A Higher Standard

This week Ohio State University president Gordon Gee appears to have added to the list of awkward statements that he has compiled in recent months. That list includes some disparaging remarks toward the likes of Boise State and TCU in the Fall of 2010. It also includes the unfortunate statement during the investigation of former OSU football coach Jim Tressel last spring that rather than fire Tressel, Gee hoped Tressel didn't fire him. Now, while speaking on Wednesday at the downtown athletic club in Columbus, Gee made an ethnically insensitive statement by referring to a coordination problem among institutions by saying, "It was kind of like the Polish army or something."

For a much-circulated Associate Press account of this latest instance, see here. Now, looking at that again, check out the second-to-last paragraph, which reference other "gaffes" that Gee has made in the past. One listed is from 1992 when Gee called then-governor of Ohio George Voinovich "a damn dummy" regarding funding for higher education.

While this 1992 "gaffe" does reflect upon Gee, it also reflects on a level of agenda setting within the Associated Press, at the very least on the part of the AP writer(s) who wrote the story. Specifically, I'm not sure how this qualifies as a "gaffe." I suppose if it is meant to suggest that his use of the term "dummy" reflects insensitivity to people who cannot speak, I might agree. However, if it's meant to suggest that it was awkward or inappropriate for Gee to refer to Voinovich like that, then it's hardly a "gaffe." I remember higher education changes being proposed and developed by Voinovich's administration at that time, and I remember thinking they were very misguided and antithetical to what I would envision as a thriving and democratic system of education. One change involved the centralization of many graduate programs in the state, which seemed to me that it would take away some of the useful diversity that comes from having multiple degree-granting programs that have different emphases, strengths, and specialities. Indeed, to some extent that change benefited Gee's own institution, as OSU became even more fully (as if it wasn't enough already) a centralized place for research and advanced academic study. Yet, even Gee saw that Voinovich's vision of higher education contained significant flaws.

So, in that context, Gee's comment about Voinovich hardly seems like a gaffe, and it certainly doesn't fit into the same category as his "Polish army" comment. Rather, the mistake here is in the AP story, which sets us up to disallow Gee's comment on Voinovich and thus positions us to accept legitimacy in what Voinovich did to higher education.

Higher education deserves better than this.