Exposé reveals racist writings of McCombs visiting scholar

Richard Hanania, a well known conservative determine and visiting scholar at UT, wrote a number of racist and misogynistic articles years in the past below the pseudonym “Richard Hoste,” in response to an investigation by Huffington Put up revealed on Aug. 4. 

Within the early 2010s, Hanania made racist statements in opposition to Black and Hispanic communities in his articles, together with calling interracial relationships “shameful.” The article notes he additionally advocated in opposition to girls in political places of work and ladies’s liberation and held different misogynistic views. 

“I see no future on the College of Texas at Austin for (Hanania),” sophomore enterprise main Ramya Nambala mentioned. “We’re such a various campus, and it’s crucial to have on the very least some fundamental degree of respect for each single pupil on campus, no matter their background. If it’s confirmed that somebody doesn’t have that, then they shouldn’t be a professor.”

Hanania was beforehand listed as a visiting scholar on the Salem Heart for Coverage below the McCombs Faculty of Enterprise. He has since been faraway from the middle’s web site, and the Fellows and Students web page is presently down.

“I don’t suppose it’s honest to college students of coloration and minority college students who this white supremacist actively advocated in opposition to,” laptop science sophomore Nayeon Kim mentioned. “It’s not representing the pursuits of POC college students. It’s truly threatening them … This isn’t one thing that ought to be taking place in 2023.”

The Salem Heart for Coverage didn’t reply to requests for remark.

“Of all of the cancellation makes an attempt, the most effective one is College of Texas, the place my fellowship already ends earlier than fall (i.e. this month) and I’ve already acquired my final paycheck,” Hanania tweeted on Aug. 8.

On Aug. 6, two days after the publication of the HuffPost article, Hanania posted a response in his e-newsletter.

“Just lately, it’s been revealed that over a decade in the past I held many beliefs that, as my present writing makes clear, I now discover repulsive,” Hanania wrote. “Rising older is ideally a strategy of attempting to suck much less and fewer over time, and one factor I’m safe in is the assumption that I’ve no less than been making progress on that rating.”

Nevertheless, Hanania acquired criticism for sustaining problematic views. For instance, a tweet posted earlier this 12 months known as for elevated policing, incarceration and surveillance of Black residents. 

“I consider that he’s very a lot the identical particular person,” Kim mentioned. “If he tweeted one thing racist in Might, what are the chances that he might need drastically modified inside these few months and all of a sudden got here to acknowledge that his views have been unjust.”

Hanania remains to be lively on the location X, previously often known as Twitter, and selling his new e book amid the controversy. 

“The HuffPost journalist who wrote the hit piece on me remains to be contacting my writer day by day to get them to cancel my e book,” Hanania mentioned on social media. “Now much more is at stake. The destiny of cancel tradition, and the power of journalism centered round private destruction to have an effect on the actual world.” 

Hanania and varied spokespeople on the College didn’t reply to requests for remark.