The Dwight Schrute Guide to High-Stakes PR

Learning from the examples set by Harvard, MIT and Penn

There are lots of situations that require nuanced and deft communications. After spending most of my adult life working in the comms field I’ve seen more than a few.

I’m still not sure I’m particularly good at such things, but you don’t end up looking like me without getting the stuffing kicked out of you occasionally. And even the densest of us - that’s yours truly - can’t help but learn something from those experiences. I’m like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz; somewhere around the third time the flying monkeys threw my innards in the direction of my outtards, the lessons started to stick.

But then there’s situations where all that’s required is the Dwight Schrute rule of communications:

“Whenever I’m about to do something, I think, ‘Would an idiot do that?’ And if they would, I do not do that thing.”

I submit that last week’s appearances by the presidents of Harvard, MIT and the University of Pennsylvania would have been greatly improved by applying the Schrute rule. It should have been written on a piece of paper in front of each of them.

Here’s how it works:

“Madam President, do you believe advocating for the genocide of Jews is protected speech and thus tolerated at your institution?”

University president looks at her reminder. Takes a deep breath.

“No, Congressman, I do not. I am a strong supporter of freedom of speech and thought so I acknowledge that advocacy as hateful and evil as calls for genocide will happen in our society but our university has an equally compelling right to reject and condemn such words and to disassociate ourselves from those who speak them. Any call for genocide against any group is contrary to who we are and who we aspire to be as a community.”

See? I can shorthand it even further: if you’re ever being interviewed and the interviewer asks you a question that includes the phrase, “…do you support calls for genocide…” you can tune out the rest of the question and devote your mental energy to putting together a complete answer (which is the subject of another post for another day).

That’s because the answer to every question that includes that phrase should start with “No…” and go from there in whatever direction you want to go.

Try it yourself and see:

“Madam President, do you believe advocating for the genocide of Palestinians is protected speech and thus tolerated at your institution?”

“Madam President, do you believe advocating for the genocide of North America’s indigenous people is protected speech and thus tolerated at your institution?”

“Madam President, do you believe advocating for the genocide of Black people is protected speech and thus tolerated at your institution?”

“Madam President, do you believe advocating for the genocide of White people is protected speech and thus tolerated at your institution?”

No, no, no and no.

Same answer works no matter who the victims are. Individuals have the right to call for such horrific evil but we have the right to reject and condemn it and to expel them from our community. Hell, I can argue we have an obligation to do so.

But wait, free speech advocates might say, that’s a slippery slope. If we start banning advocacy - even hateful, vile, abhorrent advocacy - where do we draw the line? What about those who say abortion is a form of genocide, for example? Should we disassociate ourselves from those advocating for abortion rights?

Again, the Dwight Schrute rule is handy here, but setting aside the pejorative “idiot” for a second, the thing in that question you do not do is buy into redefining the word “genocide.” The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as “acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The convention identified five specific acts, any one of which is a form of genocide. Abortion doesn’t fall under this definition unless it is done to destroy one of those groups.

The Holocaust Museum website has a helpful backgrounder on this. Until I read it, I didn’t know “genocide” was a word invented in the 1940s in response to our modern world; apparently, it wasn’t until our ability to kill one another reached the point where we could do it efficiently en masse that we needed a word to describe such acts.

I’m so proud of our species and how we’re evolving.

What say you, dear readers? Did you watch the testimony or see the clips (it was the latter for me)? Do you agree or disagree? Are you looking at this from a different plane altogether? Any examples that are closer calls than the abortion example above?

Enquiring minds want to know and any one of you is likely smarter and more thoughtful than any one of me so I’m eager to hear your thoughts.

Thank you in advance.

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