April 24, 2021
Mississippi Secretary of State Watson poked a hornet’s nest when he criticized H.R. 1 for inducing so-called “woke”-but-ignorant college students to vote – a rather curious position for the state’s top voting official, whose job is generally considered to include increasing citizen participation in the democratic electoral process. You can a read a brief summary of the kerfuffle here – https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/apr/16/mississippi-official-defends-own-comment-about-wok/
Among Watson’s critics were several private and public college and university professors who have both professional and personal stakes in getting students to engage actively and responsibly in the democratic process; five of us wrote a letter that was published in the Clarion-Ledger and the Mississippi Free Press, and thereby caught the attention of the Associated Press. You can read the letter here – https://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/2021/04/16/mississippi-college-professors-secretary-of-state-watson-woke-comment-wrong-opinion/7251266002/
Contacted by the AP news organization, Watson fired back, saying he was the victim of a “hatchet job,” and insisting that his real target is not college students, but “liberal, far-left professors” who “teach students to hate America.” Subsequently, Mississippi Public Broadcasting asked me to do an interview on the matter, which aired this past week. Here’s the link to the interview; start listening around the 8:40 mark –
The Southern Miss School of Social Work 