Late last month, Florida Atlantic University began the process of firing communications professor James Tracy. For those who don’t know, Tracy is one of the most notorious Sandy Hook truthers, and maintains that the massacre that took place in Newtown, Connecticut three years ago never really happened. After word got out that Tracy had gone as far as to harass the family of one of the victims–apparently because he felt it was in the “public interest“–FAU came under increasing pressure to sever ties with him.
Well, late yesterday, FAU formally notified Tracy that he will be fired as of the close of business on Friday. The Washington Post obtained a copy of the termination letter. Read it here. It turns out that Tracy wasn’t fired for his harassment of Lenny and Veronique Pozner, the parents of six-year-old Noah Pozner–though FAU would have been more than justified in doing so. Rather, vice provost Diane Alperin told Tracy that he was being fired for willful refusal to comply with university policies regarding potential conflicts of commitment–that is, whether he was properly managing the time he devoted to his outside activities and his commitments as a university professor.
Alperin reminded Tracy that he had refused to submit forms disclosing any outside employment or activities in which he was engaged for the 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2015-16 academic years. These forms were required by both FAU’s collective bargaining agreement and university policy so university officials could monitor them for “potential, actual, or perceived conflicts of commitment or interest.” This is standard operating procedure throughout the academic world.
When Heather Coltman, the dean of FAU’s College of Arts and Letters, asked Tracy for those forms on November 10, Tracy replied with a curt email on November 22 not only saying that he would not submit the forms, but told her why he did not feel the need to comply. On December 11, Coltman told him that he did have to comply after all, and gave him until December 14 to do so. On December 15, Tracy finally sent the disclosure forms. However, he only submitted forms regarding two activities, even though Alperin noted that he had seen him publicly promote numerous activities “that you have not reported to FAU.”
Among the activities he didn’t disclose were the two for which he is best known to those outside the FAU community–his work for the Center for Research on Globalisation, a far-left version of WorldNetDaily, as well as his work on his personal blog, The Memory Hole. In so doing, Alperin said, Tracy had “deprived the University of the forms needed to assess” if Tracy had a conflict of interest or commitment. Almost as seriously, Tracy apparently admitted using FAU resources for one activity that he did disclose after previously claiming no university resources had been used for it.
If I’m reading this correctly, Tracy is getting the gate for not giving FAU officials the chance to ensure that his activities weren’t taking away from his teaching and research duties, or to review if he was using university resources for them. Apparently his head was on the chopping block long before his harassment of the Pozners came to light. Remember, Coltman first asked for the forms on November 10–a full month before the Pozners wrote an op-ed in the (Fort Lauderdale) Sun Sentinel revealing how Tracy had harassed them–and displayed almost saintlike patience when Tracy initially refused to comply. Still, this is almost like nailing Al Capone for tax evasion.
Tracy isn’t taking his ouster lying down. According to the Sun Sentinel, he is laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against FAU–with the apparent support of the United Faculty of Florida. UFF president Robert Zoeller contends that Tracy was “wrongly fired,” but couldn’t elaborate. But unless he has an explanation for lying about using university resources, this lawsuit will be a fool’s errand. And even if he wins, no reputable university will hire a guy who finds it acceptable to harass the families of murder victims.
