Conservatives around the country are blasting the news that Hunter Biden will be a guest speaker at a Tulane class this fall, but not all conservatives.
Some have been more muted in their comments about the president’s son, in what has become the latest flash point in the culture and political wars raging at university campuses.
Fox News, predictably, gave plenty of coverage to the story this week. Hunter Biden has become notorious on the right for his work for a Ukranian energy company while his father was vice president, for his past addiction to crack cocaine and for being under investigation by the Justice Department for possible tax violations.
“In case you needed more proof that college is a waste of time & money, here it is: Hunter Biden is joining the faculty at Tulane to teach a class on ‘fake news,'” tweeted Charlie Kirk, a prominent conservative. “Hunter Biden should be in jail, not teaching or influencing the future of America.”
Hunter Biden
Biden is not joining the faculty. Rather he has agreed to be a virtual guest speaker -- without compensation -- at a class this fall called “Media Polarization and Public Policy Impacts,” taught online by Andrew Schwartz, whose biography identifies him as the chief communications officer at the Center for Strategic & International Studies, a bipartisan think tank in Washington. The syllabus says the class “will explore the current state of the media landscape in the United States and how media polarization, fake news, and the economics of the news business impact public policymaking in Washington, D.C.”
Biden, who has just published a memoir, is one of the 10 guest speakers for the course.
Schwartz, a Tulane grad who was a producer for Fox News, did not respond to requests for comment on Friday. But Tulane spokesman Michael Strecker said decisions regarding guest speakers "are made by individual instructors," not anyone in senior leadership.
The news earlier this week that Hunter Biden will be one of several guest speakers in an online Tulane University course this fall has been me…
“Since Mr. Biden is someone who has received much media coverage, the instructor hopes that he will offer thoughts for classroom discussion,” Strecker said in an email.
Among the many conservatives who voiced displeasure over Biden's pending talk is Quin Hillyer, who grew up four blocks from Tulane and whose parents and grandparents graduated from the university. Hillyer unloaded on Tulane in a column he wrote for the Washington Examiner.
“At first glance, one would think this report surely is satire, perhaps something out of the Onion or the Babylon Bee. Alas, though, it is all too real,” Hillyer wrote. “One wonders what Biden knows about policymaking, since he has never been in a public policy position. Yes, he openly traded his name for pay from foreigners wanting to influence policy, but that is not the same thing.”
U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, in a video he posted Wednesday, said he hopes the students in the class ask President Biden's son what he did to obtain "millions of dollars in contracts" while doing business in China.
10-week course is titled 'Media Polarization and Public Policy Impacts'
U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise, whose district includes Tulane, hopes students ask similar questions and referred to an October article by the New York Post that Twitter initially blocked from appearing on its platform. The conservative newspaper reported that “Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company.”
“I would be curious to see if Hunter Biden will talk about that story and business dealings in foreign country,” Scalise said. He called the decision to invite Biden “an interesting choice” and said, “They’re free to invite whoever they want to speak.”
That’s also the view of Tulane graduate Newt Gingrich, who was the Republican Speaker of the House during the 1990s and a presidential candidate in 2012.
“I don’t believe in cancel culture, so having Hunter Biden as a guest lecturer is what a university should do,” Gingrich, who has a masters and a doctorate in history from Tulane, said in an email. “However, they should provide balance by having a conservative reporter or blogger respond to Hunter Biden’s version of reality.”
Published reports have identified other speakers. Strecker, however, said the list hasn't been finalized but will include "high profile speakers from across the political and policy spectrum."
Biden does have a Tulane connection. His sister Ashley graduated from the university in 2004 with a B.A. in anthropology.
Another well-known Tulane grad who has been a major player in Republican politics is Bob Livingston, who represented suburban New Orleans in the House from 1977 to 1999.
“I’m usually happy to express my pride in my alma mater,” Livingston said in an email. “But this one is hard to absorb.”
Strecker, the Tulane spokesman, said many outlets have wrongly reported that Mr. Biden has been hired by Tulane when, in fact, "he will appear online in one segment of one class as an unpaid guest speaker.”
Strecker added, “We have received little, to no, complaints from students regarding this decision.”
But at least one former Tulane student is furious.
Micki Lewis, a proofreader and editor who lives in Miami, fired off an email to the university Thursday.
“As of now, I am asking to be completely disassociated with Tulane due to your incredibly STUPID invitation to Hunter Biden to TEACH A COURSE to your students,” wrote Lewis, who studied at Tulane’s Newcomb College for two years in the early 1960s. “I DO NOT WANT TO BE AFFILIATED IN ANY WAY WITH A UNIVERSITY THAT IS SO OBVIOUSLY BEING RUN BY FOOLS. Take my name off of your mailing list and I will take the Newcomb Institute bequest out of my will.”
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May 01, 2021 at 06:20AM
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Conservatives blast Tulane, call Hunter Biden guest speaking gig an 'incredibly stupid invitation' - NOLA.com
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