Off-duty actions of public figures in general/Shirvell/Armstrong case in particular

Great Debates
1

Did anybody else watch Anderson Cooper last night? He profiled a case (not in the legal sense, yet- there’s possible litigation pending) of Andrew Shirvell, the Assistant Attorney General of Michigan, whose hobby is harassing and cyber bullying Chris Armstrong, the U. of Michigan’s student body president. Armstrong is openly gay and while I honestly know nothing of his character or his politics even if the guy has 12 sex partners per day and advocates violent overthrow of the state and federal governments and the Vatican then Shirvell is still the bigger nutbag.

Here’s the Cooper segment- it’s worth watching in its entirety. Shirvell, who appears to be a Paul Reubens character that came to consciousness, agreed to an on-air interview; Armstrong didnt’ because he’s considering legal action against Shirvell. If you don’t have time to watch the clip then there’s a short synopsis here (Advocate blip) and slightly longer one here in the Michigan Daily. Also here.

Shirvell posts pictures of Armstrong with a gay pride/Nazi flag mashup, calls him Satan’s agent on Earth, has protested outside of his house, has cyberstalked him and his friends and their parents on Facebook, blogs about the guy incessantly and just in general acts like Armstrong killed his pa.

There’s been an uproard by Armstrong supporters- of whom there are many on campus- for Shirvell to resign or be fired. However, nothing he has done so far is technically illegal: he’d be guilty of cyberbullying if Michigan had a cyberbullying law but they’re one of the states that doesn’t, and he keeps legal distance when protesting outside of the college student’s house. (It becomes amazingly clear on the video that if we all had a dollar for each time Shirvell has masturbated to fantasies of Armstrong we could all take a nice European holiday.) Michigan’s Attorney General Mike Cox, for whom Shirvell was an important campaign supporter, released the statement

So the debate:

According to Cooper, the laws of free speech and expression are different for a public official (which Shirvell, like Shirley Sherrod a few months ago, qualifies as). How much so?

If a public figure- let’s say the Asst. Gen. Atty. of Alabama, was openly a member of the KKK and maintained a white supremacist blog that obsessed on the actions of a local and not nationally famous black minister the way that Shirvell does Armstrong, would and should and could he be fired assuming his views were all expressed outside of his official capacity and why or why not? While most publicly employed attorneys have political affiliations, some strongly so, is there ever a point at which it could be reasoned to interfere with their ability to perform their job (e.g. if Shirvell had to defend a gay client or the hypothetical KKK attorney had to defend a Black Muslim client)?

In your opinion has Shirvell done anything worthy of being removed from office even if he hasn’t technically broken a law? And for that matter when does harassment statutes kick in?

(This started out as GQ but decided GD would be better for it; mods may judge differently.)

2

PS- This is Shirvell’s blog. It makes copious use of Facebook screen captures. Is this an infringement of any form of copyright?

3

Wow that blog is surreal. I’d be terrified of that goon.

4

For what it’s worth, my guess is that there are a lot of Assistant Attorneys-General in Michigan. It’s probably the standard title for attorneys working in the AG’s office, just as an entry-level attorney in a United States Attorney’s office is called an Assistant United States Attorney. I’m not certain of this, but it makes sense - and I do know that the number-two guy in Michigan’s DOJ is known as the Deputy AG, not as an assistant AG. My point isn’t that this makes Shirvell’s conduct less shockingly bad - it plainly doesn’t - but just that we shouldn’t frame this as a story about a top state official doing this craziness.

5

I don’t know the laws in Michigan well enough to offer judgment, but going solely by your description, he (Shirvell) is just a dick.

Update: you say he’s “the Assistant Attorney General of Michigan,” implying that he’s the sole #2 guy. Based on that, I had typed out a paragraph that said, in effect, that if he were an ordinary civil servant in the office, he’d probably be safe, but as a political appointee in such a sensitive spot, he should be fired for appearance of idiocy.

But then I decided to check the Michigan AG’s website. Turns out the #2 spot (PDF) is called the “Chief Deputy Attorney General,” and is currently held by one Carol Isaacs. Under her are Bureau Chiefs, none of which is named Shirvell, and under them are Division Chiefs, none of which is named Shirvell. So it seems likely to me that Shirvell IS a civil service guy, not an appointee.

So I’m going to say no. He’s broken no law, he probably has protection from summary dismissal as a state employee, and I can’t see anything he’s done that would rise to the level of overcoming that.

Obviously watching the videos may change my mind.

6

I bet Breitbart is gonna be all over this… right?

7

So aren’t there laws that protect people from harassment? If so, what qualifies as harassment, because it would sheem that Shirvell has surely crossed it.

Though I’m not a psychologist I don’t think you have to be to think that Shirvell is freaking nuts and to fear his obvious obsession might turn dangerous.

8

Sure. But ask yourself this: if an activist had done something similar against, say, Karl Rove or Dick Cheney, what would your reaction be?

9

Because Karl Rove and Dick Cheney’s standings and past actions are just like that of an unknown (until Andrew Shirvell developed a crush on him) college student.

10

If he got anywhere near Cheney or Rove’s residence he’d probably be arrested. But a better analogy would be if he had this form of obsession over the head of the U of M Young Republicans Club, in which case I’d think that a grown man with a law degree and a career who obsesses over a student at a school they aren’t even associated with except as an alumni is absofrigginglutely insane and guilty of harassment when they do the things Shirvell has done to Armstrong.

11

This sentence seems to hint at two possible arguments:

  1. The distinction between Rove/Cheney and Armstrong is that Rove/Cheney are public figures, and thus society is prepared to tolerate this kind of conduct against them; Armstrong is a private figure, and thus society more carefully safeguards his privacy from such tactics.

  2. The distinction between Rove/Cheney and Armstrong is that Rove/Cheney are bad people who did bad things, and thus society is prepared to tolerate this kind of conduct against them; Armstrong is a good or at least neutral/unknown figure, and thus society more carefully safeguards him from such tactics.

Or is there another option I missed?

12

Not so.

I don’t dispute the insane part. But I’m not seeing the (legally sufficient) harrassment.

13

If anybody posts a blog about people who ran the country for 8 years, I wouldn’t be surprised. If it was as bat-shit crazy as Shirvell’s blog, I still wouldn’t be surprised - believe me, I know they’re out there. And while I’d feel no compunction in claiming said blog-keeper as a freak-show, I don’t see how it should be illegal.

On the other hand, when a person in the position of Assistant Attorney General of the state of Michigan creates a blog as bat-shit crazy as this, targeting no one on the planet had ever heard of outside of his family, friends, Shirvell and whoever Shirvell hires to make the life size gimp doll in Armstrong’s image … yeah, I might call that harassment.

14

So you’re basically just offering your opinion here, not trying to articulate a general principle or legal concept?

15

Bricker, are you telling me you’d trust this guy with the powers of a state prosecutor?

16

Welcome to the internet.
I’m saying that this guy is clearly cyber-bullying a private citizen, as pretty clearly laid out in the Anderson Cooper piece. And that it has no relation to a political blog aimed at a public figure. I’m sorry I don’t know which chapter of the Big Book Of Law that’s in at the Harvard Library.

17

Not to answer for Jack, but for myself, yes, most definitely yes, unequivocally and unapologetically yes: I believe the rights to privacy and the definition of what qualifies as harassment should be incomparable for Cheney/Rove/Obama/the Clintons, etc., all of whom are public figures and controversial ones at that, than for a 21 year old college student. Anyone who believes that a 21 year old who isn’t a public figure deserves no more privacy than the PotUS is is either lying or as crazy as Shirvell.

Not even in Alabama would you find a jury who’d believe that argument. The difference is that Rove/Cheney/et al are people who have power, who have security guards to protect them from the insane, who deliberately chose high profile positions in a divisive political climate etc… There is absolutely no comparison between what qualifies as harassment (I’m not even talking in the legal sense but in the reasonable sense) for a 21 year old college student versus an internationally known public figure. I seriously doubt Obama or Cheney either one has lost sleep knowing there are nutjobs who blame them for every crime committed in the last 10 years.

This is, again, a kid whose friends (not just his “the waking” friends but facebook friends) AND their parents have been libeled on a blog by an appointed official for no obvious reason all due to their (often tangential) connection to a kid who nobody ever heard of outside of the U. of Michigan, who has no power outside of the U. of Michigan (and precious little there), and who’s been accused of everything from racism to Nazism to sexual harassment to WTFever else by a ranting raving closeted loon who is, again, an appointed official. What Shirvell has done and is doing is completely compatible with the definition of cyber bullying, but again Michigan doesn’t have cyber bullying laws.

Do you really think that if I started a “Bricker Watch” blog where I took pics from your facebook pages and your kids facebook pages (as this guy has done with relatives of Armstrong) and stood outside your house chanting “Bricker is a Nazi!” and posted pictures of you with anti-Hispanic slurs and implications you’re here illegally or that you’re Mexican cartel affiliated (I know you’re not Mexican but that’s no more insane an allegation than claiming Armstrong’s trying to seduce people into the “gay lifestyle” or is an “agent of Satan”) that you’d think I was just as within my rights to do so as a guy who stands outside the White House with an “Obamacare is Evil” sign and pic of Obama as witchdoctor sign… Really? Really?

I doubt anybody who watches that piece would be surprised if Shirvell, especially if he lost his position, decided on a murder-suicide course of action. His obsession is irrational and hateful and based on absolutely nothing apparent (at least with Obama and Cheney you know why the loons hate them- they really are people who have effect on public policy) and I think Armstrong has every reason to be concerned for his safety. He needs to be discharged and forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation and I’d say the same thing if he was spewing the same masturbatory fantasy fueled crap about anybody of any orientation or persuasion (though you have to admit the right wing loons have a tighter hold on hate rhetoric brand of irration).

18

I think thats the best argument for firing him. I agree his actions are probably legal (and that they should be so, being a jerk shouldnt be illegal) and that in general the State AG shouldn’t fire people for views or writings that they express outside of the work place.

But such a bizarre, all consuming obsession with such an incredibly minor figure that, so far as I can tell, doesn’t have any personal or even institutional connection (aside from being a Michigan alum) to the Asst. AG seems like less of a “view” and more of a mental illness, or at least a sign of some sort of major problems in the guys personal life. And I think we can all agree that people suffering from untreated mental illness probably shouldn’t serve as Assistant AGs. If nothing else, I’d be pretty skeptical of the guys ability to act rationally in cases that involved homosexuals.

So if I were his boss, I’d at least insist that he get some sort of psychiatric evaluation.

19

At what point are the people that he works for responsible to the voters? I would call into question his competence to to the work of Assistant Attorney General. If he has such a personal hate for this one person, how can he be expected to have the objectivity his job requires in other cases?

And if I were Armstrong I’d sue the worm shit out of him for libel.

20

Well, Shirvell’s blog reports that Armstrong held a loud frat party, that there was considerable (and maybe underage) drinking involved, that guests urinated on the lawn and police were called.

Obviously this is unprecedented anti-family and anti-Christian activity totally foreign to the fraternity lifestyle, occurring only because it was promoted by the Gay Agenda. Or Shirvell is a raging nutbar.

I get the impression his boss would love to get rid of him. Maybe a successful court case will provide the necessary ammunition.