She’s a wackjob and has absolutely no business teaching. I can’t imagine what hell she brings down on a student who has the audacity to challenge her ideas.
The answer to your question, IMO, is that they were looking to play victims of some vague system of oppression. Two journalists show up with cameras? “Oh, fine, we can work with that”.
In the video I linked to you can see how the student was hit by the car (beginning at minute 14), he actually walked against it.
By the way, that student, who went on a hunger strike to protest against the systems of oppression against minorities, his father makes 5 million a year…
[Oliver Twist]Can I get some oppression please?[/OT]
Another of the reasons to demand the resignation of the man was that someone (nobody knows who or why) painted a swastika in feces in a bathroom, now I may be over thinking things a little, but why is it assumed to be an endorsement of Nazism or anything like that instead of exactly the opposite? Call me crazy, but I don’t imagine a Nazi painting the symbol of their ideology in shit.
It was funny in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, with the peasant yelling “look look at the violence inherent in the system!” but a man lost his job to placate a group playing out their “social justice” memes, and that’s not funny.
A university that receives federal funding and does not ensure Constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms on its campus is already on very shaky legal ground. When one of its agents (in this case, a faculty member) tries to trample on First Amendment rights, it’s placed itself in an even worse position.
Thankfully, voices on the left are increasingly recognizing how intolerable this situation is on campus (Nicholas Kristofhad a pretty good column on the subject this past week). We need to start seeing “Take Back The First Amendment” rallies (as in, not allowing right-wingers to hijack the issue any longer).
Yeah, this is the take-away. One faculty member was properly exposed as an idiot, and she will have no further role to play. The student organizers, who will, have learned a key lesson.
I’ve said all along that i think this woman is an idiot, and if she suffered some employment-related consequences as a result of her actions, i think she would probably deserve it, especially given that a communications professor should show some understanding of the rights of the media.
But i also tend to agree with what the author or your linked article said:
There are probably literally thousands of physical confrontations worse than this one in the United States every day that don’t get prosecuted. I’ve seen police come to bar fights and traffic conflicts where actual punches were thrown, and walk away after giving everyone a stern warning.
As to your first question, the answer is probably, at least in some cases.
I completely agree with your second sentence, but i still think that lawyer is right that the prosecution here is almost as much of an over-reaction as the idiot professor’s behavior.
It’s not the end of the world, and i’m certainly not going to head off and join a protest to support the professor. She made her own bed here. My bet is that, given the circumstances, she’ll probably receive some very mild sentence that involves no incarceration and maybe a small fine, if that. Probably nothing more than a suspended sentence or probation.
Maybe it will be a salutary lesson for her; maybe not. It will probably end up doing nothing more than using up courtroom resources and providing more fodder for the writers of opinion pieces.
Considering that the maximum penalty is 15 days in jail, I agree that it’s likely that she get no time. A stern “Don’t ever do that again” from a judge is probably enough.
Good call. However, as Rep. Jones said in the linked article it should have happened months ago. Instead it looks like she was let go simply because the university eventually came to feel it had no choice due to Missouri state legislative budget cuts to the university in the wake of Click’s actions, and declining enrollment which is suspected to have resulted from Click’s behavior.
It’s interesting that the faculty is so up in arms over this. Apparently they are mad the Board of Curators chose to decide directly to fire her, instead of involving the faculty council which is the normal process. Except the faculty has overwhelmingly indicated they would not vote to fire Click.
She assaulted a student, and she agreed with a prosecutor to do community service to get the prosecution deferred/dismissed upon completion. That’s essentially accepting she had committed an illegal act. I wouldn’t have necessarily thought firing was the only punishment, but the faculty has no real place in shielding itself from consequences for committing assault against a student.
Several twits in a faculty meeting apparently were upset and said they don’t feel they have First Amendment rights, and want to know “what they can’t say?” Since they are now afraid they can be fired for saying certain things. Well, the answer is simple, when what you say constitutes criminal assault, you cannot say that. That isn’t just university policy, that’s the law. The first amendment doesn’t cover assault.