Audio: Voice messages reveal orchestrated effort to oust St. Joe’s math professor over racial reparations tweet

Newly uncovered audio reveals a student journalist at St. Joseph’s University vowed to get a math professor fired over the professor’s tweets criticizing reparations — and may have played a key behind-the-scenes role in the controversy that ultimately ended his employment at SJU.

The recordings, embedded below and exchanged just days before the university suspended Dr. Greg Manco in 2021, suggest the campaign to remove him may not have been a spontaneous student backlash but rather a coordinated effort involving an alumna and university contacts.

The controversy erupted less than a year after the national reckoning on race sparked by George Floyd’s murder — a period that, according to some conservatives and free speech advocates, unleashed a tidal wave of ‘cancel culture’ complaints, especially on college campuses.

Broad + Liberty obtained the recordings from Manco’s attorneys, who received them through the discovery process in his lawsuit against the university. Attorneys for the other individuals and entities named in this article who were provided a transcript in advance of this story did not dispute its authenticity.

Perhaps most importantly, the audio appears to substantiate key claims in Manco’s lawsuit against the university, in which he argues SJU’s administration sought to fire him not just for his expression but also to repair its public image after mishandling earlier student protests over race.

“Suppose your great-great-grandfather murdered someone,” he tweeted from his account, @SouthJerzGiants, on Feb. 17, 2021. “The victim’s great-great-grandson knocks on your door, shows you the newspaper clipping from 1905, and demands compensation from you. Your response? Now get this racist reparation bulls*** out of your head for good,” he said in the post.

Coming so soon after the Floyd murder by police in Minneapolis, the post soon became a flashpoint not only on X, but other social media channels, as some began to label Manco racist and demand his firing.

An online petition to get Manco fired on Change.org said, “Calling for accountability in light of RACISM is not “cancel culture.”

“Dr. Greg Manco of Saint Joseph’s University is currently on PAID LEAVE during an investigation regarding his racist tweets on his account,” the petition continued. “This man should not be given an investigation, he should be fired for his remarks and actions.”

The university suspended Manco for the remainder of the semester as it carried out an investigation. When it concluded just after the semester ended, SJU said there wasn’t enough evidence to punish him, but Manco says the university’s investigation completely cleared him. 

For that and other reasons, he sued the university, alleging breach of contract, false light, defamation, and other charges. When one of his filings alleged that the alumna in question might have carried a grudge against him because of a failing grade she received in his class, the university fired him saying he violated FERPA — the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act that puts privacy protections around students and academic affairs.

As with previous coverage of this matter, Broad + Liberty has chosen to withhold the name of the student journalist. This outlet named the alumna in previous coverage, but is opting not to do so in its continuing coverage.

Ten seconds of the audio have been removed by this author and replaced with two seconds of tone to remove personal information that has no bearing on the matter. It should be clearly understood that the audio file provided to this reporter was unaltered.

TRANSCRIPT — FEB. 19, 2021:

Alumna: So basically I found this out, I think it was the end of January, February, and I sent it to — his tweets — to Dr. Bucci on Twitter. And I was like, ‘My girl, I don’t think he should really be allowed to tweet like this and teach.’ And she was like, ‘Well, I don’t think so, really, either.’ 

And so we both reported it, but the way I had to report it, they were making it — because I had him for class and he did several things that made me uncomfortable as a black person when I was in his class.  

And so they were trying to make it — and I had to talk to several people. So first I emailed Nicole Stokes and the head of the math department and another black lady who works — I don’t remember her name, but I can look later and find out. And they directed me to Lexi. None of them even emailed me back. Not one of them emailed me back. 

Lexi is the one who was just like, “Oh, well they told me I got this e-, they got this email and now I have to talk to you.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, but why can’t any of the three of you give me a statement about this?’ Because I sent them the screenshots that included an email and some other things. 

And so then I got directed to Lexi and then Lexi and I talked and because I’m an alumni, then I got sent to Taba. Then I talked to Taba on her last day of work. And so from Tab— it went to another lady and I forget her name, but I just emailed her today finally, because [REDACTED for personal privacy reasons] — but s***. I did talk to people. That was the point of this message. I did talk to people. 

Student journalist:  This is really f***ing annoying. This is the second time that the Title IX office has not done something about this. Okay. Well thank you for reporting him and thank you to Dr. Bucci for reporting him. But I am gonna see what I can do and I don’t know, maybe convince other people to report him as well. I already set this out, so we’ll see. I’m going to talk to Dr. Bhayroo about it as well. I just don’t want him to work here anymore, so — I’m on it. Going to get this man f***ing fired. Alright.

(Names of other persons referenced in this conversation are itemized at the end of this article).

The alumna and student journalist exchanged the voice messages on Feb. 19, the day the controversy originally erupted on social media.

The conversation appears to substantiate Manco’s claim that the original controversy wasn’t a grassroots affair, but that it was driven by the alumna.

The audio also appears to undercut the only story ever published about Manco in SJU’s student newspaper, The Hawk. Although the article is attributed to “Hawk staff,” Manco and his attorneys say the article was authored by the journalist in the voice messages, noting she was the individual who reached out to him for comment for the Feb. 23, 2021 story — four days after the voice messages were exchanged.

“On Feb. 19, students took screenshots of tweets from Manco’s account, posted them on their own social media accounts and tagged the university,” the story said (emphasis added). If the journalist in the voicemails is indeed the author of that article, the idea that the controversy was initiated by students seems to be false given that it started primarily with the alumna.

The story from The Hawk also said: “On Feb. 21, Manco posted a [follow-up] thread on his Twitter account, writing, ‘In advance of a school newspaper article, I wanted to share my thoughts here in a way that they would be unfiltered.’”

“Shortly after the thread was posted, Twitter users began harassing the students online and sending death threats,” the story continued. “The threats have been ongoing since the initial thread was posted.”

The claim of harassment and death threats is not sourced, however. Even if the author, or authors, did not want to name students who were receiving threats, such an important claim could have benefited from explaining how exactly the author was privy to this information.

The author did not say if they personally reviewed any such messages, or by what medium the harassing or threatening messages were sent. If those communications were sent by Twitter’s direct messaging service, the story did not provide any screenshots. The story also did not say if campus police or any other law enforcement agencies were contacted.

This, too, touches back to the relationship between the alumna and the journalist.

According to Manco’s original filing, the alumna, on Feb. 21, 2021, tweeted that Manco “‘[allowed] his followers to send literal death threats to college students.’” Manco went on to claim in his complaint, “This was a lie, and [the alumna] knew it to be a lie.”

“This lie was then picked up and repeated in a February 23, 2021, article in St. Joseph’s student newspaper ‘The Hawk’, specifically that as a result of Dr. Manco’s tweets there were ‘ongoing’ death threats being sent to students,” Manco and his attorneys went on to say in the original filing. “The authors of the article knew the statement to be false. This false statement, which severely impugns Dr. Manco’s professionalism, was repeated by other St. Joseph’s faculty members over the course of the rest of the semester.”

“St. Joseph’s is a private university with a clear agency relationship with its student newspaper, and is therefore liable for its defamatory acts,” the original complaint concluded.

It’s possible that Manco could amend his complaint (with court approval, and which he has already twice done previously) in a way that would seek to hold the university liable for the news article, but such a move would face long odds. Courts have generally shown wide deference to student newspapers for First Amendment reasons.

The key question would hinge on whether the university had enough editorial sway over the paper either on a day-to-day basis or for the Feb. 23 article such that the university would be legally responsible for its content — an “agency” relationship, as mentioned earlier. 

One piece of evidence that does seem to suggest that the university does hold at least some control over the paper would be the fact that, according to differing internet searches, the paper never again wrote about Manco despite numerous newsworthy moments in the last three years — follow-ups like Manco’s suspension, the investigation’s findings, and Manco losing his regular contract and being hired as an adjunct.

Also unsettled is the question of whether Manco’s X account should be considered “anonymous.” The alumna, in her court filings says, “Plaintiff’s Twitter account was easily linked back to Plaintiff and his position at SJU.” A Broad + Liberty analysis of the @SouthJerzGiants account does surface past posts that would partially link the account to Manco. But the professor says the account started off as a group effort with many authors for a baseball team, and after many authors fell off over the years, it largely became Manco’s account.

Even if a judge or jury decided the account wasn’t strictly anonymous, the issue may not have great bearing on the case, given that Manco would still likely benefit from broad First Amendment and contractual academic freedom clauses in his contract.

The alumna, meanwhile, has not robustly explained in her court filings any of the things that “made her uncomfortable as a black person[.]” The alumna said she never filed a grievance or complaint against Manco in her undergraduate years for fear of retaliation. As for the one she appears to have filed after graduating from SJU, she and her attorneys argue those complaints are privileged and should be shielded.

“It is admitted that [alumna] submitted a report to SJU regarding Dr. Manco in or around January 2021 and that the contents of that report are subject to judicial privilege,” one of her court documents says.

Manco’s attorneys recently won the right to depose the student journalist. That ruling from the judge came after Manco’s attorneys served a subpoena on the student journalist and the judge quashed it.

Joseph Toddy, one of Manco’s attorneys with the firm Zarwin Baum DeVito Kaplan Schaer & Toddy, P.C., said the audio will undoubtedly be a key piece of evidence.

“I believe it shows that St. Joe’s conspired with the alumni students to make sure that my client was not rehired as a full-time assistant visiting professor because they had failed so badly in the eyes of their black students and alumni and confronting racist allegations” from earlier years, Toddy said.

The campus has seen its share of racial controversy. In 2018, students protested how the administration handled allegations that a student had written a racial slur on another student’s whiteboard. In 2019, an article from The Hawk discussed four different alleged racial incidents on campus, and quoted the co-president of the Black Student Union as saying the administration needed to change its approach to handling racial incidents.

Toddy also complained the case is proceeding too slowly in his opinion. A very similar case in which a former Starbucks employee won a $25.6 million judgement after being fired for a racially charged incident took roughly three years and seven months to complete. Manco’s case is currently three years and five months old, and doesn’t appear anywhere near being able to go to trial this year.

That said, it’s also true that Manco’s case is significantly more complex because it involves numerous defendants, not a single corporate entity as in the Starbucks example. Additionally, Manco’s attorneys have amended their complaint twice, and could likely do so again. Each time the complaint is amended it does not start the process over but it does initiate a cascade of opposing motions that require significant time.

The student journalist and her attorney declined to comment for this article. A spokesperson for the university said, “The matter is before the court, and out of respect for the judicial process, Saint Joseph’s University will respond in that forum.” The attorneys for the alumna did not respond to a request for comment.

Because the alumna made a claim about the actions of Dr. Bucci in the audio, Broad + Liberty reached out to Bucci for comment. That comment was not returned, or was not successful.

(Persons named in the audio/transcript: Dr. Bucci, associate professor of Political Science; Nicole Stokes at the time was the associate provost for diversity, equity and inclusion and professor of sociology; Lexi Morrison, legal and compliance operations manager; Taba Pickard, human resources director. The last person mentioned sounds as though the journalist says “Dr. Bayer.” However, being unable to find a Dr. Bayer on staff, Broad + Liberty has reason to believe the journalist was talking about Dr. Bhayroo, assistant professor of English and faculty adviser to The Hawk.)

(Update: The first paragraph in the original version of this article said the controversy cost Manco his career. Because Manco has gone on to other university teaching work, the sentence has been revised to say the controversy ended his time at SJU.)

Todd Shepherd is Broad + Liberty’s chief investigative reporter. Send him tips at tshepherd@broadandliberty.com, or use his encrypted email at shepherdreports@protonmail.com. @shepherdreports