This has been news in the philly area for a couple of days. My colleagues/friends’ reactions have been split. Some people don’t see what the big deal is, while others agree with the students.
I think he said some pretty stupid things, for no good reason. The biggest issue to me is someone holding a position like that has to consider his public social media posts in light of his and his organizations reputation. I head up a local non profit and I am very conscious when posting on Facebook pages etc that, right or wrong, my posts could come back and reflect on my organization.
Wow, especially the first comment IMO. The guy is an idiot so its hard to be sympathetic to his situation. Someone over 20 with the credentials to be a board chair actually tweets this stuff?!
It’s his personal account. Why can’t he say what he wants? Sounds like he is just joking, though I agree it is in poor taste. That doesn’t mean that one should get fired over it. He wasn’t doing it in an official capacity.
Everyone is too dam* sensitive today. Geez.
He’s right about how fat Americans are, by the way. That’s just the truth, when 70% are overweight.
Thank God I grew up in a time when your stupid stuff was just between you and your friends and not out there for the world to judge. Because we all did and said stupid things at some time.
Yep. No one muzzled him. @TranquilMind Indeed, he seems to have bought his filters from the same warehouse that supplies Trump. But everyone on Ursinus’ board knew that they had to act. This man represents the university and even though it was his personal account, his consent to use something that’s publicly available makes him subject. Think Anthony Weiner.
Without acting, they are tolerating this behavior – and then go and ask the community for donations and goodwill and grants and applicants? Nope. Nada.
Another thing to keep in mind is employers, especially private employers have the right to discipline or even fire someone/ask the individual concerned to resign for behavior off the clock if it brings discredit to or puts the employers/brand in a bad light.
Another recent instance of this happened with an individual who initially intended to taunt environmental protestors in Pennsylvania and then suddenly started racially taunting a video journalist documenting the protests because he was Black.
Taunts were all caught on video and after it was put online, the taunter’s employer released a statement stating his behavior was reprehensible and as a consequence, he showed himself to be unfit to remain employed with the firm. Mattered not that the taunter was off the clock at the time of the incident.
I think people need to remember that Twitter is, by its nature, a very public platform. If the board chair made these idiotic comments on a non-public Facebook profile, I would say that’s no different than talking to a roomful of friends and is nobody else’s business. But if you say it on Twitter, you might as well be standing in a crowded public area speaking through a megaphone. I’m not sure if it’s right to fire him, but he did pick up the megaphone.
Anyone who thinks they are only talking to their friends/followers on Twitter should read the story of [url = <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html%5DJustine”>http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/magazine/how-one-stupid-tweet-ruined-justine-saccos-life.html]Justine Sacco. Google her if NYT blocks you with a pay-wall. Whether you think it’s fair or not, what’s happening to this guy is nothing compared to what can happen. And if you’re really interested in the whole internet-shame phenomenon, pick up Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed – it’s a great read.
Freedom of speech does not mean that you can say whatever you want without consequence. That is not how this works.
He sounds like a horrible person. I think tweeting these things speaks to, at the VERY least, horrible judgment.
I am overweight. I don’t wear yoga pants but I wear very similar types of pants. I can wear whatever I damn well please. They are comfortable. I don’t wear clothes for you, I wear them for me. To quote my model-body teenager self who could “nicely” wear yoga pants before getting sick and blowing up: “bite me.”
My reading of the story suggests the scandal broke only when the Ursinus student posted the tweets on his Facebook page and another student wrote about them on Odyssey, a social-content platform. Was he not vetted by Ursinus before becoming board chair?
He’s the chief executive officer of Equity Risk Partners. Did he not consider reducing risk by deleting tweets before he became chair?
Right? Or maybe the board members are like him and @TranquilMind , and have views just as abhorrent and backwards…these guys seem to be coming out of the woodwork these days.
‘maybe the board members are like him.’ Not all of them. Fellow board member David Bloom resigned in protest over the tweets earlier in the week. Still, though the tweets were made before Marcon was made chair just last July, he had been on the board since 2010. That makes me wonder, with marvin100, if somebody else had heard something and done nothing.
Absolutely kudos to the Ursinus students, first for exposing tweets, then by being firm yet civil.
I wonder if the publicity of his tweets will have any impact on his employment status.
I agree that he can say what he wants on Twitter … but he can’t be surprised if people’s opinions of him plummet and his fitness to lead an enterprise (business or non-profit board) in 2016 is questioned.
I do give him credit, though, for being man enough to meet with students and faculty instead of skulking away without facing the Ursinus community.
@intparent the original tweet will go away (and in retweets it will say the original tweet is unavailable) but any screenshots remain.
Unrelated, but are those pigs jumping into a swimming pool on your new profile picl?