Since Hector was a pup, Universities, Colleges, and institutions of higher learning have been heralded as the keepers of the eternal flames of knowledge, reason, and intellectual freedom. In recent years, they’ve also been a fertile breeding ground for “politically correct” speech – that euphemistically enriched dialect that is long on obfuscation and short on logic and reason. Now the same philosophy that made it illegal to think ill thoughts of someone (or at least add to your guilt if you acted upon them) brings you a page right out of 1984 and Brave New World – and right in the heart of academia.
James Miller is a theatre professor at the University of Wisconsin-Stout. (Insert beer joke here.) From time to time, he posts things outside his office door. The poster you see above refers to a short-lived show on Fox, Firefly, which has since gone on to become a cult hit. Apparently the poster was deemed offensive by someone(s) at the school. (For the record, I don’t think anybody has a problem with actor Nathan Fillion, who’s gone on to star in the ABC hit Castle.) Evidently, the text was the problem. Specifically the mention of killing, and the implication that weapons (ie: GUNS) would be used in the crime. If you’re having a little problem with your browser reading the text, here’s what you’re missing:
You don’t know me son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me. And you’ll be armed.
The UW-Stout Police Chief, Lisa Walter took it upon herself to remove the offending poster from the area and emailed the professor on September 16. Here’s what she wrote:
Dr. Miller,
I wanted to notify you that I removed a printed/copy (pictures attached) of a poster from the outside of your office. I don’t know if you posted it or if someone else placed it on your board, but it is unacceptable to have postings such as this that refer to killing.
I knocked on your office door while there, but it appeared as though you were not in your office at the time. Contact me if you have any questions.
Respectfully,
Chief Walter
The Blue Devil’s instructor of all things thespian was NOT amused. He responded thusly:
Unacceptable to whom?
How dare you act in a fascistic manner and then sign your email “respectfully!” Respect liberty and respect my first amendment rights.
Short, sweet, and to the point. So far, I’m with Miller on this one.
Walter’s reply to Miller’s reply threatened him with disorderly conduct charges. (!)
…the poster can be interpreted as a threat by others and/or could cause those that view it to believe that you are willing/able to carry out actions similar to what is listed…If you choose to repost the article or something similar to it, it will be removed and you could face charges of disorderly conduct.
Miller did not back down. He replied again, but sadly, went a little bit off the reservation, lest you think that he was defending both the First and Second Amendments with his stance:
Don’t threaten me with charges that have no basis in reality–I am a committed pacifist and a devotee of non-violence, and I don’t appreciate card carrying members of the NRA who are wearing side arms and truncheons lecturing me about violence.
Damn. And there I thought we had a brother-in-arms. Apparently Miller is only a fan of the First Amendment. Not the Second. Later on that same day, Miller posted another image on his office door, kicking the dust-up up a notch:
Miller’s response? Predictable.
Dr. Miller,
My office removed another posting from the outside of your office. The posting depicts violence and mentions violence and death. The campuses threat assessment team met yesterday and conferred with UW System Office of General Counsel and made the decision that this posting should be removed. It is believed that this posting also has a reasonable expectation that it will cause a material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat.
Chief Lisa Walter
UW-Stout Police/Parking
Who knew glorified meter maids had this kind of power on campus?
So how did the school administration react? Did they call off the dogs? (I have no idea what Walter looks like – it’s just a turn of phrase.) Did they allow cooler heads to prevail and remind everybody that a university is supposed to be a bastion of free speech? Not on your tintype, Lizzie. No, College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Interim Dean Raymond Hayes scheduled a little sit-down with Miller about “the concerns raised by the campus threat assessment team.”
Hayes, Raymond
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2011 2:03 PM
To: Miller, James
Cc: Walter, Lisa
September 20, 2011Jim:
As Campus Police have now twice removed images that you have posted outside your door, and given the concerns raised by the campus threat assessment team, I believe that it is essential that you and I meet to discuss this situation.
I see from your teaching schedule that you would have no course conflict at 2:15 p.m. on Monday the 26th.
I am asking you to meet with Chief Lisa Walter and me at that time in my office.
I will see you on Monday.
Wow. So much for all that blather about academic freedom, huh? Walter calls the Campus Threat Assessment Team in for a pow-wow on the dangerous thoughts being expressed over in the theatre wing. Who knew a campus even needed a Threat Assessment Team? What do they do, exactly? Presuming the campus is a gun-free zone, are they now forced to focus on eliminating verbal threats to the peace and idyllic tranquility of the ivory towers of learning?
But just as I learned in my college class in Political Science 101, Miller chose to defend himself by expanding the conflict, calling in a FIRE storm. No really. FIRE is the higher education free-speech group (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) who defends professors and students from nonsensical attacks such as these.
FIRE wrote a letter/fax to the dean expressing their concerns about the matter (and tacitly signaling that any hopes of containing this hullabaloo as an internal matter had flown the proverbial coop). They’ve also encouraged people to write or call in. As of this week, over 2,000 people have contacted the university, expressing concerns that free speech has been trampled by the university cop.
If you think this has nothing to do with you and your guns, think again.
You can think of universities and colleges as either incubators for ideas, or nurseries for nonsense. Take your pick. Either way, the seedlings of incredibly bad ideas are allowed to take root there, and flourish into full-blown trees that bear fruit that represents the antithesis of personal freedom and rights. Stop this kind of thing at the root, and you won’t have to deal with it later, in state legislatures and in the halls of Congress. Do nothing and you’ll look back on the Heller and McDonald rulings as the halcyon days of rights that are little more than a historical footnote.
If you are so moved, you can make comments to the school here:
Chancellor Charles W. Sorensen
University of Wisconsin-Stout
Office of the Chancellor
325 Administration Building
Menomonie, Wisconsin 54751
Isn’t this a case of the proverbial chickens coming home to roost? Perhaps I’m greatly misjudging Prof. Miller (if so, I apologize in advance if he’s offended! LOL), but he seems to be selective about which freedoms and rights he’s willing to defend: the First (Freedom of Speech) he’s definitely in favor of, the Second (Right to Bear Arms), not so much. I guess he supports the freedoms that personally affect him in his exalted position as a college teacher, but not necessarily those that are guaranteed by the Constitution to his fellow Americans. I don’t know whether Prof. Miller is a liberal, perhaps he’s not, but this sort of tunnel vision regarding our Constitutional freedoms is certainly typical of such people. If he is a member of The Others, I say to him, this is the jackbooted behavior one sees from the Liberal Establishment all the time. If you are a Lefty, you own it. Deal with it.
The assumption that he opposes the 2nd Amendment just because he is a pacifist is not logical.
One of the reasons college tuitions have escalated to the point where a year at school costs roughly the equivalent of a middle class annual salary is administrative bloat. Colleges nationwide have inflated their non-teaching headcount by hiring otherwise-unemployable “threat assessment teams” and other PC enforcers. And somebody has to pay for them. When I say “enforcers” I mean it in the same sense that the mob does.
The Professor is opposed to fascism. The reason the state (U of W) condemns his graphic opposition is obvious: the Police Chief and Threat Assessment Team know a threat to their authority when they see one; that is, they are fascists.
TARGET!!!! Cease fire.
Acquire Chancellor. Load SABOT. Engage…..
Just another reason we who live in Wisconsin are so happy our high taxes go to support this kind of insanity. Frankly, from the sounds of it, this is another case (for me like when the Vikings and Bears play football), where I wish both sides could lose.
AMEN
(as a U of Illinois grad, I feel your pain)
Considering the content of the message… it’s unacceptably violent to say that you WON’T shoot someone down in cold blood?
….or in the back, while they are asleep and/or unarmed.
“(C)ard carrying members of the NRA”? sigh There are a couple of lessons here which the professor should have known before he made this gratuitous and insulting remark. They’re about the wisdom of trying to curry or retain favor with the very statists and totalitarians who wish to crush your basic constitutional rights.
First, it’s a useless act. The trying to stay or get in good with the left while fighting them, that is. Otherwise known as appearing unsure of yourself, reluctant, half-assed. This is the way the national GOP has conducted its political opposition to Obama-ism, and also how the US fought in Vietnam..neither of which turned out well. The liberals will just ignore what look like your craven attempts to show that you’re “one of the good guys”. You just wind up looking weak and ineffectual, which invites aggression by bullies.
Second, the conservatives/libertarians (CLs) whom you mock in your attempts to ingratiate yourself with the left, are actually constitutionalists, and are the only ones who stand ready to defend you and your rights on principle. Your liberal buddies wouldn’t know a principle if it bit ‘em on the ass. But the ones who believe in the primacy of individual liberty and the rule of law are the guys you want with you at The Alamo. But in effect you just told them to get the hell out because you think they don’t bathe often enough for you.
So all you’ll accomplish is to hurt yourself with the very conservative and libertarian constitutionalists who otherwise would be flocking to your side. Now I suspect is becoming mixed, half-hearted. It’s like with Rick Perry’s incredibly arrogant and insulting “heartless” remark “: before it, I was ready to support him in any way I could, including financially; but now, I suppose I wish him well, but he won’t get a dime…or a vote…from me.
Maybe I’m wrong, and CLs are still fired up about your case. But I’m guessing I’m not alone in cooling on you and your case. If I were you, and I depended on the goodwill of CLs to alert and arouse the blogosphere to my plight, I think I would do what I could to immediately disabuse them of possibly thinking that I held them in contempt as fools and fascists.
But that’s just me. Here the lesson endeth.
I don’t think they fully understand the meaning of: “The Pen is Mightier than the Sword.” Here is another phrase they might have heard in an English class, or cartography or similar, but not fully grasped: “the map is not the territory.” They may have also heard this phrase, but I fear they would disagree with it: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”
Does Miller know what the chain of command is?
It’s the chain they go get and beat him with until he understands who’s in ruttin’ command there.
Lisa Walter’s e-mail is walterl@uwstout.edu in case anyone wants to explain the First Amendment to her.
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“Damn. And there I thought we had a brother-in-arms. Apparently Miller is only a fan of the First Amendment. Not the Second.”
I disagree with this. Miller’s email doesn’t take a position one way or the other on the Second Amendment. It just expresses his personal pacifism and notes the incongruity of people who carry firearms accusing him of threatening violence by quoting a TV show. It’s possible to be a pacifist who supports 2nd Amendment rights. I am one.
While I’m a Firefly fan and a 2nd amendment supporter, I think the college was justified in asking the professor to remove the poster from the workplace. The manner in which it was done was highhanded; the professor’s chair should have approached him and quietly asked him to move it. The college is a workplace, not a forum for one’s private views and interests (although many academics fail to understand this until they cross a line, such as using their campus email for political organizing). The poster appeals to people who know about Firefly, but I can see how others might find it annoying and inappropriate, another example of the hip hostility trend that’s inappropriate for professionals to display at work. The professor has to deal with students, the community, and other administrators. What message did he hope to send by hanging this poster? That he’s tough but fair? I don’t think the intended audience understood it.
He’s a theater professor. A Firefly poster is arguably subject matter related.
Frank: Yes. Well, when I see 5 weirdos dressed in togas stabbing a guy in the middle of the park in full view of 100 people, I shoot the bastards. That’s *my* policy.
Mayor: That was a Shakespeare-In-The-Park production of “Julius Caesar”, you moron! You killed 5 actors! Good ones.
Well Obama said America has gotten soft.
This professor’s students have posted their opinions on ratemyprofessor.com and it’s not pretty once you click past the first page of comments.
This site won’t display properly on my iphone – you might want to try and fix that