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A university president was forced to resign because he liked a series of tweets criticizing Marxist philosophies prevalent in Academe.
But only one year ago, the same university—Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia—was in love with President Mark L. Tykocinski.
Shortly after Tykocinski was hired in July 2022, a larger than life profile of him appeared in the Jefferson Alumni News. The lengthy feature covered nearly everything about the man, including the fact that he is the son of Holocaust survivors.
“Tykocinski’s parents were Holocaust survivors,” the profile stated.
“Natives of Poland, they endured Auschwitz and met in a displaced persons camp after the war. They married in 1947, immigrated to the United States in 1950 with their young daughter Annette, and settled on a chicken farm in Lakewood, New Jersey, where Mark Tykocinski was born in 1952. He says one of his most vivid childhood memories is that of standing on a crate, helping his mother candle eggs.”
Tykocinski, an internationally famous immunologist and researcher, was Jefferson’s former Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs before his promotion to president.
His fall from grace was more like a homicidal push.
The woke worm in Jefferson’s academic apple came to life when some students at the university realized that their new president was ‘liking’ tweets they categorized as right-wing.
These were tweets that questioned the validity of Covid vaccines, condemned child sex change mutilations and expressed skepticism about certain radical equity issues.
An alarm was sounded, attracting the attention of the Philadelphia Inquirer, the city’s (woke) newspaper of record and discord.
The Inquirer immediately went to work checking all of the president’s tweets, which numbered in the hundreds, then published the results in an investigatory piece that played up the “right-wing” angle.
The idea that a major newspaper could pay reporters to investigate a university president’s tweets as if they were digging for facts behind a major crime is beyond shocking, especially since the end result (in today’s political climate) could only ruin the man’s life.
If merely liking a tweet is enough to cause a university president to resign, one wonders what writing an actual (offensive) tweet might warrant.
According to the standards at play here, that punishment could conceivably be the death penalty.
Understandably, Tykocinski tried to save face (and his job) by apologizing to the fascists, but — no surprise — the apology did no good. Leftists do not want to hear apologies after an offense has been committed. Any apology offered to the Left is met with resistance and even greater hostility.
Like a scene out of Robert Graves’ ‘I, Claudius,’ that apology will only garner another stab in the back.
Tykocinski noted in his apology that he does not believe vaccines are dangerous. He also made a point of saying that both he and his family members had all been vaccinated against Covid-19.
“I understand that my lack of knowledge of the Twitter platform created questions and unintentionally offended many,” he said. “Please be assured this will be a learning experience, and I will grow as a person and professional from this misstep.”
Translation:
“I apologize to the Central Committee for thinking outside the box. I will try to be a good citizen going forward and not go against what I am told to believe.“
In his desperate attempt to save his job, Tykocinski even told the Inquirer that he had liked the tweets so that he could bookmark them in order to “learn more about the subject matter or the particular viewpoint.”
One liked tweet that the Inquirer took particular delight in reporting was from Donald Trump Jr.:
“Doctors lied and coerced a 13-year-old into an irreversible ‘gender affirming medical procedure.’ Now she is fighting back and suing them. Donate here to support the lawsuit and help stop child mutilations.”
The Inquirer also noted that before the story of Tykocinski’s ‘like history’ was published, the president had a total of 539 likes but that those likes went down to 348 and then to 203 after publication.
What is this if not a further condemnation of the man for having a very natural panic attack at seeing his world fall apart?
Tykocinski was even hounded in print by an Associate Professor of gender, sexuality and women’s studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Jessa Lingel, who objected to Tykocinski’s answer to the Inquirer when the newspaper asked him if he opposed child sex change surgeries.
Tykocinski told the Inquirer,
“This is not my clinical area of expertise. In general, any issue involving children should be referred to clinical experts at children’s hospitals who offer the full complement of services necessary.”
Lingel thinks that Tykocinski should have answered that question with a simple “no.”
“You shouldn’t need specialized understanding in pediatric care to recognize that trans-affirming care is simply part of health care and part of well-being,” she said. “It’s not a radical stance to say that trans-affirming care is not mutilation for children or anybody.”
The above statement illustrates Lingel’s ideological idiocy.
Sadly, Jefferson CEO, Dr. Joseph Cacchione, a colleague of Tykocinski’s, made no attempt to throw the president a life-line but instead told the press that Tykocinski was “careless” in his tweets, and that “he should have known better.”
Heartwarming words, indeed.
Tykocinski’s forced resignation attracted the attention of Twitter CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted in support of Tykocinski. Musk wrote:
“This is absurd. Shame on the CEO and board of trustees of Thomas Jefferson University.”
That shame is well placed.
An organization as large and wealthy as Jefferson University—it covers a good swath of Center City—can afford to be magnanimous and tolerate a variety of views within its organization rather than resorting to methods better suited to Communist China.
Like the University of Pennsylvania in West Philadelphia, Jefferson University, a well-known teaching hospital and medical school located just a few blocks south and east of City Hall, has spent the last two decades buying up every property in its path.
Iconic old city diners were demolished to make way for yet another Jefferson cancer or dialysis center; historic buildings are and continue to be reformatted into new MRI imaging centers and labs of every description.
In many ways, Jefferson University is Center City Philadelphia.
In September of 2014, Philadelphia’s Southeastern Transportation Authority (SEPTA) sold the naming rights of its Market-Frankford El station for close to $4 million dollars.
The buyer was Jefferson University. Many transit riders balked at the name change because it smacked of the power of money and advertising rather than the organic roots of the station’s original name, Market Street East, which at least bore an historic relation to that part of downtown.
Finally, the Tykocinski case tells us that we need no further proof that academic freedom is dead.
Jefferson’s buildings may be big, shiny and brawny, but on the inside there’s a rot that hints of a growing moral decay.
Tykocinski should’ve learned from Prof. Larry Summers.
In 2005, leftist feminists (starting with drama-queen Nancy Hopkins) required the head of economist Larry Summers when he was at Harvard.
His “crime” was to describe differences between men & women. Oh God, the horror!
He apologized thrice, but it didn’t save him. Knuckling under & apologizing never placates the mob – it only encourages it.
Instead of apologizing, he should’ve told those idiots to grab a smelling salt & grow up. The cry-babies still would’ve taken his job, but not his dignity.
Now for them to start brining up Lawsuits and make Big Brother run
Glad the university (undoubtedly) goes to great lengths to trumpet its support for “diversity.”
Fascism at work. Plain and simple.
It’s COMMUNISM at work. That Bolshevik TRUTH needs to be said aloud. And often!
For a while, I went to college – seeking a double degree in History and Fine Art, and made excellent grades, Dean’s List, and received suggestions that I work towards teaching Fine Art at the college level. However, I could see what the system is becoming. Tenure is now, not a means to protect thought, but to receive protection for conformity. It was bad at the teaching level, but it hadn’t quite reached the level of students. They were generally seen as something special needing to be day-cared for bright things in the future. I guess we can see what those bright things is going to be – thought police. But, none of us can doubt the grooming was done by some in the education system.
I stopped my formal education, and would certainly never consider teaching anything in what higher education has become. Let me count my ‘sins’ of thought…
Simply put – just why are the taxpayers still allowing a dine to go to these places?
Hooray for you. Before Woke and Neo-Marxism began to grow like poison ivy in schools I passed on teaching in academe to practice my specialty. I had a few opportunities to leave practice and teach and turned them all down. My daughter just retired as a geologist and public school teacher—a dual retirement, I guess—and is filled with horror stores of what is happening in public schools. We see the horror of university level fascism everywhere we look.
This happened over a span of just sixty years. As an undergrad at Indiana University I recall a protest march around the town square by a dozen young Marxists organized as Fair Play for Cuba. The few citizens who paid any attention to them laughed at them. Only ten years later a large group of young newly-minted Marxists attempted to burn down the Library. Today the university as well as the entire town is a Neo-Marxist/Fascist haven.
“Marxist” does not exist. Karl Marx NEVER used the word Marxist. He used ONLY the word Communist. It is all he was…a vicious, rabid, hate filled, inner enemy, COMMUNIST! Working to destroy everything around him. As America’s present inner enemy Bolshevik COMMUNISTS have been doing inside America every day since 1917. Hidden inside their Communist Party USA for a hundred years. And now hidden inside their COMMUNIST Democrat Party America.
Thanks, Dr. Rhudy, I was strongly pushed by my Program Advisor. I could see myself able to teach (at the college level) Fine Art History. And there is considerable need as Fine Art Programs are so generally – well -‘modern’, but I just could see myself putting in the time, effort and expense as I knew I could never be a ‘party member’ for the latest round of this post-modern – stuff’.
I would talk about the courses with fellow students. Once, I was asked why wasn’t teaching the course as the material made sense. I still hope the actual professor had not heard that one.! However, today’s system wants the believer, and not the actual thinker.
Being from Indiana, I remember that account at IU Bloomington. The rot has only grown more and more on campus. Pity, the university was once a very great school, and across a wide variety of Schools.
Truly sad to see just how bad schooling has become here in the Western world.
I was even more ‘professional’ at the place than several of the art professors. I already had sold work in Europe, and well – the insiders did joke privately about the ‘three little pots’ done by one of the staff on her sabbatical. My own Advisor had a show from his covering the techniques from the artistic atelier tradition. So – I knew he wasn’t just blowing smoke up my you know what.
It was a – disappointment, but here we are.
Hopefully this academic can also go and get a proper job where his efforts will be rewarded rather than writing reports nobody reads.
When they grovel, I walk away. He groveled.
Its a a wonder their still keeping the named of Thomas Jefferson and haven’t had it renamed for their favorite violent and deceased criminal George Floyd
Well, Tom still brings in the money, and George is still just dead.
As I read the article my mind wandered back to those macabre images of row upon row of the skulls of Pol Pot’s victims. Somehow I think the new woke barbarians in our midst wouldn’t stop short of repeating that if they thought they could get away with it.
That has happened EVERY time Communists have been able to take over. A total of more than one hundred million innocent, purposefully dis-armed citizens in one century slaughtered in cold blood. Why do Americans continue to overlook this historical fact as the fake investigations and indictments go on?
Did his accusers have “likes” of anti-Semitism tweets? I bet they did!
Why is there no one to investigate the accusers? Why cant their game be played on them.
It may not fix the situation but neither does apologues and submission.
Another cowardly dog apologizes, yet still finds himself thrown to the gutter. Bet his parent’s wouldn’t have apologized.
If you’re going to apologize for saying what you believe, far better to just keep quiet.
At least this way you don’t reveal that you’re just another gutless conservative making the rest of us look bad.
At this point in the war, any conservative who apologizes deserves to be thrown to the gutter.
“Walk toward the fire. Don’t worry about what they call you.” Andrew Breitbart
And get in their faces, ridicule them, and always go for the kill. Every conservative in America should be spitting venom by now. Every transvestite and climate alarmist in America should be the subject of constant ridicule.
Either fight or get the f**k out of our way.
This is worse than simply the closing of the American mind, it’s a destruction of human decency and civilized society. All the freedoms inspired and implemented by Western Civilization are being attacked and destroyed. These are extremely evil nihilists.
Anyone got a box of matches I can borrow?
He should NEVER have apologised.
Appeasing these creatures doesn’t work and it never has done.
An apology legitimises their psychosis. And it shows weakness.
BTW, I love that you know I, Claudius!
It’s my favourites drama series, and not many seem to be familiar with it these days.
Its a wonder their still using Thomas Jefferson and had it renamed for the Liberals and the M.S. Media bottom Feeders favorite Career Criminal George Floyd but it don’t want those mindless Liberals and know nothing Collage Professors and Administrators any stupid ideas