Most organizations are giving a wide berth to the media frenzy surrounding the Brett Kavanaugh hearings.
However, employees on social media can still cause problems for your organization—and often you can’t control what someone might tweet in a careless moment.
That was the case for Catholic University in Washington, D.C., where one of the school’s deans has drawn backlash for a tweet from his university Twitter handle regarding the Supreme Court nominee and one of several women accusing him of sexual misconduct.
William Rainford, dean of the university's National Catholic School of Social Service, posted the tweet on his official university account last week, one day before Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh made back-to-back appearances before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Rainford references Julie Swetnick, the third woman to come forward with sexual misconduct allegations against the Supreme Court nominee. Swetnick claims she witnessed sexual assault by Kavanaugh during a party and was herself the victim of assault in an incident where Kavanaugh was present. Kavanaugh has denied the allegation.
In his position as dean, Rainford oversees the university's undergraduate, graduate and PhD programs in social work.
"Swetnick is 55 y/o," Rainford wrote. "Kavanaugh is 52 y/o. Since when do senior girls hang with freshmen boys? If it happened when Kavanaugh was a senior, Swetnick was an adult drinking with&by her admission, having sex with underage boys. In another universe, he would be victim & she the perp!"
The tweet drew swift backlash from students, faculty and alumni.
“He has lost the confidence of the vast majority of students,” said Anthony Hain, a student in the master’s program at the school, “as well as a growing and large number of alumni.”
[…] Hain said liberal and conservative Catholic students have joined the protest because “it goes to the heart of the program [Rainford] leads and social work ethics.”
The school trains students to work with survivors of sexual assault, Hain said, and teaches them to treat as credible people who come forward. “It’s the therapeutic nature of what we do. The dean violated that and turned it around," Hain said.
Several faculty members said they planned to attend and support the protest because they believe the tweets fit into a pattern of behavior by Rainford that they described as insensitive and thoughtless.
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The university has suspended Rainford and distanced itself from his personal views.
President John Garvey penned a letter , condemning Rainford’s words:
The Catholic University of America has no position on the Kavanaugh matter. But let there be no doubt that our University, and particularly our National Catholic School of Social Service, has a special concern for every victim and survivor of sexual assault.
Rainford’s tweets of the past week are unacceptable. We should expect any opinion he expresses about sexual assault to be thoughtful, constructive, and reflective of the values of Catholic University, particularly in communications from the account handle @NCSSSDean. While it was appropriate for him to apologize and to delete his Twitter and Facebook accounts, this does not excuse the serious lack of judgment and insensitivity of his comments.
The letter also promises a review and investigation into the direction of the department of social work.
Rainford also wrote a letter, asking for a pardon. “I offer no excuse,” he says of his tweets. “It was impulsive and thoughtless and I apologize.”
Twitter shows just how ready people are to take an individual’s tweets as the voice of the organization:
No organization with the word "catholic" in the title should be commenting on sexual abuse. https://t.co/9MkxJQjCvH
— Critical Thinkers (@ThnkCrtclly) October 2, 2018
The incident highlights the need for communicators to have a clear, robust social media policy and work with public-facing employees to head off a self-inflicted crisis.
Here are three takeaways:
1. Hold social media training for employees. Online platforms might be nothing new, but employees could still be unsure about how to use them—and could benefit from guidelines. Rules might have kept Rainford from posting controversial statements from his university Twitter account, but in any case a written policy would have provided cover for the organization to distance itself from his comments.
2. Speak to your audience. Though the Kavanaugh debate is a national issue, Garvey addressed his apology to the people who needed it: students, faculty and alumni. By focusing on his audience, Garvey avoided commenting further on a controversial subject.
3. Make sure you comment. Catholic University hasn’t had to respond to news reports about the backlash; the president’s letter gave the school a voice. Absent that letter, critics would have controlled the messaging, and the true feelings of the university’s leaders would have been left to public conjecture.
What do you think of the university’s crisis response, PR Daily readers?
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