Theater Professor's Firefly Poster Declared Threatening

ocean_soul writes "Probably because nothing more threatening was happening and they need to prove their usefulness the school police at University of Wisconsin-Stout decided a Firefly poster with the quote: "You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed," was a threat to the safety on campus. Wasn't that a quote about not killing people?"

Comments

From the article...

[broginator]

"...school police chief Lisa A. Walter..." It's the L.A.W.

Rent-a-cop oversteps his bounds in shock horror!

[L4t3r4lu5]

Who'da thunk that a failed mall-cop would screw up something as simple as english comprehension, eh? I've never heard that quote before, yet even I can see that it's essentially saying that the person will only kill another person if they are presenting an immediate and credible threat to said person's life. HURRR DURRR, that's the only time it's legal, and they'd better have the pistol to your head and their finger on the trigger for you to react like that.

Someone send that guy back to kindergarten so he can learn to understand a sentence properly.

Re:Rent-a-cop oversteps his bounds in shock horror

[Attila Dimedici]

There would be something to what you say, except that the campus administration appears to be siding with the Rent-a-cop (who happens to be a woman).
Having watched Firefly, I believe that the quote was saying that the individual would only attempt to kill someone who was in a position to defend themselves and know why that person was attempting to kill them. Even with that more hostile reading of the quote, it is not a threat. The sentiment of the quote could be restated, "I won't blind-side you or backstab you. If I decide that you need to be taken down, you will know I'm coming and will have an opportunity to defend yourself."

Re:Come on, Jake, it's Wisconsin

[Antisyzygy]

Even though I don't agree with his liberal bashing, he is right about the offending part. Offending someone doesn't hurt them, and they should have the balls to fucking ignore it. If you are such an asshole you have to censor people because of your nimrod self-entitlement complex, you don't even deserve to live in this country.

Of course

[joebagodonuts]

If you go to the trouble to fund and staff a "Threat Assessment Team", then they have to find threats. Even if none really exist, something will be labeled Threat. Bureaucracy will take it from there.

Re:Rent-a-cop oversteps his bounds in shock horror

[nedlohs]

He thinks it's a quote from a fictional character and being older than 6 doesn't have to 100% agree with the philosophy of said fictional character in order to enjoy the story or think it has some sort of artistic merit.

Why can't people be reasonable?

[yakovlev]

Actually, the quote wasn't quite that noble. What it's saying is that the person will only kill someone with the ability to defend themselves.

In a twisted way I see how they could have an argument.

If you dig a little deeper (like looking at the case on the FIRE site) the professor then put up a poster against fascism, indicating that fascism can lead to violence and death. Campus police took that one down too and got the dean involved, which is when this guy got a lawyer.

Seriously, Fascism?! Campus police has a problem with a poster against Fascism?!

Basically, what's going on here is that the professor had a poster that could, by a decidedly UNreasonable (but still sane and literate) person be construed to be a threat. Campus police took it down. The guy got upset and replaced it with a new poster which, while DEPICTING comic violence, constituted real political speech and clearly was NOT a threat of any kind. It was phrased as a warning that Fascism can lead to violence. This is where the story should have ended.

Campus police decided that since this guy was a "troublemaker" they would show him by taking down the new poster too and going after his job. This is where campus police went too far. The new poster was NOT a threat, and campus police knew it, or should have known it.

So, the professor got a lawyer.

And, the moral of the story is: Fear the police, they have public opinion, power, and guns on their side. :-(

Re:Why can't people be reasonable?

[lahvak]

I disagree. I've seen some ridiculous communist/fascist loving stuff at University. I've seen people who "admire" Kim Jong-Il, and who "admire" Hitler, and who "admired" Mao.

I have been around various universities pretty much all my life, and I don't think I have ever seen a person who genuinely admired any of the dictators that you mention (except some communist fanatics at the communist government controlled university that I studied when I was young, and these people generally did not belong at a university, and were booted from their positions by the rest of the academic community soon after the revolution). I have seen people who studied Kim Jong-Il, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and others. I have also seen people who claimed to admire them, in order to shock or create controversy, both in university environments and outside.

These "leaders" killed millions of people in the name of truly evil ideologies, and they are typically tolerated at academic institutions.

If by tolerated you mean discussed and studied, you are right. You see, the thing about academia, the whole purpose of it is to figure out things and understand them, understand where they come from, what caused them, how can we recognize them when they come along next time, etc.

For example, UW Madison had its local paper run an ad by a Holocaust denier, because, "âoeno opinions or assertions can be so offensive that we cannot bring ourselves to hear them.â'

As much as I oppose holocaust deniers, I completely agree with the UWMs reasoning. And I am not the only only one, there is for example this famous quote by Salman Rushdie: âoeWhat is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to existâ. I think he speaks from experience. From an academic point of view, it is impossible to study an opinion or assertion, debate it and argue against it, without hearing it.

Also, UW Madison has *at least* one professor (Erik Olin Wright) who studies the "scientific" ideas of Stalin. A mass murderer by *any* standard. Probably the most prolific mass murderer in history.

Indeed, and that's exactly why we need to study his ideas. We need to understand what did the most prolific mass murderer in history think, how did he justify his actions and so on. If for no other reason, than at least in order to prevent others like him to gain power and attempt to repeat his actions. If you look around the world, there are plenty of people who would very much like to emulate Stalin, and no, most of them (if any) are in academia.

Scary to me that a Firefly poster would be considered the "worrying" document.

I completely agree with you on this. That is completely ridiculous. However, I think that it is not necessarily caused by either liberal or conservative point of view, as many people here argue. I think at the beginning it was simply a stupid business decision. I imagine that the administration on the university probably instructed the cops to be on a look out for certain keywords. I imagine that they are mostly worried that a student will read the poster, misunderstand it, mention it to parents, somebody will call in a reporter, it will be on the news, and bunch of complete idiots will say that someone (it does not matter who) at the university is threatening students, other bunch of complete idiots will believe it, the enrollment will drop, and since most income in state universities these days come from tuition, it will be an economic disaster for the school. I don't agree with that reasoning, I thing it is stupid, but unfortunately, you can see it at various state schools around the country all the time. The rest is just the cop being dumb. No need to spin it into some sort of "liberal bias" or "conservative bias" thing.

Just in case you didn't RTFA...

[pongo000]

...the second poster he hung up is better than the first. Much better.

Re:Lets see if I understand this.

[Hatta]

Ah, so the real problem isn't that the content of the poster was threatening. The problem is that he didn't show the proper deference to authority. Just making sure we're clear on this.

Re:Blame it on Liberals and Communists

[Stoutlimb]

Because slamming one side automatically means he's vouching for the other side, right?

Because there are only two real options in your country, both just as bad?

Wake up and realize that what you think is "liberal" and "conservatives" are just two sides of the same superficially democratic machine, and it's only real purpose is to keep itself in power. You only have one party, thinly veiled as two. Any American who gets into a con vs lib argument is just a zombie doing exactly what the system wants them to do. It's very sad and pathetic watching this from the outside, seeing everything you people believe in as a lie. I guess being immersed in it since childhood makes it easier to believe. It's kind of like watching a documentary about cargo cults... it's hard to believe people living in such ignorance exist... but there they are.

Re:How about flashing?

[N0Man74]

If I flash you, your mom, daughter or wife, they aren't hurt, are they?

Actually... probably not.

Does it make me old that I can remember a time when things like flashing, mooning, public urination, and streaking, were seen as being disorderly, but not thought of as psychologically damaging? Now a mooning can make you a registered sex offender.

Re:Come on, Jake, it's Wisconsin

[Antisyzygy]

Nope, white male and poor since the economy sucks ass right now and apparently I went to school for the wrong thing, Applied Mathematics. I'm also married to a black woman that agrees with me who has probably lived a harder life than 90 percent of the people in this country. My father lived a harder life than her starving most of the time while his sisters got raped and given Hepatitis C by their sociopath uncle who murdered my grandfather and one other person. He worked his ass off to get where he is today, which is also poor now since the economy sucks. Psychological trauma and pain from what? Only a fucking nimrod gets "Hurt" over words from someone they don't even know. If I can ignore them, why can't they? If you can't handle it then go start your own utopian dream land and please stop bothering me. There is a major difference between something like PTSD from bombs exploding near you all the time, and getting "trauma" from a god damn poster. Give me a fucking break.

Re:Come on, Jake, it's Wisconsin

[makomk]

The above comment was presumably brought to us by the "project your side's malevolent activities onto your opponent, get moderated Insightful" school of political thought? Because US politics didn't used to be nearly as far to the right as it was, and the way it got there was through the use of exactly the same tactics by the right that you're accusing the left wing of using - they deliberately drove ideas further and further to the right into the political mainstream, redefining what counted as centrist and far-left as they did so. We know this from statements by members of the right wing saying that this is what they were doing.