Washington State Coach’s Twitter Scandal Costs School $1.6M in Donations
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Back in June, Washington State Coach Mike Leach made a faux pas by sharing a doctored video of former American President Barack Obama. The video in question edited Obama’s speech addressed to the European Union (Belgium, 2014) and completely altered the intended meaning. An example of this would be where Obama can be quoted as saying: “Ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs.” However the quote is only included up till that point. The full quote goes on to say that such thinking runs counter to the values of the United States and some European countries.
Naturally, when the news first broke in June there was quite a stir. To make matters worse, Leach initially shared the video with a tweet that said he wanted to promote discourse and discussion about government. This rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, leading to a lot of backlash. Leach’s approach was to engage his detractors, something that went on for 4 hours.
By Monday, the fog had cleared somewhat and Leach ended up deleting the tweet. He didn’t share an apology but he did post the full text of the speech in question. His caption stated that he realised the video was incomplete but he still wished to discuss how much power the government should hold.
In light of this, it was reported recently that Washington State lost out on $1.6M in donations. Phil Weiler (vice president for marketing and communications at Washington State) went on record to say that the tweet did not result in donors asking for their money to be returned, though some school officials were told that future spending plans will potentially be altered.
Weiler also went on to elaborate on a statement made by President Kirk Schulz, the latter of who estimated that the Leach tweet likely cost the school $1M. Weiler went on to say that those with plans of altering future spending were estate gifts which would only be paid out upon the passing of the donor. These estate gifts amounted to $1.6M.
President Shulz later went on to tell the Lewiston Tribune that all head coaches are given social media training and are made aware of the fact that sharing personal opinions can reflect poorly on their positions at the university. Shulz then went on to say that the response of some donors is likely a short term inconvenience and once some time has passed they might change their minds.