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FEATURE | February 2012
College President Sorry for
His “Ill-Chosen Remarks”
News of Insult Makes its Way to U.S. House Floor
“Not Enough” Says Kosciuszko Foundation President
The president of Ohio State University told the Polish American Congress he apologizes for “ill-chosen remarks” he made during a question-and-answer period that followed one of his speeches.
President E. Gordon Gee said he immediately recognized he made a gaffe after he used the Polish Army as an example of disorganization.
Polish Army veterans who belong to the Polish American Congress did not consider President Gee as being a bigot but simply “uneducated.” They felt he should leave his desk in OSU’s presidential suite and spend the coming Spring semester in one of his college’s classrooms and try to learn a bit more about world and military history.
The Anti-Bigotry Committee carried their message to him. After hearing from the committee as well as the PAC’s Public Relations Vice President Susan Lotarski in Washington, D.C., President Gee promptly issued his statement.
The Anti-Bigotry Committee’s letter to him was also intended to be an educational lesson about the Polish military.
Alex Storozynski, president of the Kosciuszko Foundation, said Gee must be reprimanded for the slur.
He called on OSU Chairman Leslie H. Wexner to “publicly admonish University President Gordon Gee for his unacceptable comment.”
Storoszynski said Gee’s apology was “half-hearted” and “not enough,” and called for Gee to pay for a erection of a statue of Revolutionary War hero Thaddeus Kosciouszko at OSU.
“With a salary of $1.6 million per year, Mr. Gee can clearly afford it,” said Storozynski.
News of Gee’s remark made its way to Washington, where Ohio 9th’s Marcy Kaptur rebuked him during a speech in the House of Represenatives.
“As a Polish-American, I fail to see the humor when the president of a university that is home to the Center for Slavic and East European Studies describes bureaucratic turf battles with administrators at his school as ‘shooting each other…kind of like the Polish Army’,” said Kaptur.
Letters to E. Gordon Gee can be sent at: Office of the President, Ohio State University, 205 Bricker Hall, 190 North Oval Mall, Columbus, OH 43210-1357. Phone: (614) 292-2424.
© 2012 POLISH AMERICAN JOURNAL, P.O. BOX 328, BOSTON, NY 14025-0328 | (716) 312-8088 | Toll Free (800) 422-1275
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