Ken Storey: University Of Tampa Fires Professor Who Claimed Hurricane Harvey Is Karma For Voting Trump
A visiting professor at the University of Tampa is now out of a job after implying in a tweet that Texas is getting what it deserves in the Hurricane Harvey disaster because the state supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election.
In a now-deleted tweet on Sunday, sociology professor Kenneth Storey reportedly wrote, according to Campus Reform, that “I don’t believe in instant Karma, but this kinda feels like it for Texas. Hopefully this will help them realize the GOP doesn’t care about them.” In a follow up, he also seemed to suggest that Florida deserves some payback because it also went for Trump in Election 2016.
Many Twitter users registered outrage over these sentiments.
Parenthetically, Harris County where the devastated city of Houston is located voted for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by a margin of 54 percent to 42 percent, the New York Times detailed.
The professor’s entire Twitter account has apparently since been deleted. University officials earlier today condemned his comments on social media and announced that Storey has been relieved of his teaching duties. Officials there separately underscored that the controversial remarks were made via a private social media account and were outside Storey’s capacity as a University of Tampa faculty member.
The Blue Lives Matter website provided some additional background on the Storey story.
“In his initial tweet, it wasn’t immediately apparent if he was referring to people who voted for President Trump, or Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn who voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy. Both senators stated that they voted against the bill because it included billions in spending that was unrelated to the hurricane. Ken Storey appeared to have clarified more in a response which suggested that it was directed at Trump voters, saying that Florida voters who ‘voted for him here deserve it as well.'”
University of Tampa professor fired for saying Texans deserve hurricane for voting Trump https://t.co/dm5G1ETob0 @washtimes
— Jessica Chasmar (@JessicaChasmar) August 29, 2017
Earlier today, after an initial tweet expressing regret (that got deleted when the entire Twitter account was scrubbed), the ABC News Tampa affiliate reported that the professor issued a statement in which he apologized for the tweets, adding that he had no intention of causing offense to anyone and that his tweets were taken out of context. See video report below.
Storey claimed that he was “referring to the GOP denial of climate change science and push to decrease funds from agencies that can help in a time like this.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, told CNN today that the Harvey-related assistance his state has received so far from the Trump administration has been “excellent,” Breitbart News reported. Similarly, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, gave the feds from the Trump White House to FEMA an A-plus for their Harvey response, the NBC Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate noted.
As this is a developing story, what this space for updates on the firing of Ken Storey by the University of Tampa after his Hurricane Harvey-karma tweets.
[Featured Image by David J. Phillip/AP Images]
