completely misleading. After being rightly acquitted, Lang and Jones have not only decided to fire Baker anyway, but have, it appears, manipulated the AC70 termination process to do so.

In response, a popular campaign to support Baker developed and has continued into the summer. Recently, after the tragic shooting in Buffalo, this campaign published a letter in the Daily Collegian asking President Neeli Bendapudi to not do as Lang and Jones have done of emboldening a culture of white supremacy in State College by firing Dr. Baker.

In the context of rising hate that has led to the recent horrific massacres of people of color and children, why are administrators allowing white supremacy and misogyny to grow on campus? After all, it is the culture of white supremacy and misogyny that precipitate such horrendous violence. The reason is as simple as it is disturbing: To carry out their plan to fire Baker, administrators must defend the indefensible culture of white supremacy and misogyny that the provocateur embodies. If the administration were to hold this provocateur accountable, they would be forced to say that Baker was right to protect people from racist and sexist violence; however, then they could not fire Baker.

Administrators’ animosity toward “Critical Race Theory” professors like Dr. Baker and an unwillingness to admit they are wrong have created a debacle quickly becoming a scandal. If there are other reasons beyond these for firing Baker — and there are not — they are certainly not as important as the safety of people with which administrators are gambling by emboldening hate on campus.

We hope for the sake of campus safety that President Bendapudi is fixing this institutional failure.