He said the US deserved 9-11 and so on.
This professor was protected by the university in spite of calls to have him fired because they said the university needs diverse voices, even if they are violent and they would protect his 1A rights...
Things have changed...
But his essay was kind of ignored until 2005. Then CU Boulder investigated him for academic misconduct and fired him. The committee concluded it wasn't serious enough to fire him, and he later successfully sued the university for firing him. Media was reporting on his firing as having major free speech implications.
Academic misconduct should be punished. But to me it looks like one of the major motivations for his firing was his extremely offensive comments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill#Activism_on_Nat...
Let me get this straight: someone who expressed hateful left-leaning political opinions was _not_ fired, and then later someone who expressed hateful right-leaning political opinions _was_ fired? What changed, exactly?
I think that is a significant shift (even if yes, we do see a free pass for the likes of Sarah Jeong[1] for example.
It's frightful to see that defending the 1A on principle is seen as an endorsement of objectionable views.
Most of the rest of it seems like bog-standard US political polarisation, and if she didn't write the bigoted stuff…
It's Disqus; it doesn't work like that. Anyone can use any username.
> So she wrote all of the borderline bad things
I like them as much as you do (possibly less), but a large proportion of the US population has been radicalised in this way. It's not so cut and dry as I'd like these situations to be. (I'd delete that kind of thing if I were moderating, though; that's an obvious thing to do.)
https://help.disqus.com/en/articles/1717153-registering-a-co...
Is this what they were referring to?
> Usernames must be unique and can only be registered by one commenter at a time. If you are seeing this message, it means your desired username is already taken, and you should try registering a different name.
The journalist didn't just google that username and assume everything he read was from her or something, he simply clicked on her linked account in the Disqus system and read/screenshot what else she posted. She's obviously lying when she said that the racist comments, but only the racist ones were written by someone else.
If she could bring someone who would say "Yes, I wrote that on her account" or show that the time of the comment she was teaching or something - I think that would be pretty compelling.
https://help.disqus.com/en/articles/1717211-guest-commenting
Nah, if you click through a username, you can see where else they commented if they're logged in. And the chances of her leaving comments with that login at Breitbart / Drudge Report but not Gateway Pundit are so vanishingly small to not even consider.
But yeah, most of her really off-the-rails stuff was at properties the Nieman Labs guy didn't control so he couldn't delete, it seems like she wrote dumb nonsense on his page partially identifying herself and then he just clicked through to read the rest of her garbage she was writing all over the internet about every silly right-wing conspiracy theory du jour.
• the employee's speech addresses a matter of public concern.
• their free-speech interests outweigh their employer’s efficiency interests.
The comments do seem to be on a matter of public concern, which is typically interpreted quite broadly. The criteria used to assess these efficiency interests include whether the speech:
• Impairs discipline or harmony among co-workers.
• Has a detrimental impact on close working relationships for which personal loyalty and confidence are necessary
• Interferes with the normal operation of the employer’s business.
Any litigation over this firing would focus on whether these are real factors that would disrupt teaching, or whether the university officials are just punishing her for her politics. The specific tweets are presumably not directed against any individuals who are at the college, and do not involve the college's normal operations. This does undermine the case somewhat.
You can't fire them for the speech - which is of course protected - but you can fire them because they can't possibly be qualified to hold their position while holding/espousing those views. Unless there's a specific state law protecting employees from off-duty conduct (Pennsylvania doesn't have one), employees can certainly be fired.
I would think that she would want to prove that statement falsely attributed first in a defamation suit before going after the university.
The test above is correctly quoted, the only dispute is factual which none of us here has the evidence to resolve. She may be lying or telling the truth, but we can't make any grand pronouncements about whether the university was right or wrong on the basis of disputed factual claims that have yet to be resolved in court.
And it's the one comment she says she didn't make.
I wonder if her lawyer has seen this story? Many of the comments here could be helpful in showing damages.