Nothing, aside from an investigation and strong condemnation
by his employer and a public apology by the professor. For many people, that is
enough of a response. It disappoints me.
Here’s my thinking.
In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said in Schenck v.
U.S.: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man
falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in
every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of
such a nature as to create a clear and present danger.”
Twitter allows instantaneous communication. The professor
has more than 60,000 followers on Twitter. Many are drawn to his conservative
perspective. His message, “Run them over,” was accompanied by a breaking news
photo of black protesters unlawfully taking over a Charlotte interstate. See the photo above, and notice the car.
In my opinion, he created a clear and present danger to the
protesters—and worse, it was a coded message to incite violence based on race.
The First Amendment protects ideas, even ugly ideas. That is
why David Duke is able to spread his message of racial superiority of
whites. That’s a rock-bottom awful idea, but it’s not an incitement to violence-- and it's therefore protected by the First Amendment.
The
professor, on the other hand, did incite his followers who were stopped on the
interstate to harm these people.
One more observation. The law school could have done much
less than fire the tenured professor. He moonlights as a contributor to USA
Today (the paper suspended him for a month). Now, however, he has harmed the University of Tennessee’s reputation.
One possibility is to deny him approval to moonlight because the university
wants no association with his ideas. His tenure rights do not mean he also has
a right to do columns for newspapers.
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