Professor’s tweet about Barbara Bush ‘beyond free speech,’ Fresno State president says

FRESNO — All options are on the table in dealing with the Fresno State professor who called Barbara Bush “an amazing racist” shortly after the former first lady died, university president Joseph Castro said Wednesday.

“A professor with tenure does not have blanket protection to say and do what they wish,” he said. “We are all held accountable for our actions.”

Castro declined to comment specifically on how the university may handle Randa Jarrar’s case, citing personnel matters. But he did say the next steps for the university include reviewing all the facts, as well as the faculty’s collective bargaining agreement.

Within an hour of the official announcement that Bush, the wife of former president George H.W. Bush, died Tuesday at age 92, Jarrar took to social media to call the former first lady an “amazing racist” who raised a “war criminal.” Jarrar also expressed no concern that she could be fired or reprimanded for her outspokenness.

“Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal,” Jarrar wrote on Twitter. “F—outta here with your nice words.”

Castro said he shares the shock and horror many people expressed after Jarrar, an associate professor in the English department, tweeted about Bush.

“This was beyond free speech. This was disrespectful,” Castro said.

The backlash on Twitter was immense on Tuesday night, with thousands of comments pouring in to condemn Jarrar for what she had said. Jarrar eventually made her social media accounts private.

Castro said he is grateful Jarrar chose to change her settings, and that her tweets are ultimately a way to educate the campus on social media use.

“One set of tweets, as horrible as they were, do not define us,” Castro said.

Jarrar did not return requests for comment by phone and email. But she did return to Twitter on Wednesday to thank her supporters.

“I’m still fabulous, thanks for checking in. Love to all of you who have sent support,” she wrote.

In one of her tweets on Tuesday night, Jarrar said she is a tenured professor and makes $100,000 a year.

“I will never be fired,” Jarrar tweeted.

At a news conference Wednesday, Provost Lynnette Zelezny also disagreed with the professor’s contention she can’t be fired because of tenure.

Asked at the news conference about that tweet, Zelezny said: “Does tenure mean that you, technically, cannot be fired? The answer to that is no.”

The university had not been in contact with Jarrar, who is on a leave of absence this semester.

Ari Cohn of FIRE, an organization that advocates for free speech on university campuses, said Jarrar’s initial tweet was protected speech under the First Amendment.

Even subsequent tweets in which Jarrar tagged the official Fresno State account do not indicate that she was speaking on behalf of her employer instead of as a private citizen, he said.

Instead, he believes she was reacting to the mob that wanted to see her fired, a trend that he said is growing in the past year.

“The desire to see someone fired because they said something you disagree with or was offensive to you is childish and unproductive and it needs to stop,” Cohn said. “It can so easily be turned around on someone you agree with so it’s ultimately self-defeating.”

Last year, Fresno State professor Lars Maischak came under fire for a tweet saying President Donald Trump “must hang.”

Maischak was ultimately reassigned for the next school year.