The Professor’s Views Are Loathsome, Stupid, and Ignorant, the Provost Said. But He Won’t Be Fired.

The provost didn’t equivocate. The professor’s views on race, gender, and sexuality, she said, are loathsome. Stunningly ignorant. Stupid.

But he won’t be fired, she said. The First Amendment forbids it. The constitutional right to free speech “is strong medicine,” she said, “and works both ways.”

Instead, no student will be forced to take a class from Eric B. Rasmusen, a professor of business economics and public policy at Indiana University at Bloomington, who this semester taught a required course for the public-policy degree. He will use “double-blind grading” on assignments, the provost, Lauren Robel, wrote in a message to the business school. If that’s not possible, another faculty member will “ensure that the grades are not subject to Professor Rasmusen’s prejudices.”

The force of Robel’s condemnation stunned many observers. It managed to balance a university’s duty to protect the principles of free speech, they said, while not shrinking away from naming bigoted ideology for what it is. (On his personal website, where he is writing about the incident, Rasmusen said that “insults” calling his views sexist, racist, and homophobic no longer “have much meaning.”) Robel’s clarity was a departure from the vague and measured speech of most administrators, her supporters say. Others were more skeptical of the line that the institution is trying to walk. The chances that Rasmusen’s views have not already affected his work are “very close to 0,” a graduate student wrote on Twitter.

The controversy started on November 7, when Rasmusen wrote a tweet in which he quoted an article with the headline “Are Women Destroying Academia? Probably.” He shared the article and added, in quotes, “geniuses are overwhelmingly male because they combine outlier high IQ with moderately low Agreeableness and moderately low Conscientiousness.” A day later, he called a woman being covered in the news a “slut.” On his website, Rasmusen said he does not think it is misogynistic “to speak strongly against women who steal other women’s husbands.”

After the tweet spread this week, the university was inundated with calls for Rasmusen’s ouster. “It just came to a point where there was no way that we could not respond,” Chuck Carney, the director of media relations, said.

Discussions among the university’s top officials started earlier this week, he said. Robel wrote that Rasmusen cannot be fired for his posts, “as vile and stupid as they are.”

“That is not a close call,” she added.

However, the university wanted to assure students that they’d get “a fair shake” in his courses, Carney said. When students turn in an assignment to Rasmusen, their identities will be anonymized, he said. For assignments where it’s not possible for those identities to be concealed — for example, an essay that might include personal information — another faculty member will grade that work, Carney said.

After declining a phone interview, Rasmusen said in an email that he plans to comply with the university’s restrictions, and that he had volunteered to do blind grading this fall and this coming spring. He has no plans to apologize, which would be “ridiculous,” he said. On his website, he is excerpting some of the emails of support that he said he had received.

‘Racist, Sexist, and Homophobic’

While the university’s sanctions against Rasmusen are new, the views that gave rise to them don’t appear to be.

For many years, Robel said, the professor has used his social-media accounts to disseminate “racist, sexist, and homophobic views.” Rasmusen said that his views “expand the diversity of views that are heard in academic circles.”

In the past he has promoted stereotypes, such as that black students are generally unqualified to attend elite institutions, that they’re generally inferior academically to white students, and that gay men should not be allowed in academe because they will abuse students, the provost wrote. (To those claims, Rasmusen wrote on his website that “the whole idea of affirmative action is that too few black students wouldn’t get in without racial preferences.” He does not think gay people should teach grade school or high school, but in academe, there is more reason to accept the risk of hiring “a brilliant but immoral teacher.”)

The Chronicle wrote about Rasmusen more than 15 years ago, in 2003, after he wrote on his blog that “Male homosexuals, at least, like boys and are generally promiscuous” and “should not be given the opportunity to satisfy their desires.” Then, as well as now, observers questioned whether a gay student could ever feel comfortable in his classroom, knowing his personal beliefs.

Robel made it clear that if Rasmusen acted upon his expressed views in the workplace to judge his students or colleagues based on their race, gender, or sexual orientation to their detriment, he’d be acting illegally and in violation of university policies. “We would investigate,” she wrote, “and address those allegations according to our processes.” The university has already heard from some of Rasmusen’s former students about concerns they had, Carney said.

‘As Neutral as Possible’

Some scholars saw that portion of Robel’s statement as a dodge. If he can’t be trusted to teach a class without extraordinary “safeguards,” Kevin Gannon, a professor of history at Grand View University, asked on Twitter, then how can the university claim there’s no evidence that he’s put his views into action?

For Steve Sanders, a law professor at Indiana, the most recent firestorm involving Rasmusen is a perfect example of the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. If the tweet was a one-off incident, he said, the university’s reaction would probably have been different. But because of Rasmusen’s history, and because of the real possibility that his biases could influence his work, the provost’s response “probably was a necessity,” Sanders said.

Sanders said he himself is known as a staunch defender of academic freedom and First Amendment rights. While he doesn’t have much respect for the ideas that Rasmusen puts forth, Sanders said he does feel quite strongly that a university has to be “as neutral as possible” in debates about free speech and ideas. Robel, he thinks, threaded that needle.

For Jessica Calarco, Rasmusen’s comments and Robel’s response will become a teaching moment. The associate professor of sociology plans to ask students in her “Introduction to Sociology” class to discuss, among other things, whether the First Amendment should protect all speech, and whether hate speech should be exempted. They’ll talk about what it would take for a student or colleague harmed by Rasmusen to feel comfortable coming forward, she said. And they’ll cover the reasons those people might be reluctant to report.

“It’s a tricky situation,” Calarco said. She completely understands why the university made the decision it did. She said she commends Robel for her boldness. And she understands why people would be upset with that decision and think it wasn’t enough.

Some dissent is percolating on the campus. A letter to the editor of the student newspaper called Robel’s statement “disappointing and harmful.” Two bridges were painted in protest of Rasmusen, proclaiming in all-capital black letters, “Fire Eric Rasmusen” and “No Bigots Allowed,” the newspaper reported.

Ultimately, Calarco said, she’s hopeful. Hopeful that Robel’s words will embolden the people who’ve experienced harmful treatment to file reports. And hopeful that the university will take those reports seriously.

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.