UW Prof. Cliff Mass called racist for opposing carbon tax initiative

University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Professor Cliff Mass said that the University of Washington violated the constitutional right to freedom of speech when it held a department meeting over his private blog that amounted to outright persecution of his beliefs.

The controversy began last year when Mass, who operates the Cliff Mass Weather and Climate Blog outside of his university work, wrote a series of blog posts opposing 2018 carbon tax proposal I-1631.

Mass has stated repeatedly that he believes that carbon emissions and climate change to be concerning issues, though he finds the extent of the outcry against climate change to be over-dramatic. He is not against carbon taxes — he enthusiastically supported the carbon tax outlined in I-732 when it was on the ballot in 2016.

“It was a revenue-neutral carbon tax that did have some bipartisan support,” he said.

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However, his feelings toward I-1631 were not as warm because he saw this carbon tax as harmful toward the working class and providing greater benefits to interest groups than to the climate. He noted at the time that it was unclear where exactly the money collected would go.

“Special interest groups were able to control that money — and so as a result of this, it was terribly regressive,” he said. “In other words, low-income families would be taxed, and they would pay more for energy, and that money then would be made available to these special interest groups.”

At UW — especially at the College of the Environment (which encompasses the Department of Atmospheric Sciences) — this opinion was not popular. Supporters of the carbon tax sent Mass angry emails, called him out on social media, and demonstrated against him on campus. Images of Mass with a heart and an oil drum were distributed by students, clearly implying that he was in love with big oil.

“They were calling me misogynist, they were calling me a ‘tool of the oil companies,’ a [climate] denier … a racist, ‘Trump’s weatherman,'” he said, the last insult a reference to an October 2018 Stranger piece. “I mean, the name-calling got quite creative.”

The most vitriolic protests were over a statement Mass made in an Oct. 14 blog post comparing interest groups benefiting from I-1631 to pigs eating at a trough. The idiom was used by political commentator Arianna Huffington as the title of her book on political corruption. In Mass’ blog post, the words were not stated, but were represented by a black-and-white photo of pigs eating.

“For me, the century-old metaphor that’s been used hundreds if not thousands of times is of pigs at a trough,” Mass said, adding, “That was my visual metaphor of these people, eating at the public trough.”

Because some of the special interest groups called out by Mass, such as Native American tribes, were minority groups, students called Mass a racist.

The initiative hardwires money to certain special interest groups — the left-leaning supporters of the measure.  A minimum of ten percent of the money goes to Indian tribes, who are exempted from paying any carbon fee by the initiative.  Labor advocates got a fifty million dollar fund, replenished annually, for worker support programs.  And to provide funding to the social action groups pushing the initiative, 35% of the money goes to  “pollution and health action areas” of  minority and “vulnerable populations.”  There is more, but you get the message (see picture below).

[Image of pigs]

I-1631 will be a trough of billions of dollars of cash for left-leaning social action and “progressive” groups, and dealing with climate change will be a secondary priority.   How can you know this for sure?  Easy.  The same groups that are pushing I-1631 opposed the revenue-neutral carbon tax initiative  (I-732) in 2016, which was much more aggressive in reducing carbon initiatives. Why did they oppose it?  Because their groups did not get the money.

“[Tribes] weren’t the dominant group — most of them were well-to-do white folks,” Mass said. “But [students] felt that was racism. Really, I think they just were using that as a tool to get me.”

UW’s ‘shaming’ of Cliff Mass

The student outcry was just the beginning.

The college dean and department chair wrote a letter to the entire department — faculty and students — leveling accusations of racism at Mass. He was astounded not just by the allegation, but also by the outrage over something on a blog that had no connection to the university.

“That’s breaking every rule, pretty much, on freedom of speech and faculty rights,” Mass said. “It was unbelievable.”

In his most recent blog post this past Tuesday, Mass noted that the email was a violation of UW Ethics Code 24.33. He stated:

UW administrators were sanctioning and shaming a faculty member inside the university for expressing political free speech outside of the UW:  also an apparent violation of constitutionally protected freedom of speech at a public university.  Importantly, freedom of speech is protected BOTH inside and outside a public university by the U.S. and Washington State constitutions.

What came next was a department meeting he refers to as the “shaming meeting.” He said that it was advertised with words like “food and controversy” — and included free chicken wings — to get people to attend.

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After the students were allowed to give their testimony — which, Mass observed, was riddled with name-calling — he was permitted to give his side. However, Atmospheric Sciences Department Chair Dale Durran began interrupting and actually screaming at him to be quiet, even after asked by the ombud to let Mass finish.

“What I was speaking about was the concept of freedom of speech — it’s kind of ironic that I would be cut off,” Mass said.

On student pointed a finger at Mass and said that he would be “held accountable.” Mass observed said that one of his grad students was crying. Faculty members were mostly silent, but he noted that some professors and students came up to him afterwards and told him they were afraid to speak up.

“They have this fear of speaking their mind because they’re afraid of this very, very activist group that’s ready to call people terrible names,” he said.

The faculty argued that Mass did not clearly state on his blog that he was writing as a private citizen and did not represent the university.

Mass pointed out, however, that many of the same professors in the College of the Environment engaged in very prominent political activism without stating that they did not represent the university. Associate Dean Rob Wood, for example, lauded I-1631 on social media without stating that he spoke as a private citizen.

Mass drew the conclusion that political statements were alright — as long as they lined up with the political views of the other College of the Environment faculty.

Because the mediation period is now over, Mass is speaking publicly about the meeting that he compares to the McCarthy Era. In his blog, he called on the UW president and provost to “acknowledge the inappropriateness and illegality of the letter and shaming meeting.”

“I’m hoping my blog and these kinds of conversations will lead to maybe a push-back, a re-centering, of these kinds of conversations,” he said.

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