Tuesday, I reported on an egregious instance of anti-conservative bias at Bates College in which an officer in the Bates Media Relations Office not only failed to publicize an upcoming campus event sponsored by the Maine State College Republicans, but also sent an email to his supervisor referring to the Bates College Republicans as a "bunch of thugs." Since then, a lot has happened.

Doug Hubley, author of the unfortunate email, has apologized in writing. The Bates Media Relations Office has publicized the event. The president of Bates has expressed a willingness to sit down with Oliver Wolf, the Bates student and College Republicans officer who received Hubley's email, to address any concerns he may have about anti-conservative bias at the school. The Bates College Student Government along with various deans came up with funds totaling over $2,500 to help to defray the costs of bringing Andrew Sullivan (who has inexplicably not picked up on this story!) to campus to speak.

Wolf reports that he has been contacted by Accuracy in Academia, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), NoIndoctrination.org, David Horowitz's Students for Academic Freedom, the Young America's Foundation, the Leadership Institute, and a filmmaker working on a documentary on political correctness on campuses. Many Bates alumni, students, staff, faculty, donors and concerned citizens have written to the Bates College Republicans to express their support; others have contacted Bates administrators to voice their concerns.

Here is Hubley's letter of apology, written at his supervisor's behest:

Doug Hubley, Staff Writer
Bates College Office of Communications and Media Relations
141 Nichols St.
Lewiston, ME 04240

Feb. 25, 2004

Mr. Oliver Wolf, Vice Chair, and the Bates College Republicans
45 Campus Ave., Room 7
Bates College
Lewiston, ME 04240

To Mr. Wolf and the Bates College Republicans:

I'm writing to express to you and to the Bates Republicans my sincerest apologies for the hurt and distress that I caused through my stupid, callous use of humor in an e-mail on Monday, Feb. 23, 2003.

Please know that I do not in any way regard the Bates Republicans as "a bunch of thugs." I am very sorry for having misspoken, and that my words were presented to you in such a hurtful way. Feb. 23 was my return to work after a week's vacation, and it was a very busy and difficult day. As sometimes happens, my anxiety with events led to my flying off the handle in what was intended as a private communication from me to my supervisor.

People who know me well know that my sense of humor tends, sometimes unfortunately, to take the form of sarcasm and irony, impacting all in sight regardless of political affiliation. My comment was intended only in that sense.

The policy of this office is to present a fair and balanced picture of all political activities at Bates. Indeed, an analysis of news releases on the Bates Now Web site for this academic year shows an even split between Bates Republican and Bates Democrat events. Our office made a special request to the Bates Republicans this year asking for all of your press releases. As you know from the work we have done together previously in publicizing Bates Republican events -- you may recall a very amicable meeting between the two of us during the 2002-2003 academic year -- I have always done my best to represent your organization fairly in CMR publications. I truly regret this lapse in professionalism that has created the opposite impression.

In addition, there's one other point I'd like to clarify. Because we are so busy in this office, we often have to perform triage on which events to publicize. When I expressed to my supervisor the possibility that the Youth Leadership School was "far afield" for this office to publicize, I meant solely that it was not, strictly speaking, a Bates event, but rather one sponsored by an outside group, the Maine College Republican Organization, and as such might be lower in priority than one sponsored solely by a Bates organization.

As inadequate as this letter may seem, I very much hope that it can start the process of healing the relationship between the two of us, and between this office and the Bates Republicans. Once again, please accept my strongest apologies and my hope that we can continue working together productively in the future.

Most sincerely,
Doug Hubley

It's nice to see Bates working so hard to undo the damage Hubley did. But it would be much nicer if the sort of casual, petty discrimination that motivated Hubley in the first place were not such an accepted component of campus culture in the first place. It's worth noticing that if Hubley's email had not found its way into Wolf's inbox,and if Wolf had not gone public with his outrage, the "thug" comment would have passed unremarked, as would Hubley's failure to publicize a campus event held by a group whose politics he abhors. It's worth reflecting, too, on whether Hubley would still have a job if he had behaved similarly toward a campus women's group or an association of minority students.

UPDATE: Here is the Bates College formal statement on the Hubley debacle.

AND ANOTHER: NoIndoctrination.org has picked up the Bates story.