TV celebrities join push to fire UNCW professor who called NC governor ‘Massa Cooper’
The push for the firing of a long-controversial UNCW professor has attracted the attention of a number of celebrities known for television shows filmed in Wilmington.
Mike Adams, a sociology and criminology professor at UNCW, has come under fire again recently for tweets considered racially charged.
On May 29, Adams posted on Twitter that he had dined that night with six men at a six-seat table. “I almost felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina. Massa Cooper, let my people go!”
Adams — whose banner photo on Twitter proclaims “Reopen North Carolina” — has been a vocal opponent of North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and the stay-at-home orders that forced many businesses to shutter as the state grappled with the spread of the coronavirus.
Earlier on the same day, Adams weighed in on those protesting the killing of George Floyd, saying that rioters were “thugs looking for an opportunity to break the law with impunity.”
A few days after the tweets, four Change.org petitions circulated calling for Adams’ firing. As of June 10, one petition has 57,000 signatures, two others have more than 23,000 each and the fourth has 5,400.
This week, three actors who filmed TV shows in Wilmington tweeted their disapproval of Adams.
As first reported by Wilmington TV station WECT, actor Orlando Jones, who lives in Wilmington and starred on the Fox TV series “Sleepy Hollow,” tweeted a CNN article about Adams and wrote, “As a resident of Wilmington NC & father. Mike Adams, a professor @UNCWilmington educating young minds is a PROBLEM!”
Two actors from the TV show “One Tree Hill,” which also filmed in Wilmington, echoed Jones.
Sophie Bush retweeted Jones and added “Ummm. @UNCWilmington. How do you employ this person?!? The racism and misogyny are atrocious. This feels like another change for Wilmington that the #OTHfam could make some noise about.”
Bush’s castmate Hilarie Burton Morgan already had her eye on Wilmington events, tweeting that the city’s Hugh MacRae Park, named for one of the leaders of the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, should be changed.
Morgan followed up, replying to a tweet by a WECT anchor, with a call for Adams to be fired and saying that the “OTH family” will actively discourage fans from attending UNC-Wilmington.
“We also want UNCW to fire Mike Adams. His harassment+hostility toward women and POC is unconscionable. A large number of OTH fans who visit the to see filming locations return to #ilm for school. We will be actively discouraging them from attending @uncw until Adams is removed.”
“One Tree Hill” aired on The WB and then The CW network from 2003 to 2012.
UNC-Wilmington released a statement on Adams earlier this week, as previously reported by McClatchy News.
A representative of the university said “we are listening to the outrage being expressed regarding the vile and inexcusable comments made by a UNCW faculty member. However, we are not just listening; we can confirm we are very carefully and assertively reviewing our options in terms of how to proceed. We are not able to comment further at this time, as this is a personnel matter.”
Adams did not respond to request for comment from McClatchy News.
Professor has a history of controversy
Adams has long written publicly about his “conservative views” and disdain “for political correctness” while espousing the right to free speech.
In 2007, he sued UNCW claiming the university had discriminated against him “because of his political and religious views” by denying him a promotion, the Wilmington Star-News reported.
The university settled with him seven years later after paying $50,000 in back pay and hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorney’s fees, according to The News & Observer. Adams was subsequently given tenure and a raise.
A few years later as a columnist for The Daily Wire, Adams published an article about a 19-year-old student activist titled “A ‘Queer Muslim’ Jihad,” The N&O reported. The student ultimately transferred schools.
Online petitions — one calling for his removal and the other espousing his right to free speech — circulated in the weeks after, according to The N&O, but he was not reprimanded.
In 2018, faculty members at the University of Montana signed a letter opposing his upcoming visit and guest lecture, saying Adams had “a long record of mocking, demeaning and verbally attacking women, people of color, members of the Islamic faith and the LGBTQ community,” The N&O reported.
Adams did condemn the killing of George Floyd on his Twitter account, calling the actions of the police involved “completely indefensible.”
“Police departments need to relieve anyone using the kind of neck restraint that was used on George Floyd,” Adams tweeted this week. “Don’t wait for someone to die. Put the officers on immediate leave without pay for using that technique. That would help us avoid a lot of the mess we are going through.”
Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who pinned Floyd to the street and held his knee on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, was fired from the police force and charged with second degree murder.
Adams has also tweeted, in regards to North Carolina’s COVID-19 policies, that Gov. Roy Cooper is an “evil and despicable man.”
In response this week to calls for him to be fired, Adams tweeted: “When you write the university asking them to fire me don’t forget to leave a mailing address so I can send you a box of panty liners.”
This story was originally published June 10, 2020 at 2:43 PM.
