NOTE: The title of today’s post comes from an experience many years ago when my wife and I attended the performance of a music composition advertised as being written in the style of Bela Bartok. When the ensemble played the final note, a member of the audience stood up and yelled, “RUBBISH.” Yes, you could call it music by the technical definition since the composition consisted of a series of notes strung together. But as I told my wife that day, “Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you always should.”
On March 16, 2021, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) posted an on-line news article by Adam Steinbaugh, director of the organization’s Individual Rights Defense Program, titled “University of Virginia, founded by Thomas ‘Blood of Patriots and Tyrants’ Jefferson, orders student’s sign removed because it ‘advocates’ violence.”
In a March 12 letter to Ms. Azher, the University’s Facilities Management Division informed her it had been directed to remove the sign as it “advocates physical violence.” The letter focused on two specific references, the phrase “Burn It All Down,” and the suggestion that “nonviolence is ineffective against UVA.”
FIRE felt it necessary to engage in the situation by sending a letter to UVA, in Steinbaugh’s words:
…explaining that the university’s assessment that the display amounts to unprotected “incitement” is erroneous. The sign’s content would be understood by observers as political rhetoric, not as a student’s literal exhortation that others burn down the building in which she resides. Even assuming it were read literally, it is not likely to actually lead anyone to burn down the University of Virginia, much less do so immediately upon reading the sign.
In Adam Steinbaugh’s three-page letter to UVA, FIRE reserves one paragraph at the very end to acknowledge the events of August 2017 when white supremacists and neo-Nazi marched on the University resulting in the death of anti-racism protester Heather Heyer. Steinbaugh addresses this historical context as follows.
Instead, that violence–during which a white supremacist murdered a protester–should stiffen the university’s resolve to protect speech, not to use it as a basis to curtail expressive rights.
FIRE’s call to arms on this issue boggles the mind for more reasons than one can address, but I’ll stick to three.
First, a University has many responsibilities, including providing a safe environment for its students. And on those sad occasions when it fails to do that, it is often held liable for its negligence or incompetence. How easy is it for Mr. Steinbaugh, representing this self-appointed star chamber of what is or is not freedom of expression, sitting in an office in Philadelphia, to criticize when the critic has no liability or nothing personally at stake?
In light of the events of August 2017, did it never cross Mr. Steinbaugh’s mind that the University was less worried Ms. Azher would incite violence than be the victim of it? Does FIRE believe there are no white supremacists or neo-Nazis among the UVA student population? Just imagine the response if an angry student, having seen her sign, broke into Ms. Azher room and harmed her. What are the chances FIRE is going to testify on behalf of the University that UVA is not liable because it was more important they protect the student’s freedom of expression while ignoring any responsibility to protect her safety?
In the article, Steinbaugh finds it unimaginable anyone would take the phrase “burn it all down” literally. Did he also find it unimaginable that Al Qaida could take down the World Trade Center or crash a plane into the Pentagon? Or that insurrectionists would breach the U.S. Capitol in hopes of overturning a presidential election? Or more than a half-million Americans would die during a pandemic? In hindsight, like so many of us, I bet he wishes, on those occasions, someone had considered the possibility before it happened.
Second, Ms. Azher does not reside in just any old dormitory. She lives in a room on The Lawn, the student housing which is part of Mr. Jefferson’s original design including the historical landmark Rotunda, which incidentally she incorporated in her sign. She is in rarified company of alumni who have shared this space, including Edgar Allan Poe. For many of us who are alumni, this is sacred ground. It is a place where we celebrated the first warm day of spring playing frisbee or enjoyed an open-air free concert featuring The Fifth Dimension. It is also a place that provided a brief refuge from the pressures of assignments and exams. More importantly, it is where we spent our last day on the University grounds, receiving our diplomas.
I not only respect Ms. Azher’s activism against racism. As you might imagine from previous posts, I welcome it. I also believe she has the right to express her activism in words and images she deems appropriate. But I am not sure that right extends to a venue where she is a guest. It is an earned privileged (base on grades and activities) to live on The Lawn. But with that privilege comes responsibilities. If Ms. Azher wants to rent a billboard on Emmet Street, I say, “Go for it.” But the door to her room belongs to the University which has conflicting responsibilities to individual students, the student population in general, being custodian of a historic site and to the community. For FIRE to be blind to those competing obligations seems shortsighted (pun intended). Life is not black and white (pun again intended).
Third, Mr. Steinbaugh obviously has not been reading newspapers or watching reports about the increase in targeted violence these past four years. Nor does he seem to remember the exception to protected speech under the 1969 Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio goes beyond inciting violence. It merely has to produce it. You know, like a former president of the United States calling a pandemic the “China Flu” or “Kung Flu,” and there being a 150 percent increase in violent incidents against Asian-Americans since March 2020. Or calling Latinos “breeders” and 23 Americans of Mexican ancestry being massacred in El Paso by an assailant who parroted that sentiment.
In closing, let me give Steinbaugh and FIRE credit where credit is due. This is the first recorded case in legal history of “FIRE shouting First Amendment in a crowded student residence.” I wonder how Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes would feel about that.
POSTSCRIPT
On March 13, 2021, Ms. Azher posted a picture of the door and the letter informing her the facilities division had been instructed to remove the image on Twitter under the words, “Fuck UVA.” The University did NOT order or ask her to remove the Tweet. Nor was she reprimanded for having suggested the University did not have a conscience when it came to racial issues. Too bad FIRE chose not to acknowledge this aspect of her constitutional right to be pissed at the University administration or to feel it had not done enough to combat racism on campus. They might have realized UVA had been quite accommodating when it came to her right to express her opinions.
POST POSTSCRIPT
If you search the term “student rights” on FIRE’s website, you get 28,399 hits. However, if you search “student voter suppression” you get THREE hits, none of which deal with state efforts to make it harder for students to cast ballots in federal, state or local elections. I guess disenfranchisement of a student’s constitutional right to vote in public elections does not constitute FIRE’s definition of “freedom of expression” or fits their mission of protecting “individual rights in education.” I wonder why?
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP