Posted on May 24, 2022

A Notre Dame Professor’s Writing Was Cited in the Buffalo Shooter’s Racist Writings

Carley Lanich, South Bend Tribune, May 20, 2022

Notre Dame officials say they are appalled that an article authored by a Mendoza College of Business associate professor was cited in a white supremacist justification written by the suspected gunman believed to have killed 10 Black shoppers in an apparent racism-driven rampage last weekend in a Buffalo, NY, grocery store.

But Notre Dame officials stopped short of condemning the contents of the article from nearly nine years ago, and did not address the faculty members’ employment status with the university.

The writings of the associate professor, John Gaski, came to light this week after social media posts drew attention to a 2013 story published by Investor’s Business Daily, a website specializing in business news and stock market analysis.

The article appears among dozens of other citations linked to by the suspected Buffalo shooter’s 180-page screed and offers Gaski’s opinions on — among many other things — the trial of George Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer acquitted of murder charges in the 2012 death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.

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In the Investor’s Business Daily publication, Gaski writes of a “racial victimhood industry” that “demonstrably cares little about the facts” and uses unspecified statistics to make claims about the rates of violent crimes, like rape and murder, among Black and white Americans.

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The suspected Buffalo shooter — whose writings echo racist white nationalist rhetoric seeking to “save the White race” and “correct the white birth rates” — cites Gaski’s article as proof that “Black men are over a hundred times more likely to rape a White woman than vice versa.”

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Notre Dame addressed Gaski’s writing in a statement Thursday afternoon, saying, “We are appalled that a 2013 article by John Gaski, an associate professor at Notre Dame, was cited by the perpetrator of the heinous murders of innocent people in Buffalo. Whatever Professor Gaski’s intentions, we deeply regret that his words were used to support a doctrine of racial hated. {snip}”

The statement did not address Gaski’s current status with the university or whether any disciplinary actions have been taken against him.

The associate professor’s name, as of Friday morning, still appeared on the Mendoza College of Business website, where he is described as an associate professor of marketing.

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Notre Dame’s statement Thursday quickly triggered reaction on social media voicing disappointment in “weak” language used to address the situation.

“Why aren’t you appalled by the racist article itself .@NotreDame?” one Twitter user wrote.

“This statement is a whole lot of nothing,” another wrote. “A racist terrorist cited the work of one of your associate professors before one of the worst attacks in the recent history, and THIS is the best you could come up with?”