Mastodawn

This splainer is fairly far along the "grumpy" axis

Also: when a professor gets suspended for saying something, and the university President says the statement is outside First Amendment protection, I think a reasonable and responsible journalist/publication would assess that claim and perhaps ask someone whether it's right and then print the answer.

João Tiago Rebelo Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat asking journalists/publications to do their job (due diligence to inform their public/readers/viewers) is a high risk (and almost alien) idea nowadays.

Rhett Derrick Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat This is why I always reach out to Robert Barnes for comment when I do legal reporting.

Denys Beecher Mar 28, 2023

@LawZag @Popehat

M.rauder Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat
@dougjballoon

The NYT asked 4 men at this proud boys rally about how appropriate it was for a professor to call for executing people whose opinion they disagreed with.

Their answers might surprise you.

Bruce Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat

Also (reading only this post), first amendment protections do not protect against non-governmental retribution. It would be employment laws and regulations that would cover the required reasons for dismissal.

@bruce_korb Incorrect. Government school. Employment consequences governed by First Amendment test -- just a slightly different test. See second update.

Bruce Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat

I'm sure you're correct, "but" I'd think that applying consequences to someone deliberately creating dissension and discord* wouldn't be first amendment relevant. He said what he said for shock value. I'll go back to my peanut gallery now. ;)

* (I meant to use the word, "disruption." School administrators cannot allow disruptive people to disrupt the campus.)

@bruce_korb @Popehat Any speech that goes against the mood of the moment can be claimed to be 'deliberately creating dissension and disruption'. This is as true of wearing a black armband to protest the Vietnam war as it is of saying wrongthinkers should be assassinated. How does one CHANGE the current "everyone agrees..." thinking without saying, "No, I disagree."? And how will that not, tautologically, be disruptive?

Karl Auerbach Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat @bruce_korb I agree that the University is constrained by 1st Amendment, but supposed that Prez Wilson had said "This prof's speech is protected, we disagree, but it's his right." And then goes on to add: "However, we feel that private individuals could and ought to take such 'remedial' action as they feel appropriate, perhaps even taking the professor's own arguments regarding the relative values of shouting down vs killing."

In other words can the university launder its desire to punish the professor by discussing, just short of clearly inciting, private actors to act on the university's behalf?

@karlauerbach @bruce_korb Getting closer to unprotected incitement: specific target, more likely.

ProtectiveHen Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat Ah the old days of journalism when those silly reporters actually provided context...

Sam Gross Mar 29, 2023

@Popehat but someone with banal authority said it, it must be true!

HaroldFeld Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat but so amusing!

Packy Anderson Mar 28, 2023

@HaroldFeld @Popehat Ken, my favorite writing of yours is when you're grumpy!

M.rauder Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat
Grumpy, yet fair.

@Popehat Grumpy Popehat is best Popehat!

Led By Gilded Fools Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat curiosity makes me want to know what the other axis's are relative to the grumpy axis.

@Popehat best kind.

Jeremy (יעקב) 🇺🇦Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat

Best two sentences I read today also sum up the article.

"Professor Shaviro is an English professor at a public university. Arguably it’s his role to say stupid, morally reprehensible things reflecting a mindset completely divorced from the reality of normal people."

Kevin Leecaster Mar 28, 2023

@imstilljeremy @Popehat
There are a lot more than just English professors that are saying, "morally reprehensible things reflecting a mindset completely divorced from the reality of normal people" in order to push the envelope as far as they can in order to push their agenda to undermine society for sure though too.

@Popehat So, Shaviro is pro-terrorism and we’re somehow supposed to take what he says seriously? Shouting down a speaker is by definition an exercise of free speech. To be against using speech to counter speech is to be pro-censorship. All you have is a power differential where one speaker has their speech amplified by money, status and a platform, and his opponents only having numbers to establish their power.

Matt Dawson Mar 28, 2023

@drobert @Popehat "This speech is protected by the First Amendment" is not the same as "This speech must be taken seriously."

@pavlov112 @Popehat you come really close to the line when you openly advocate assassinations, tho.

@drobert @pavlov112 @Popehat Unless he was talking to an angry mob with a victim in ready reach, it was just that, advocacy. The expression of an idea. A stupid idea, for which he deserves social opprobrium and severe mockery, but one which he is legally allowed to express, and for which the government -- which includes a public university -- cannot punish him.

@drobert @pavlov112 That's not the line. It's absolutely clear you can advocate for the moral, philosophical, and social rightness of murder.

@Popehat @pavlov112 I said “close to the line”. A lawyer needs to be a better reader than this.

arceuthobium Mar 28, 2023

@drobert going by the “imminent lawless action” standard he’s nowhere close.

@drobert Who said you need to take him seriously?

@Popehat you reposted his screed without commentary.

@drobert Yes, other than the long post ridiculing him, calling out the unseriousness of the sentiment, and explaining the First Amendment issues.

@Popehat @drobert But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how WAS the play?

@Popehat The Usual Suspects, every time this comes up, all over the political map: "So you defend the free speech rights of someone who thinks people should be killed for speaking?"
Me: "Yes. It's why I'm a better person than they are."

Quiquaequod Mar 28, 2023

@Popehat
Shaviro is correct.

Whenever I write about this kind of thing I take an opinion on it based on being old and tired, but -- there are actual theorists of interrupting speech who theorized based on practice, including practice that most people would probably agree with (e.g. interrupting speech of actual Nazis before WW II and serious neo-Nazi movements afterwards). It's called "deplatforming" because people would literally overturn speakers' platforms. It's not best characterized by either shouting people down or by stupidly calling for violence. (Some people think that physically overturning platforms is violence etc: it's not the same kind of violence.)