JAY LUCAS AND DAVID WILKINS FACE OFF OVER TILLMAN HALL CONTROVERSY
|| By FITSNEWS || A huge political battle is brewing in the Palmetto State between the current S.C. Speaker of the House – Jay Lucas – and one of his powerful predecessors.
What’s the fight about? Efforts to rename an iconic landmark on the grounds of a government-run institution of higher learning.
FITS reported exclusively this week on Clemson University’s attempt to rename its most historic, recognizable building – Tillman Hall. Currently the structure pays homage to “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman – and outspoken white supremacist and lynch law advocate was indicted (but never tried) for his role in the 1876 Hamburg Massacre (which saw six freed blacks murdered by a Tillman-led mob).
Two weeks ago Clemson’s board of trustees flatly rebuked efforts to rename Tillman Hall, but apparently members have now thought better of it. Or more to the point, they realized the school might lose football recruits if the name isn’t changed.
(Ahhhhh, yes).
Clemson’s problem? A caustic debate in the S.C. House of Representatives over the removal of the Confederate flag just took place – and House leaders are in absolutely no mood to address any additional “heritage-related” scandals.
Oh, and these same House leader were just told they didn’t have to worry about Tillman Hall.
As recently as this week, former S.C. Speaker of the House (and ex-U.S. Ambassador to Canada) David Wilkins – who serves as the chairman of Clemson’s board of directors – told Lucas and other House leaders his school had no plans to address the issue.
Turns out that promise – consistent with Wilkins’ prior statements to the press – wasn’t true.
On condition of anonymity, two Clemson trustees have confirmed to FITS the proposed renaming of Tillman Hall was added to this week’s board agenda before Wilkins assured Lucas and other House leaders that the issue wouldn’t be raised again.
In fact we’re told Lucas issued his emphatic statement – in which he vowed no future name changes to various roads bridges, buildings, etc. across the state during his term as Speaker – after he learned of Wilkins’ double-cross.
Eight years ago, we called for Tillman’s statue on the S.C. State House grounds to come down in light of his racist past, but in the aftermath of last week’s removal of the Confederate flag from those same grounds – a move we supported – we’ve revisited the issue.
More to the point, we continue believe Clemson and all other institutions of higher learning in South Carolina need to be immediately set free to pursue their destinies in the private sector.
That way they can name and rename buildings to their hearts content without state interference.
68 comments
How about declaring “Fuck You” the state motto, and put it on the license plates and on all of the monuments at the state house?
That would end any meaningful debate as to the underlying sentiment, and promote the ideal of honesty and transparency for our children.
Gibberish, just more gibberish.
Back in your hole, inferior.
Max, what has been happening to you in recent days that is boiling your bile against South Carolina — and all the way from Texas?
hmmm… now that you mention it, it seems to have all started when NASA lost contact with the New Horizons spacecraft around the 4th.
There is about an hour and twenty minutes missing from my memory on that day.
Soon after that, at the dinner table, I experienced a sense of profound meaning in the reflection of my face in my plate. Before I realized it, I had covered the reflection with mashed potatoes, and sculpted it into the outline of South Carolina.
I know this sounds crazy, but ever since then, I’ve been seeing this shape. Shaving cream, pillows… Dammit! I know this. I know what this is! This means something. This is important.
Now I have a model of South Carolina in my living room – WHO ARE YOU PEOPLE?
WHEW..!! Thanks to the heavens, you’re back to your usual sanity — thought we might have lost you due to bad drugs ….. or something!
I think we can put it down to “or something!”
Sometimes I allow my invective to control the keyboard, and sometimes it controls me.
South Carolina has a strange effect like that (especially if you are not a native South Carolinian)
Seems like native South Carolinians (4th generation minimum – ALL native South Carolinians know it takes at least 4 generations to purge out “foreign blood”) are immune to invectives against their beloved state so that leaves me and my family (and maybe you) subject to said invectives against the great state of South Carolina
That’s the only explanation I can come up with……………
Recently I was talking to a friend who lives in Georgia. He was very sensitive about the recent “heritage” dust-up, and felt a little hurt that I was being so bombastic about “the South,” but could only get out that we agreed on almost everything else.
I felt kind of bad, since all I ever see or have seen, is dirt and people. People, I care about – dirt? Not so much.
Another friend lives in Tennessee. He’s not so erudite – he’s all “bring your choice of weapons and a body bag.”
To me, that Southern thing is like Alfalfa’s cowlick – it looks funny, but it isn’t funny.
People from the South (who are familiar with flush handles, anyway) are just like anyone else except for that chip on their shoulder… it’s like a second head.
I mean, I’m about as liberal as a man can get (And you don’t mess around with Slim) – and I can recognize liberals and Republicans under the relatively thin regional veneer, so it’s not *really* like a second head… but it sure comes in handy when I’m in a street fight with a Republican… the overhand right almost always hits one of their heads.
I can tell them by their spoor.
That will come in handy when “stand your ground” turns into “shoot first”
I love my state. Beat me with a spoon!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THWCH2Nwsss
Yes. Like that.
I understand what you mean. A silent “something” is processed by the brain, but it isn’t forced or felt, the “something” which almost always a thought or idea can suddenly appear on the screen (the fastest way) actually without pro-active effort — it’s almost as though the fingertips on the keyboard have their own independent little brains but working as a team. I first experienced this while in Naval Communication School.
Sometimes I’ll track someone’s reply to a comment (not usually mine) by the time it takes for that reply to post. But the reply has to be more than a few lines. What I look at is how long between the original post time and the reply and how long the reply is. The substance of the reply is not important — only that the poster has an alert mind and is quick on the keyboards.
What I find enjoyable is the occasional person who is not trying to represent a set of stereotypical cultural values by repeating phrases culled from low wattage regurgitation factories.
Those idiots dumb down the conversation to the level of Professional Wrestling. I truly couldn’t tell them apart if it weren’t for tell-tale misspellings, or habitual syntax errors. It all melds into the same tiny intellect whose power plant is superiority by immaturity.
I freely admit there are some people who think they’re liberals that fall in that same category. To me, they’re like closeted gays – living a double life.
But far and away, today’s Republicans outnumber all others in being mean spirited, using politics as a forum for expressing hatred. Even the pretense of critical thought has been dropped in favor of an almost monotonic chant, computer generated sentences constructed from the day’s Republican talking points. They’re proud of it, and have no intention of actually discussing anything.
There aren’t that many people who present themselves as well read and well informed, critically evaluating the consistency, or inconsistencies, of the commonly held views. But in the main, it’s rare that such a one accepts a political label of any sort.
I would never claim to be a Democrat. That would be pointless, and counterproductive. Instead, I simply identify myself as a “liberal” – not a “Progressive.”
From the sewer comes the smell of the immature, tiny intellect clones, and drifts into the conversation… slightly more intelligent Republicans welcome the odor, for it helps to impede the honest exchange of ideas, and provides the illusion that their ideas resonate with “the common man,” even if they don’t make sense.
I long ago saw the inevitable result of that entire exercise is obfuscation of the facts through disinformation, intellectual dishonesty and stereotypical substitution.
I’ve been the sysop of a political forum since 2007, and before that a regular poster on the ABC political forum since 2001 or so… and I’ve seen this Republican phenomenon congeal into a single, an almost indistinguishable personality… while the Democrats run dutifully within their hamster wheels, self-conscious, and nervously accommodating…
Of course, they are treated like scared rabbits by the Republicans, jeering at them for their naive belief that cooperation can lead to the greatest good for the greatest number… as though such concepts are only entertained by college students still wet behind the ears, drug users, communists and the decadent sons of a failed hedonistic aristocracy.
It doesn’t take much of that before democrats become what they behold, only it wasn’t their plan – they’ve been manipulated into a conversation with idiots, and dishonest intellectuals. Their original goal of exchanging ideas is lost, and in its place is the time wasting repetition of elementary school taunts.
Instead of getting sucked into that whole thing, I start with the unassailable premise that anyone who is proud to self-identify and label himself a Republican is scum. Of course, there may be some collateral damage in such an approach, but I subscribe to the theory that as fast as my invective inflicts a wound, my ideas heal it up.
That gets me through the whole “rubber glue” thing with a single stroke, and I go to work comparing and contrasting rhetoric with facts. I show inconsistency where none is admitted, lies where truth is claimed and sharp insight that pierces the facade of the Republican’s brutal pets.
But for this privilege, as a nectar bearing flower to a bee, I try to provide some humor, some wit and some entertainment. Perhaps some political pollen will migrate to other fields.
The day of the Triffids! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPfVYZhP2LI
I’ll save your comments to digestt later — I’m taking a break from watching a WWII British spy movie…..
I know what you mean, less than an hour ago I took a big steaming dump and when I looked in the bowl, it was in the shape of the sorry state of South Carolina. …Given the odoriferous olfactory emanations emitting from said dump (much like the stench from the statehouse), I was forced to flush away ole SC, just like our so called elected officials have flushed away the future of this wretched state.
“current day Republicans are the actual descendants of the confederates”
Please explain that to Nikki Haley and Tim Scott.
Euwe max, white legislators whether they are Republicans or Democrats are mostly decedent’s of Confederates and those who aren’t are more likely Republicans.
These Republicans seem to want to deny that they are, in fact, the descendanta of the Dixiecrats.
“Two Clemson trustees have confirmed to fits”. Yeah right!
Probably Peeler and Tindal. They are connected to people that want Lucas et al. out of power.
Peeler is a useless, dimwit slug with close ties to Jean Toal and his slimy brother Harvey Peeler. He is also connected at the hip with that Lexington Illegal Gambling Crime Syndicate/Ring.
Tindal probably yes.
Wilkins and Mcabee self important worthless and should have never been on the Board to start with.
Well here’s Bob’s Twitter bio. What’s Jean’s maiden name again? Oh right Hoefer. Her works for Waste Management a scummy company in a scummy business. Nothing good to say about him other than he’s connected to people including his brother that want Lucas and his crew gone.
Bob Peeler
@peelerbob
Married to Donna Hoefer Peeler; Father of Caroline Peeler Chappell and Robert Peeler, Jr.; Pappy of Annabelle Chappell and Hunter Frye.
I ran into them recently. They reek with evil. Donna has cheated on every relationship I know of. Bob always have, they are a perfect match made with the Devil.
Bob is the one who catches the most grief about his lying, cheating, dirty tricks and affairs; Donna was just as much, if not more to blame. her children were very young when they were abandoned by her. I was on a trip with them, she went after Bob eyes, ears, legs and mouth wide open.
Ask anyone in Lexington about her sickening displays! It’s obvious what she is.
Why? Is she blind, deaf and dumb (as in stupid)? He is Butt ugly.
He put his wife through Hell.
I can attest to the fact that, from my experience, Wilkins is a back stabbing jerk!
Bob Peeler is another and is a pathological liar, as well as an immoral low life.
The Great institution of Clemson University is not well served, nor represented with these people as Trustees.
There are others who should be removed, these two are the worse, of the worse. I would not trust either.
Perhaps Folks should read the agenda for tomorrow’s BOT meeting. One topic is election of a new chair as Wilkins’ term is soon over.
They should wrestle nude to the point of almost kissing.Adults only(but it’s art).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xY_Kb5Qkj-4
Pitchfork Hall is an embarrassment for Clemson and they need to rename it. They should continue to focus on what they are good at, computing, engineering and here in particular automotive engineering and watch the ‘flag ship’ under Pastides collapse by an absolutely unprecedented exodus of faculty and deans. Once their board of trustees wakes up it will be too late – they’ll have an undergraduate mill with a sports complex left and the Thurmond center, another embarrassing name. Rename it and move on – go Tigers!
I would rather have Clemson’s board than South Carolina’s with half it’s members belonging to the same law firm.
Agreed – but more important an engineer as a president, and a forestry scientist And former dean of the president as a provost and a quiet and smoothly running university.
Top 25 school with high retention rate and great smart state chairs.
USC has interims provost, interim artS and sciences dean, searching for a new chair in engineering, lost a member of the national academy of engineering and is about to loose a few key science people.
Who else is leaving?
After Amiridis left slot of the second row science guys are looking. I hear that Vogt (nano science) is looking, as is Brenner (marine science) and I hear Sutton in Engineering is being quietly looked at elsewhere. There is a significant Teri retirement cohort in Chemistry and Engineering that will leave over the next two years. word has it that their Carnegie 1 ranking will be lost.
Ar you at USC?
Nope I used to work together with a lot of USC faculty a few years back. I’m a Tiger.
Hey,
“The Colonel” is still there and we all know he is “shit hot” and has all the answers
Thus, no worries for University of South Cackalacki with “the Colonel” leading from the front as all good O-6 types do!!!!
Don’t get me wrong, there are some good smart people there. It’s just the leadership that has let them down the last couple of years. Pastides has been a disaster for faculty as he only focuses on sports and alumni. He basically abandoned his faculty and that will cometo haunt him.
USC’s dysfunctions sometimes remind me of a typical SC non-academic big state bureaucracy’s dysfunctions. Strutting preening egotistical self-serving full-of-themselves management, sometimes (though not at all always) all the way from top to bottom. Staff or faculty can be very competent but are repressed and sometimes oppressed. Unfair generalities, perhaps, but still widespread.
I can’t even imagine a collegiate atmosphere in that environment.
Gibberish. Those are the traits of the modern University. Even the University communities admits to that.
Gibberish gibberish gibberish.
We have to import the faculty, of course, notably and increasingly from the Third or developing worlds or the old soviet empire.
Same with students. Though many of them come from “the north.”
after Amiridis left the place really collapsed. He was not without faults and very biased towards engineering but now there is just a huge vacuum since there are so many deans gone, leaving, fired and just frustrated with Pastides.
I still remember Dr. Gupta in Thermodynamics.
There is some collegiality left among faculty but the worse is the fact that nobody cares anymore. Staff show up ( or not) and expect to get paid for being there. At the moment nobody does anything as PeopleSoft implementation has stopped everything. It is truly Kafkaesque !
PeopleSoft, what a POS piece of software.
That’s the incubator that produces a counter culture.
You are correct. The conflicts of interests at USC are incalculable.
We live in a corrupt state, where corrupt practices are mad legal by the general assembly.
How do we get change?
The only way Wilkins will ever discuss this is if there’s a chance the building will be renamed Wilkins Hall.
Replace the Tillman statue on the state house grounds with a Jay Lucus statue. Problem solve.
BTW I think that Will has point that both USC and Clemson would be better off if they could become private. I say could becausethe state would have to “give” donate/write off infrastructure of buildings and facilities. Both could reemerge as new private universities and rehire the best former profs. Both institutions would excel over the next decade.
And name any building as they please!
Furman University, a private college, charges in-state students an average of $61,000 per year, while USC charges, on average, $21,500 per year for an in-state student. So, USC would have to raise tuition and fees by $40,000 per year to make up for the loss of state funding if they were forced to go private. How exactly does that benefit the in-state student population?
USC will have to become leaner and shrink – it can’t do it as a comprehensive state university. When it can’t grow anymore, which means admit more undergraduates at higher tuition it is going to implode and that time will come sooner than many think. USC cannot get rid of unqualified staff and faculty within its current constraints. As a private university it could start fresh with the best of what they have now.
lucas providing cover, imo. faux dispute.
Knowing David as well as I do, the only way this discussion will happen, will be if David wants it. See, the “racist” thing and Pitchfork Ben, while being embarrassingly true, belies an utter hatred of the Upstate by the Midlands and Lowcountry and vice versa, stemming from Colonial days. Ask yourself, “Except for you who live there, what do you really know about the Upstate?” Most people have about as much idea about the Upstate as interviewees on Watter’s World have about American History.
…and in other news…
Jelly-spined communist, radical Christian, atheist, Muslim, terrorist, dictator Barack Obama was turned back by the Texas National Guard on the first day of Jade Helm, despite the imposition of martial law and the unprecedented use of A-10’s on the civilian population.
This marks only the first failure in what may become an epic battle between the federal government, and the plucky lone-star state.
There’s no denying the sense of victory in the celebrations across the state… the jubilation is simply contagious! … several cities have chosen to repeat the fireworks displays of the 4th, lighting up the night sky with bombs bursting in air, to the delight of the revelers below.
Unfortunately, some have marred this remarkable victory by dragging the corpses of captured soldiers and marines through the streets, hanging them from streetlights and bridges, and throwing their bodies into rivers.
The sounds of machine gun fire in the distance is probably from captured weapons. There are rumors that an A-10 warthog piloted by a Texan nationalist was turned over to the governor who granted asylum to the pilot.
For now, Texas eyes are smiling, but one can only wonder – what will tomorrow hold?
This is euwe max, signing out from Plano, Texas… where the stars at night are big and bright.
…back to you, Jon.
I must admit, A-10’s would make me forget about it.
Unfortunately, tomorrow will bring more gibberish from Texas.
Maxipad here can’t add anything, so he detracts.
Ha…….embarrassing that a building is named after a sinful person..? We are ALL sinful..!
Now, if ALL institutions were forced to rename ALL buildings after BIG OIL corporations to educate students about our SLAVERY to fossil oil at the pump, I would be more inclined to say this political theater is worthy.
Yep, 9 people DIED due to a person’s stupidity..! In reality….just look at how many humans are getting slaughtered every DAY due to OIL resource control..!!
Wil Folks needs to get in the face of Jay “Lube” Lucas and ask him about our states home energy production capacity…!! Watch him run and hide under his desk…!!
Poor Nikki she hugged up to the race baiters and opened her big mouth and now SC is in the beginnings of a race war started by her. All the blood and property destroyed is on her hands. Poor Nikki she wont be able to appear in public from now on without protesters showing up with their rebel flags. I for one don’t feel a bit sorry for her.
I hope the Richland County Coroner Gary Watts has the forethought to plug in the refrigeration unit on his temporary morgue so it will be cooled down for use by Saturday afternoon because I truly believe he will need it.
Read more: http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/29564606/haley-urges-people-to-stay-away-from-hateful-spectacle#ixzz3g9rhXBzk
Get serious, the trustees at Clemson have no intention of changing the name on Tillman Hall. They are only posturing to get the PC crowd off their backs. They know that the legislature has no intention of letting them change anything. This is a win-win for them.
JimBob you hit the nail on the head.
The name will come off or SC will be cut off from Hundreds of Millions in Federal Funds.
Ummmmm…Kemosabe…this the same Will Folks’ site that he
vomited up after lying about sex with Haley and his being up fellow narcissist Mark
Sanford and a punk rocker on crack ?
Why yes, Tonto—the very SAME don’tcha know—which is why when
he holds forth on Southern Heritage and Tillman Hall you have to KNOW he’s got
no mind NOR a back !!!