HAPPY FATHERS’ DAY,  DREW STRONG—-
By Frederick A. Hurst—-
He is a father. And he called me to talk about his daughter and a one-time mistake she made that carried consequences that will not, but should, go away but can’t because modern technology will not allow it. And when he came to talk to me, I felt his pain and that of his daughter, who came to my office with him.
His daughter’s name is Hanna Strong. I could tell when I first met her that she is a very nice person. But she was wounded and it showed. A one-time event in college had altered her life forever, it seemed, and she was stricken by the realization that she might have to carry the burden of her fleeting actions forever like a scarlet letter for all to see for all time.
For those who missed the most recent controversy, Hanna Strong is the White Syracuse University student who, at the end of a night of partying was caught on camera making homophobic and racial comments to another student, who recorded her comments and broadcasted them over social media. When her comments were brought to the attention of Syracuse administration, after a hearing, Hanna was required to undergo a humbling series of corrective actions consistent with the college’s code of conduct after which she was allowed to remain at school and to graduate.
Thus rehabilitated, Hannah later took a job as a long-term substitute in the Springfield Schools where she was “flourishing” until NAACP President Talbert Swan sent a copy of her social media comments to city officials, Mayor Domenic Sarno and School Superintendent Danny Warwick, who summarily “terminated” her.
Hanna actually thought she was resigning in return for school officials’ agreement not to report her separation or the reasons for it to the media. Hanna complied for several reasons, foremost of which was that her mother is employed by the Springfield School Department and she feared her mother might become a target of retaliation. But just as significantly, she didn’t want the controversy around her comment to re-blossom and continue to negatively impact her future.
But, of course, unknown to Hanna, NAACP President Talbert Swan had already sent a copy of his letter to MassLive, which might explain Springfield city officials’ hasty reaction, which seemed to be more designed to cover their derrieres rather than to fairly and fully investigate whether and what action might be justified, which is why I became involved and how my “due process” opposition to Hanna’s hasty “termination” was publicized in an article in The Republican.
I didn’t know Hanna from “Adam or Eve.” I just knew that when I read about her termination, something didn’t feel right. I got that “it could be me” feeling in my stomach or that “it could be my daughter” or “one of my sons” feeling. It seemed quite obvious to me that a truly responsible responding authority would have needed to know more before taking such drastic action. Who is this young person who is being caught up in the maelstrom of a career meltdown? Is she a bad person…or a good person who made a one-time bad mistake for which she had already paid dearly?
I would have felt compelled to probe such things as “Was her behavior at the time of the college offense normal? Is it continuing? Is she a good teacher, good for Springfield’s students? Does her singular youthful transgression justify a life sentence as a racial pariah? Is summarily relegating her to a truncated future for a youthful mistake without learning more about who she was, and who she is now, justified after a review of the totality of the circumstances?”
And as the city’s top educational official and as its Mayor, I would have probed NAACP President Talbert Swan’s motives and requested some background information and certainly not been spooked into a summary adverse action by his title.
Forgiveness tends to come easily to us Black folks (sometimes, I must admit, too easily). And the fundamental fairness that is the bedrock of due process is something that has been ingrained in our psychological history and embraced by our culture and our spirituality. Because of our own history of struggle in America, I believe we tend to more readily take into account what Jesus meant by saying in defense of a sinner seeking forgiveness, “Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone,” which is why I struggle to understand how a minister of the gospel could have conspired with otherwise upstanding public officials to destroy a young woman’s career in its infancy before so much as a decent inquiry about what kind of person she was before and what kind of person she is today.
I wasn’t defending Hanna Strong in my comments in an article by Ron Chimelis in The Republican (January 30, 2016). I didn’t even know her. I was defending the legal principal of due process and how essential it is for the well being of all of us. But now that I’ve met Hanna Strong and her father in person and communicated with them, I don’t hesitate to go a step further and defend Hanna Strong, whom I am convinced is a lovely young person who has been cast in the role of the villain by a cast of political-minded characters who used her as a scapegoat to promote and/or protect their own political agendas and thereby callously contributed to making it that much more difficult for Hanna to move on with her life. I wouldn’t even begin to defend Hanna’s spontaneous words that were understandably offensive to so many people and nor would she. But I am convinced they were out of character and unwisely spoken in the heat of the moment. At the time they were uttered it is not insignificant that she was with her African-American significant other who was on the Syracuse football team. Hanna was on the Syracuse soccer team and as many college athletes do, she hung out with her fellow athletes who were much more integrated than the student body. Their relationships were not unsimilar to that of entertainers who mix so naturally and almost completely.
But Hanna stepped over the edge when she responded as she did to her unexpected, uninvited and unwanted filming by another student who posted it on the web. And her punishment by school authorities was humbling and swift. And her many Black friends, who offered their emotional support, could do little to stem the public outrage from those who did not know her and might never know her unless they have reason to take the time to know her.
It was almost a month after I made my comments in The Republican that Hanna’s father, Drew, emailed me. Within days, he and Hanna were in my office and all of the tough questions I had for them went unasked because it was immediately obvious that these were very good people who were nonplussed about how to handle a frustrating situation that in no way reflected their way of life or their mindset about people of color or different sexual orientations even though they seemed to accept that, because of the times, Hanna might have to suffer for a lifetime for a one-time mistake, which is why, as a father of three, I felt their pain.
The Strong family felt they couldn’t defend themselves because they were White even though they knew that Hanna’s mistake was not even close to a reflection of who she is or how she was raised. If there was any indication to the contrary, I couldn’t detect it, which is why, as I spoke to them, a feeling of deep regret came over me as I realized, by this firsthand encounter, how badly confused we have become about how to resolve the problem of racism that has lingered in America for so long. It was abhorrent to my intellectual sensibilities that the only way the Strong family felt it could cope with the terrible injustice of their daughter being unfairly and callously used as a political pawn by the head of the NAACP and White Springfield city officials was to quietly accept their fate, which, in the current scheme of things seemed to them frustratingly unalterable.
Thanks to cyberspace, the optics of Hanna’s youthful indiscretion will never go away. And she will be asked to explain her actions every time it pops up on the web and ends up in the hands of those whose responsibility it is to scrutinize it, as is what happened when it ended up in the hands of NAACP President Talbert Swan, who, without the slightest bit of research, passed it on to the press and on to the mayor of Springfield and its superintendent, both of whom, without a bit of research, summarily terminated her. And all of this played out on MassLive, adding to the accumulating dossier that remote parties will continue to use to further punish Hanna Strong for one simple, youthful indiscretion, which explains even further why the Strong family felt the need to simply remain silent.
Any way one views it, whenever the topic of race is injected into a controversy, how we choose to respond to the situation becomes complicated. But in every instance, we should respond responsibly. But, unfortunately, altogether too often, how we respond depends upon who we are and what our role is in the controversy. Thus, Syracuse University officials put Hanna through a humbling series of procedures that were designed to show the larger student body and the general public that it was responding responsibly. It remains arguable whether or not Hanna needed the procedures to adjust her attitude but that did not matter. They were part of the pre-prescribed punishment and Syracuse University needed to apply its rules to preserve its credibility. And the end result was that Hanna was able to graduate. It was a bit humiliating for her but in the end it was a win-win outcome that should have ended there…but for cyberspace.
Reverend Talbert Swan’s response, though certainly well within his official concerns, appears to have been less than responsible.   Swan simply forwarded his web discovery to MassLive and the Mayor and Superintendent responded even more irresponsibly by summarily terminating Hanna Strong without so much as an investigation or hearing.
Unfortunately, convenience, if not cowardice, appears to have had a lot to do with the actions of White city officials. How they responded had much to do with how race complicates. They probably felt the need to make a callous calculation which was: “What would be most politically safe and convenient, the immediate termination of Hanna Strong or combating specious claims of racism sure to be made against them loudly and publicly by the NAACP for letting Hanna remain on the job until an adequate and fair investigation was completed?” And, so, to use an old saying, they threw Hanna Strong under the bus and justice out of the window (my saying), which is something none of us should have tolerated or should tolerate quietly.
Hanna’s situation has weighed on my mind since it unfolded in January of this year. Her father’s pain and Hanna’s courageous resignation still haunt me, mostly because her apparent life sentence for a fleeting offense is so disproportionate to any ever-so-minor impact continuing to persecute her would have on even legitimate efforts to curb racism. Her continued persecution in no way reflects the weighty civil rights concerns of our times and we should all be ashamed for treating it as though it does.
I am struggling for a way to help Hanna put the past permanently behind her, and a way to offer some relief to her parents who don’t deserve the stigma of having raised a bad kid. I’m certain guilt is part of my motivation. I didn’t fight in the Civil Rights struggle to beat up young, White Millennials who slipped up but who are our best hope for a racially neutral future. I’ve met the real enemy and the Hanna Strong’s of the world are not it.
I have offered to write follow-up articles on the Strong family to give them an opportunity to tell their stories individually so they have an outlet to express their feelings and tell their story as they know it without having to fear that they are being prejudged. Even though they have agreed to it, I would understand if they decided otherwise because public scrutiny is not easy to bear even when you are right.
Nevertheless, the Strong family has a fan in me. And I hope the next time Hanna runs into a similar situation she doesn’t hesitate to use me as a reference. And as for her father, Drew Strong, who reached out to me and appealed to me, a father of three, I wish him genuine relief from his pain and a Happy Fathers’ Day. ■