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The president of the University of Iowa has issued an apology after joking that unprepared professors at the school should be executed with a bullet to the head.
The quip came during a meeting of the University of Iowa staff council Dec. 9. While no exact recordings or quotations exist, librarian Lisa Gardinier complained that president Bruce Harreld responded to a question about lesson plans by saying there is “one way” to prepare for class and teachers who fail to prepare in that manner “should be shot.”
Gardinier complained vocally, saying in an email Harreld’s remark is insensitive on the heels of the San Bernardino shooting that left 14 dead and 17 injured and the Black Lives Matter movement.
“For a university president to use the term ‘should be shot’ so flippantly, and just a week after the most recent highly publicized mass shooting in a tense atmosphere of racist law enforcement violence, is horrifying and unacceptable,” she said.
While Harreld apologized, his wording also indicated he didn’t see what the big deal was.
“Frankly, I have used the comment in many, many forums and this is the first time anyone has objected to it. I apologize and appreciate your calling my attention to it,” Harreld said in an email to Gardinier. Harreld also said, in an earlier email, that “[I] likely will never be able to live up to your expectations but I will try.”
The controversy may seem exceptionally minor, but it’s part of a larger, bitter feud over Harreld’s appointment as president. Hundreds protested when he took office in November, upset because his background is in business rather than higher education and because the board of trustees appointed him over strong objections from the faculty. Gardinier is one of those who has been vocally hostile to Harreld’s appointment, and her complaining email is filled with bitterness towards him, calling his talk at the meeting “rambling” and “unfocused” and saying he deserved to be “kicked out” of the university.
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