Thu 26 Apr 2007
Punishment Today
Posted by eph under Mary Jane Hitler at 4:47 pm
Julia’s creepy 33 year-old boyfriend Rob is not pleased with Noah’s misidentification of him as Nazi Robert Lindstrom.
Noah has made the accusation that I am a nazi. Noah doesn’t know my family’s history or understand why that is insulting, but should be warned that those are fighting words. While it is easy to post thoughtless insults on blogs so you can “win” irrelevant arguments and show how clever you are with ad hominems, if you say something like that to me in person next time I’m on campus, it is likely that I’ll respond to such libelous insults with violence.
Good to know!
Calling someone a Nazi = “fighting words.” Putting a poster of Hitler on someone’s door = “nothing event”. Let me ponder those equations for a few moments . . .
But the real news is that, according to EphBlog surveillance cameras placed all around Hopkins Hall, Julia is due to receive her “punishment” from Dean Roseman today. Confirmations of this poorly sourced rumor are welcome.
My hope is that Dean Roseman is smart enough to realize that the appropriate punishment for Julia is nothing. (Long time readers will also wonder why Roseman is so eager to punish Julia while doing nothing to stop students from participating in the St. Anthony Hall fraternity.) As discussed in the QBE controversy, the College has few ground for punishing such students (which is a good thing). The student handbook is clear.
Williams College does not discriminate on grounds unrelated to its educational objectives; it is committed to being a community in which all ranges of opinion and belief can be expressed and debated, and within which all patterns of behavior permitted by the public law and College regulations can take place. The community is varied, including people of diverse races, religions, national or ethnic backgrounds, gender expressions and gender identities, and sexual orientations, and its members may from time to time disagree with one another’s ideas and behavior. The College seeks to assure the rights of all to express themselves in words and actions, so long as they can do so without infringing upon the rights of others or violating standards of good conduct or public law.
The College can not punish students for speech, however immature/hateful/obnoxious that speech might be. It can not punish Julia for postering doors while allowing, even praising, the WCJA for doing so. I am all in favor of having a dean scream (literally) at Julia and turn her into a blubbering mess. (Are there any deans at Williams with the ability/desire to the play the bad cop like that? There should be.) But the College can not use its formal powers to punish Julia (no “warning letter” or anything else that becomes a permanent part of Julia’s record at Williams) while, at the same time, not punishing the students behind the Holocaust Remembrance Day posters. If Roseman is so foolish as to issue such a punishment, and Julia wants to fight it, free-speech-absolutist alums (like me) will have no choice but to fight at Julia’s side. First they came for Mary Jane Hitler, but I was not . . .
Let’s hope that it won’t come to that.
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16 Responses to “Punishment Today”
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Anonymous says:
watch out, David. He blames ephblog for harming Williams reputation, but not his immature and misguided postering campaign and subsequent anonymous (coward!) “blog” at a school he’s at least 10 years out of attending, if he even went to Williams.
Also, when mad, Roseman can be pretty intimidating in the menacing type of way. I’d prefer that Julia have to stand there while a variety of members of the campus explained to her in public why and how she had hurt them. As much as I might enjoy watching the girl cry, that’s not my goal. I’d like for her to grow a stronger sense of empathy.
Hey “Rob”, if I ever saw you in person, I think I’d just point and laugh.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:39 pmrory says:
damn! something’s screwwed up with my internet. the above was me. unlike Rob, I have a known identity.
April 26th, 2007 at 5:40 pmRonit says:
Not to mention that he has also called a bunch of Williams students Nazis…
It’s only “fighting words” when it applies to himself, I guess.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:25 pmhwc says:
Good. The Idiot Boyfriend ™ and his threat of physical violence against a student just gave Morty the ammunition to have him arrested the next time he steps foot on campus.
These two are a real piece of work.
April 26th, 2007 at 6:35 pmephmom says:
“Rob S”:
“If they approach me in person with fighting words I will respond appropriately, which probably means giving them a severe beating.”
Williams College:
“The College seeks to assure the rights of all to express themselves in words and actions, so long as they can do so without infringing upon the rights of others or violating standards of good conduct or public law.”
I’d say giving someone “a severe beating” (or even threatening to) would certainly constitute infringement upon that person’s rights as well as violation of all standards of good conduct and law.
Where are the Williams lawyers?
April 26th, 2007 at 7:32 pmDavid R says:
Speaking of lawyers, I think the college may be well-served to write a lovely cease and desist letter to the jerk that has labeled his blog “The Williams College Commentator” without consent from the college.
April 26th, 2007 at 7:55 pmIronic Justice says:
Google ‘Julia’. I think Ephblog’s little contribution to this could be making sure we stay number one in that regards.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:17 pmfrank uible says:
I doubt that (a) he will ever show on campus; (b) if he shows, anyone will confront him; (c) if he is confronted, he will physically retaliate; and (d) any lawyer representing Williams or any part of the Williams community will take active professional action against him.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:28 pmephmom says:
“I think Ephblog’s little contribution to this could be making sure we stay number one in that regards.”
But EphBlog doesn’t pretend to be an official Williams outlet — while the other site has copied the Williams font as well as colors of the official college site.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:30 pmHorace says:
Ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?
April 26th, 2007 at 8:40 pmAnswer: Magnas inter oper inops
Ironic Justice says:
Hi Ephmom,
I wasn’t making any point with regards to that- I was just pointing that we have effectively Googlebombed her, which could have a variety of adverse affects for her future prospects (a google search is the quickest, cheapest background check available).
Williams could, of course, seek an injunction against Nazi Rob, but I don’t know how effective that would be.
Yours,
IJ
April 26th, 2007 at 8:46 pmLoweeel says:
David, absent a Massachusetts law to the contrary, the college can punish students for the content of on-campus speech or anything else it wants (even though I would find it unwise), but I think that a court challenge to that punishment would be successful based on estoppel from the handbook statement.
Not surprisingly, Rob is as ignorant of the meaning of the fighting words doctrine as he is of free speech. “Fighting words” does not mean that you can initiate physical harm against somebody who speaks those words without fear of civil or criminal consequences; it merely means that a governmental entity can restrict or prohibit the use of those words.
E.g., it’s pretty stupid to use the N word (and not the one that Imus used), but somebody who responds to that word with physical violence is probably not off the hook just because the word preceded the violence. Similarly, if Rob shows up on campus and responds with physical force if he’s called a Nazi, he’d probably end up in jail and be civilly liable as well, which would be extremely amusing.
Actually, under Rob’s theory that Nazi is a fighting word, I wonder what Bush (who is much further away from a Nazi by any somewhat reasonable perspective) could do to all the people who explicitly compare him to Hitler and call him Bushitler…
April 26th, 2007 at 8:55 pmLoweeel says:
IJ, in this case it would be a restraining order, unless Williams were already bringing suit against the Restonazi.
If they were bringing suit and wanted him barred from campus, they’d ask for a temporary restraining order immediately to preserve the status quo until a preliminary injunction hearing (which would happen pretty early on), but a permanent injunction wouldn’t happen until the remedy phase of trial at the end.
April 26th, 2007 at 8:59 pmIronic Justice says:
Lowell,
I was referring to an injunction w/r/t to his website, though I strongly doubt it would fly; he doesn’t claim to be an official Williams site or use anything other than the name and colors.
If I remember correctly, the campus can ‘post’ pretty much whomever it wants from the campus itself; the college is private.
IJ
April 26th, 2007 at 9:06 pmRahul says:
“But EphBlog doesn’t pretend to be an official Williams outlet — while the other site has copied the Williams font as well as colors of the official college site.”
Well, the picture at the top right corner of the purple and gold background with the white W may suggest something else. But whatever, I’m not particularly the best source on this legal debate.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:34 amWalker says:
“David, absent a Massachusetts law to the contrary, the college can punish students for the content of on-campus speech or anything else it wants (even though I would find it unwise), but I think that a court challenge to that punishment would be successful based on estoppel from the handbook statement.”
The Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, when passed about 17 years back, guaranteed students at private colleges and universities the same rights (regarding Free Speech) as everywhere else. The law may have been amended since then, as I’m not entirely sure.
Of course, given this buffoon’s decision to start threatening students with violence, it’s perfectly reasonable (and expected) that the college would take the appropriate measures to ensure that he is never anywhere near this place again–from what he has posted on various sites, it almost seems like he lives in Julia’s dorm room (which, were that the case, probably has its own regulations against such things).
Cheers.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:50 am