Madam Foxx Tries to Stomp ASU Student Writer

A student writer for the ASU college newspaper, "The Appalachian," did a piece on Virginia Foxx's racist tactics, which you can read here.

According to the author of that piece, he called the Congresswoman's office for quotes on "another, unrelated story," and in the process managed to draw her baleful eye. Foxx's chief of staff Todd Poole subsequently phoned the student editor of "The Appalachian" and insisted that the writer of the racism piece be fired, or reassigned, or -- I don't know -- waterboarded. Then Mr. Poole bragged to a former staff person for the Roger Sharpe campaign that the student editorialist "had been taken care of."

Well, evidently not. The editor of "The Appalachian" has decided to stand behind his columnist's right to offer an opinion critical of The Madam.

This sort of attempted intimidation of the denizens of The Academy is nothing new to Foxx. In 2000 (wasn't it?) she induced the local District Attorney to open an investigation of ASU's Freshman Seminar program because of the voter registration drive they were conducting that year. Her reputation as president of Mayland Technical College is that she ruled by terror and was vindictive to anyone who resisted her. Certainly her stint as associate dean of the ASU College of Arts & Sciences way back in the '70s was marked by dyspepsia and periodic nausea.

Why doesn't the Faculty Senate over there look into the attempted intimidation of a student writer by our U.S. Congresswoman?