University Pulls Thomas Award
Helen Thomas may be sticking by her comments on Israel but Wayne State University isn’t.
From Mediaite
Months removed from the anti-Semetic comments that lost her her front row seat at White House press briefings, Helen Thomas’s continued remarks on the matter have lost her yet another honor– an award given to undergraduates at Wayne State Univeristy in Detroit in her honor, which has now lost its name.
According to the AP, the University announced today the award will no long be available, effective immediately:
“As a public university, Wayne State encourages free speech and open dialogue, and respects diverse viewpoints,” the statement said. “However, the university strongly condemns the anti-Semitic remarks made by Helen Thomas during a conference yesterday.
Wayne State University says it’ll no longer offer the Helen Thomas Spirit of Diversity Award, citing recent comments made by the longtime journalist.
The remarks that lost her this award, however, are not the ones that lost her her longtime job– these were comments made last Thursday that “Congress, the White House and Hollywood, Wall Street are owned by the Zionists.” Thomas, who is 90 years old, went from beloved icon to conflicted media figure almost overnight when the aforementioned video of her telling Jewish Americans to “go home” (to Poland) went viral online.
The university considered here earlier remarks a knee-jerk reaction but her latest remarks left the school with very little choice but to pull the award.
Considering Thomas’ defense of her remarks I doubt that the school will ever hand out this award again.
Don Irvine is the chairman of both Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia. This column originally appeared on the AIM website.
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Don Irvine
Donald Irvine is the chairman of of Accuracy in Academia (AIA), a non-profit research group reporting on bias in education. Irvine follows his father’s legacy, Reed Irvine, to critically analyze the liberal media’s bias and brings over thirty years of media analysis experience. He has published countless blog posts and articles on media bias, in context of current events, and he has been interviewed by many news media outlets during his professional career. He currently hosts a livestream weekly show on AIA’s Facebook page which discusses current events.
Irvine graduated from the University of Maryland and rose up the ranks to become chairman of Accuracy in Media until his transition to AIA.
He resides in the suburbs around the nation’s capital and is a proud father and grandfather.
