Oyster River: Searching for truth - any truth

The following community commentary from Calvin Jarvis contains some interesting thoughts as to how and why Jim Kach’s Tweets became a source of controversy.  While not in total agreement with everything he says, I do think he’s right about this: a segment of our community, united under the FORE banner and led by former School Board members, appears to be engaging in an ongoing series of attacks against specific Board members.  The unfortunate result of all this is that instead concentrating on what is truly important, our Board is constantly dealing with distractions that have little to do with education.  

Readers, what do you think?

The stunning revelation made public this week, concerning the Twitter account of Jim Kach, member of the Oyster River School Board, has been another blow to an already volatile tinderbox of emotions throughout the district. On the surface, stark evidence of a man consumed with bigotry, prejudice, sexism, and homophobia, would seem unarguable. If viewed in a vacuum, his tweets, projecting such scurrilous, moral sebum, are reprehensible, unbecoming, and socially unacceptable. I should be advocating his ouster from the board like so many other citizens of my community. 

I'm not.

I have to ask myself, why shouldn't I? Am I guilty of subconsciously agreeing with the content of his grotesque innuendo and slanderous communications? I look at myself in the mirror and state with clear conscious, "absolutely not!" So what gives? What could possibly exonerate this man?

It's because I smell a rat.

Meet Prof. Ruth Sample, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Ethics at UNH. Her bio lists her as a, "philosopher specializing in Early Modern Philosophy, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy, and Feminism." Her husband, Dean Rubine, lauded her for bringing forward the information about Kach's tweets, after, "stumbling upon them" when she decided to dig into the backgrounds of the current board. The truth appears to be that she went dredging for dirt, and found some.

Her husband also eluded to the fact that she was motivated after being disappointed about the rejection of Justin Campbell as ORHS principal, and the buyout of superintendent Howard Colter's contract.

A distinct pattern is repeating itself, one which defines the absolute worst in people. It pertains to the recent School Board election at ORCSD. Back in June, another newly elected School Board member came under a defamatory attack. It was an attempt at character assassination by a dissenter. In that case, personal e-mails were used out of context, to paint a picture that the member had lied and carried on a dishonest campaign. Now, a personal, (but publicly available) Twitter account has been compromised and exposed. This was done by Sample, who had reason to try to discredit, defame, and expunge the moral character and reputation of Kach, to effect a change to the makeup of the board. 

Did Kach leave himself open to attack, by being naïve about projecting political barbs, insensitive comments, offensive remarks, and sexual innuendo onto the Internet? Absolutely. Was it poor judgment? Absolutely. Did his tweets, intended as TEE-HEE one-liners for an inner circle of ultra-conservative, Rush Limbaugh types, (while morally repugnant) represent a clear and present danger, or threat, to anyone of gender, sexual orientation, race, or ethnicity?

Absolutely NOT. 

Yet Sample seized upon an opportunity. She shrewdly preyed upon the sensibilities of a diverse, and morally sensitive community.

She culled three years worth of tweets to transmute Kach's form of "Saturday Night Live" humor into a weapon, to have him ostracized, then forced off the board. 

Is Sample a saint, for exposing the offensive tweets, or a fiend, for the scandalous reasons behind her actions? Is it not true that if Kach's voting record, since joining the board, more closely aligned with the liberal views of Sample and others, his moral character would have been left unscathed? Are we dealing with, "selective moral outrage?" Shouldn't morality transcend party lines and stand as a pillar of truth and justice for all? For her to expose these tweets to the public now, under what can be argued were false pretenses, says more about the insidious nature of dirty politics than it does about Kach's character.

The moral outrage from the community over this incident was genuine, and is a credit to where we have come as a society. However, those who perpetrated this tragic event have no more moral character than Jim Kach. It is from that starting point that the journey must begin to search for prevailing truth in this district.

Calvin Jarvis
Durham