Mea Culpa re: Shemy
I want to apologize to the readership. When news of Shemy's hiring hit the message board on Wednesday, and a reader referenced liking a Steve Deace tweet, I reached out to a mutual who knew Shemy better to say he should take that down. Shemy called me. I congratulated him on the position, and after chatting I told him he should take down the Deace like, and anything else he doesn't want to be associated with. He also explained on that call what he was hired to do, which I shared on the MGoBoard thread.
That I didn't know there were hundreds of racist, insurrection, and anti-trans likes is no excuse. Like Michigan, I could have taken 20 seconds to look. Had I done so I might have advised Shemy to turn down the position, because that's the kind of stuff that sticks, and it would hurt Michigan. I don't think he would have listened because this job meant the world to him. But at least I wouldn't feel like I deceived you, nor acted in a way that could be interpreted as a cover-up.
his baggage fell “through the cracks”... hoped the baggage would blow over. It didn’t and they cut him loose.
that's an impressive amount of mixed metaphors in a short space of time
I am still in shock that grown adults go on a website like Twitter and reveal the worst side of themselves as though no one is watching. We’ve been telling kids for almost 20 years now that “what you put on the Internet is forever,” but people don’t seem to get it.
Yea, I go here to reveal the worst side of myself. ha!
/s
Speaking for myself, I don't have a good side.
The sad thing is that the people who reveal that 'worst side' (regardless of what 'side' it might be on) don't think its wrong. They think they're correct in all their beliefs and will often refuse to listen to anyone else.
If you bet on Shemy to see some light and develop different beliefs, you're going to lose money.
That's the only logical explanation. Imagine being so strongly ideologically extreme that you think crazy shit is normal? That's a scary way to live...
"..... Imagine being so strongly ideologically extreme that you think crazy shit is normal? That's a scary way to live..."
21st Century American Politics my friend
I mean, a very large part of the population winds down at the end of the day from their shitty jobs that they hate by watching "news" programs yelling at them and telling them that "the other side is out to get you and take your things". They do this every single day and night. It has to be just exhausting.
People still watch the news? It’s been a solid 20 years since I spent any time with televised news.
Not really. They're watching cable news.
Exactly. For him, this was his belief and therefore he never thought there was anything wrong with it.
I'm sure he'll double down and blame the people offended by this.
He released a statement trying to apologize.
https://twitter.com/CFBHeather/status/1660618988777340929
I think he didn’t know that his likes were saved by Twitter. The stuff he posted himself was mostly innocuous and he probably figured he could hide his ugly side by just liking racist posts instead of making them himself.
We say that young people don’t get the permanence of technology, but middle-aged people and technology can be just as lethal a combination.
My uncle harped on that for us all the time when we were kids. Ranted and raved about being careful. Then Martin Sheen donated to a fundraiser he was doing and my uncle was excited and posted a picture of the check Martin Sheen sent - routing, checking numbers address and all.
Adults are often the worst followers of their own advice.
I don't think it's necessarily "revealing the worst part of yourself as if no one is watching", the tweets being referenced are propaganda messages that were liked in order to amplify the message and try to rally more to his cause.
Even the stuff you don't know you put on there is on there. You don't have any secrets if someone is willing to dig. I had a pretty alarming call with eBay this morning actually, and I'm someone who generally keeps a small Internet footprint, or so I thought. I hadn't used my account in years and couldn't access it so I had to call to unlock it. She said she'd have to ask me some questions that are in the public domain. They knew my grandparents' address, my dad's age, and what car I own. I never shared anything like that with eBay and just bought the car a year ago. I have no idea where they got that info, but apparently there's some database easy for them to access that has it all. Yippee.
Everything is shared/sold between companies for 'marketing' purposes. This is covered in the privacy statements and preferences you agree to without knowing you agreed to them. Google has preferences just because you used its search page. Facebook has them hidden in several different spots. Unless you go to virtually every page preference setting you ever visit, your shit will be fanned.
That has nothing to do with eBay or your internet footprint. It is pretty common way to authenticate you that isn't something that can be accessed via malware.
Whereas you used to have to select and answer your own security questions on a website (e.g., your mother's maiden name or street you grew up on), a lot of sites use information that is not stored and thus accessible as a way to validate you as a user. Hackers are looking for the easiest way in - they aren't going to researched 50 different questions that they might have to answer to try to take over your account - they are going to a site where your security questions are already saved.
[insert] General Outrage! [here].
What kind of world are you living in when you encourage an angry, hateful, and mostly anonymous internet community by embracing and spreading their message? It is a sad situation, that's for sure.
/shrug.
The disclosure is appreciated, but at the end of the day it's neither your job nor your responsibility to do a background check, even 20 seconds of searching twitter.
I'm skeptical that anyone will remember anything about the whole affaire d'Schemy a month from now.
No need to apologize here, Seth. You don't have responsibility for other's actions, despite what the internet may tell us about that these days. I don't know Shemy. Virtually no one on here does. I can't speak to his character or anything else, because Twitter isn't real life and doesn't encapsulate a human being.
I don't agree with the things he tweeted/liked/retweeted. I have a feeling I wouldn't agree with Shemy about many things, if not most. I'm also not the keeper of the "Truth" (TM) and get to demonize those who disagree with me. He can have his opinions.
Neither you nor anyone else on this blog made the questionable decision to hire him to the football program. He appears vaguely but not entirely qualified for the position. Bo's legacy coming into question in recent years made the decision to hire Shemy additionally questionable, not because he is Bo or did the things Bo did/didn't do, but for sheer optics you'd think you only hire Shemy if he's the undeniably the best candidate for the role. And as it turns out his twitter reveals that he's far from the undeniable best candidate to help the program recruit young men to the team, in addition to his meh resume. So it was a questionable hire and a no-brainer fire.
None of that is a reflection on MGoBlog, nor is it incumbent upon your team to vet football hires. We don't need this kind of "accountability" - The Atheltic Department could use a bit of it, as it seems too many were asleep at the wheel here. Shemy was the wrong person for this role and this program.
Here here, cheers to you! Very well put. While I appreciate Seth's mea culpa and disclosure that he actually spoke to Schemy on the phone, it's Jim Harbaugh's job as head coach/CEO of the program to make sure all hires are fully vetted. (I second what Brian wrote too--how is it that 15-20 years into the social media age these people's online behavior is not carefully scrutinized as part of the hiring process? It's as if the powers that be are all old guys with no clue...although I mostly don't buy that excuse).
I also second the notion that "Twitter isn't real life and doesn't encapsulate a human being." As has been mentioned in other threads recently, people are complicated. They are not binary in any regard, they make choices in particular situations, then act inconsistently with those prior choices, then often can't explain what their real views are or why they acted one way and flip-flopped. The reason is because we are all humans, not robots or AI machines, and that's how we're wired.
I'm glad that Schemy is gone and those that questioned his hiring in the first place have been vindicated. Meanwhile Seth I appreciate your transparency as well as your hard work. Let this one go and proceed doing great things for this community and elsewhere in your life.
I appreciate how measured you're being - and just to build on yoru comment "you'd think you only hire Shemy if he's the undeniably best candidate", how in the hell did the University think it would be a net positive to quietly hire a family member of Bo Shembechler after what has come out in the past couple years? If you're committed to the hire, there needs to be an upfront public accounting of the rationale. To do otherwise will inevitably invite scrutiny that will require that public accounting anyway, so the only reason NOT to do so proactively is because there's doubt that it's the right move.
That the initial news of the hire was so quickly met publicly with "Why him? Why now?" (and worse) reactions tells me there must have been others in the AD who had the same reaction or could have anticipated it and either chose to ignore that or were over-ruled in order to make such a questionable nepotism hire. Which says to me that the AD has a lot of internal work to do in order to really have a chance at living up to our self-image of a competent, ethical and high-performing university.
Next time you talk to Shemy, tell him to seek therapy on his anger and bigotry issues.
Guy is clearly unhinged and down the 4chan-esque rabbit hole. Differing opinions and politics are cool, straight up bigotry, misinformation, racism, etc should probably be addressed if you actually want to help this guy out.
This.
One can only hope that seeing the consequences of years of bigotry in the form of losing a job that meant the world to him will make him reflect hard on the choices that he's made and the people he's aligned himself with politically.
I certainly think that it is appropriate for somebody to lose a job opportunity for making publicly discriminatory statements, particularly a job at a public institution. I disagree, however, whole-heartedly and full-throated-ly, that anybody should lose a job or a job opportunity over their political orientation. In my opinion, that is a very important distinction.
unfortunately some people can’t extricate politics from every single thought that rolls between their ears
I know that’s right. I work with some of the most annoying far left people out there. I am middle of the road and never seen people overreact to things these people overreact too. It’s frightening. I work with some far right people too,they aren’t even 1/10th as ridiculous as the other employees.
There really isn’t much of a “far right” right now, traditional policy wise at least. Just traditional conservatives are identified as far right at this point when they have never been more “liberal” than they are right now on most issues.
The left just keeps going further and further left to the point that it is almost unrecognizable. I hate to even call it “left.” I’m “left wing” and they left me long ago. Now I find myself on the right and I haven’t changed my views at all.
People use “far right” as a synonym of “racist” for the most part, even though most people I know “on the right” aren’t remotely racist.
This is such a wrong take. Almost every word.
Your experience might be that you feel the "left" has veered leftward, but there's a very good chance you were never that "left" to begin with.
Meanwhile, the right is actively banning books and speech, seeking to narrow and curb civil rights for millions of people, embracing autocrats and dictators, and undermining democracy.
Oh, yeah, and many of them are actively racist too. (Exhibit A: The current twitter situation)
Dude, this thread is literally about a person being fired and publicly destroyed for agreeing with other people's opinions. The left doesn't just "ban books,' they actually ban people.
While that is an important distinction it has become increasingly difficult if not impossible to disentangle as select politicians promote those discriminatory world views without consequence. When the political orientation itself embraces conspiracy theories and discriminatory actions what do you do?
You follow state and federal laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on political beliefs and/or association.
Which don't exist lol
Political party isn't a protected class.
See 42 USC 1983 and its application, also CSRA.
Please also see MCL 168.931.
Fun fact (or maybe not): political beliefs are NOT protected by federal anti-discrimination laws. Meaning you can fire someone simply because your don't like their politics.
(note: some state laws might be different here)
Incorrect. The University of Michigan could not make such a firing.
Well perhaps the state of Michigan has a different law. When I started my company, I had to take a bunch of courses on employment law, and they made it clear that political party affiliation is not protected.
Federal law has also been interpreted to prevent public employees from being discriminated against on the basis of political affiliation.
Almost no states have such laws, and the Federal government definitely doesn't.
By and large, political affiliation is not a protected class.
There's now a difference between politics and politics. My parents and I somewhat disagreed on politics, which amounted to policies on the economy and the size of government and its involvement in our lives, which usually revolved around taxes and how much we should pay and who they should benefit. Politics is a completely different animal. It's warfare, irrationally waged for the purpose of taking down the other side. I mourn the loss of politics. We had some great discussions and disagreements. Our minds rarely changed but we were both willing to listen and I understood where they were coming from.
I think there is only a difference if you let there be a difference. Some of the best political conversations I have ever had have happened in the last couple of years. We are in a rare time, IMO, where people actually do have their opinions changed/altered on some issues through the course of conversations.
I think you might be a party of one. All I've seen is people double and triple down, a lot of that thanks to the media. It's entertainment now, like The Real Housewives. If you've actually had substantive debates on policy without culture war stuff and seething hatred for the other, then more power to you.
The culture-war is actually part of politics right now, there is no way around it. For me, it is just a matter of realizing that most people's positions on a lot of the culture war issues on both sides actually do come from a basis of some degree of merit. It takes exercising an absolute prohibition on "labeling."
I don't think you can dismiss them as somehow "outside" of politics and something that just interferes with a real discussion. It is the real discussion at this point and it only helps to talk it through.
But it shouldn't be the real discussion because much of it is manufactured in the interest of divisiveness. We have to learn to separate what the government should be responsible for and what it shouldn't. A lot of these new "issues" were never in the purview of the government. They were personal and parochial.
I think you have to meet people where they are. Government has made itself part of everybody's business in about every way in the last couple of years. In that regard, of course the purpose of government as it relates to "culture" are going to be issues that are front and center.
the odds that "shemy" will see this as anything other than the product of the woke mob are so tiny as to be nonexistent.
Oh I'm not disagreeing. Just throwing that sliver of hope out into the universe.
no worries Seth.
to be fair many folks don’t have or use Twitter, myself included, so I learned of Shemy’s hiring and social media history on this blog.