University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) Professor James Thomas — who last year said that leftists should put their “whole damn fingers” in Republican senators’ meals, because they “don’t deserve civility” — has been elected the chair of the Chancellor’s Committee on “Academic Freedom and Faculty Responsibility.”
Ole Miss professor James Thomas — who last year called for the abandonment of civility by contaminating Republican senators’ meals in restaurants — is now leading the Chancellor’s Standing Committee on “Academic Freedom and Faculty Responsibility,” according to a report by Y’all Politics.
“Don’t just interrupt a senator’s meal, y’all. Put your whole damn fingers in their salads,” tweeted Thomas in 2018. “Take their apps and distribute them to the other diners. Bring boxes and take their food home with you on the way out. They don’t deserve your civility.”
Thomas is now leading the committee that addresses “cases involving the dismissal or termination of tenured faculty, the non-renewal of a contract for a non-tenured faculty member when there is a substantial claim that such action violates academic freedom or equal employment rights, or the dismissal of a non-tenured faculty member prior to the expiration of a term appointment,” according to the Ole Miss website.
In May, Thomas’ own tenure was called into question — not for his 2018 calls to end civility and contaminate GOP senators’ meals — but for the professor’s more recent controversial comments, in which he talked about using conservative professors at Ole Miss in a “blood sacrifice.”
“The truth is there used to be three or four conservative professors at [Ole Miss]. But we used two for a blood sacrifice to the ghost of Eugene Debs, another we forced to watch and she was subsequently converted, and I ate the fourth because his tears tasted like candy,” tweeted Thomas in January.
The professor has also publicly compared young Trump supporters to Hitler Youth.
“Man, y’all know those MAGA teens aren’t the victims right?” tweeted Thomas one day after the viral incident involving the Covington Catholic High School students and Nathan Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
“MAGA teens are modern day Hitlerjugend. Got a uniform and everything,” said the professor days later.
“When I said MAGA teens are modern day Hitlerjugend, I meant it,” reiterated Thomas in another tweet over the summer. “What we’re watching at this rally is the aesthetics of fascism.”
“It was discussed that Professor Thomas is a prolific tweeter on social media,” states the minutes from the Board of Trustees of the Institute of Higher Learning (IHL)’s May 16 meeting regarding professor Thomas’ tenure.
The meeting minutes also noted that Thomas “tweets as a professor at the University of Mississippi and as an outspoken and adamant commentator on University administrative affairs and that Professor Thomas often tweets about his course content and his daily classroom discussions.”
Thomas’ particular tweet about using conservative professors in a “blood sacrifice” was mentioned at the meeting, and while some trustees expressed concerns about the professor’s tweets, they ultimately voted 7-5 to grant the professor his tenure.
Now, professor Thomas is not only tenured, but the chair of the Chancellor’s Standing Committee on Academic Freedom and Faculty Responsibility as well. The professor announced his new role in a tweet last month, in which he referred to himself as “Captain Twitter Fingers.”
“Today I — Captain Twitter Fingers — was elected chair of the Chancellor’s Standing Committee on Academic Freedom and Faculty Responsibility,” said Thomas in a September 17 tweet, which included a Twitter poll allowing users to vote for either “Joke’s on me” or “Joke’s on them.”
According to the final results of the Twitter poll, the joke’s on Ole Miss.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo and on Instagram.