Random Thoughts From Marybeth

University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point

(Link via Right Wing News)

If a high school student wrote something about assaulting and killing students the likely results could include arrest and expulsion. The context doesn't matter. After Columbine any speech of this type is presumed to be a threat.

When someone at a college - no, not a student, a lecturer named Pat Rothfuss - writes about "punching smug-looking Republicans in the mouth", "key every car you see with a Bush bumper sticker", and "why don't you go on a killing spree?..." it's called humor.

"His columns make fun of a variety of people and groups, he said, and oftentimes students find the column hilarious until their group is the target of the column's satirical ridicule."

What is this, the Henry Higgins defense? ("The question is not whether I treat you rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else better." - Pygmalion)

I'm not questioning his right to free speech, nor do I think that students need to be protected from opposing opinions. I do wonder about the wisdom of a university that allows a member of its faculty to make students a target of "satirical ridicule".

If you are a high school senior or a parent of one and you agree with the ideas Rothfuss stated, then UWSP may be the school for you. On the otherhand, if you are conservative and prefer intellectual stimulation to ridicule, you may want to look elsewhere.

Update: Allan tells me a similar thing happened at the university nearest to where I live, my alma mater, the University of Louisville.

What can I say? I don't watch much local news and don't often read the Courier-Journal. Especially this past week....

In an interview last week, McTighe acknowledged that he made comments Nov. 4 similar to those cited in a conservative student newspaper and on the association's [American Family Association] Web site that conservative voters should be shot with automatic rifles.

But he said that the comments were later taken out of context and that he was not calling for violence.

I can't wait to hear that explanation.

There are differences in the two events. The comments attributed to McTighe appear to have been made to just his class. Rothfuss' were made in a student newspaper.

UofL President James Ramsey said, "The quote attributed to Professor McTighe is unacceptable and not an issue of academic freedom." McTighe's contract has been withdrawn for the spring semester pending a review. Rothfuss' response was another satirical article and UWSP has done what?

People who teach are in a position of trust. Some will abuse that by using it as a forum for pushing their opinions. What is telling is how the school reacts.