Harvard Faculty Blasts Charles Murray As a 'Confederate Statue on Wheels'

ashley.rae | September 7, 2017
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Amid concerns about the potential for violence, Charles Murray’s highly anticipated talk at Harvard University on Wednesday was met with dozens of protesters and a concurrent faculty panel that categorized Murray as a “Confederate statue on wheels.”

The Harvard Crimson reports that outside Murray’s scheduled talk, students held an event called “Speak Out Against White Supremacy.” The organizer for the protest and a member of the Undergraduate Council’s Black Caucus, Nicholas Whittaker, told the Harvard Crimson that allowing Murray to speak on campus provided a “unchecked platform for white supremacy and transphobia.”

Taya Cowan, another protester, said that allowing Murray on campus made her feel like “the world isn’t safe” for her, since she’s a black woman.

According to tweets from the event, protesters outside allegedly shouted, “Don’t give in to racist fear. Everyone is welcome here.”

At the talk, Murray addressed the Southern Poverty Law Center claim that he is a “white nationalist.” In response to a screened question form a student, Murray said he is not a white supremacist and that he is “sick unto death of trying to prove a negative.”

According to the Boston Globe, halfway through the event, about a dozen students left the event holding signs that read, “Speak out Against White Nationalists.” The Harvard Crimson reports people left to go to attend a nearby faculty panel that was advertised before the event. In the fliers for the panel, it alleges students will learn the “facts” about Murray, like that he allegedly believes “black & Latinx people, women, & the working class are intellectually, psychologically, & morally inferior to white upper class men.”

At the panel, African and African American Studies professor Walter Johnson said Murray is like a “Confederate statue on wheels.”

“Charles Murray is like a Confederate statue on wheels,” Johnson said. “His work is empirically discredited, overtly racist, and over twenty years old, a relic of the culture wars of the 1990s.”

While the protesters outside of the event were convinced Murray is a white supremacist, the Boston Globe reports one of the attendees said the talk confused her, as she expected Murray to say inflammatory things.

After the talk, Murray praised Harvard for how it handled his talk.

When Murray spoke at Middlebury College, the protests became violent and a professor was injured in the process. The school sanctioned 67 students for their role in escalating the protests.

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