The first amendment argument is ludicrous, as you well know. No one can be fired for making a single true statement, no matter how inconvenient. No one can be fired for expressing an opinion either, certainly not based on a single incident. The more interesting question is what does this exchange say about the department chair’s thinking.
As far as your example, the obvious difference is your statement about Trump would be an opinion, despite your moral certitude. What this kid said was objectively true. And who is talking about criticism? She directly stated that making such a comment in her hearing would be a fireable offense if he were an employee. Surely you understand the distinction.
Also, the available record, truncated as it is, doesn’t at all support the theory that he interjected the statement into a conversation having nothing to do with Islam. The transcript, in fact, is directly converse.
Most troubling, lest we forget, we are talking about a conversation involving academics, philosophy professors and grad students, outside of class (I think). And the department head has absolutely no interest in the truth of the statement. That is crazy.
Ordinarily when someone announces an engagement, the polite and appropriate response is something like, “That’s wonderful! We’re so happy for you!” We say these things regardless of personal opinions about the partner. The validity of those opinions or our right to express them are rather beside the point, in that situation.
When a student violates those norms, should a faculty member reprimand the offending student? In my opinion, a philosophy department isn’t a madrassa and it’s also not an etiquette school. Students usually should be left to work out these issues among themselves. We don’t know the full context … but it sounds to me like the reprimanding professor made matters worse by stepping in, then allowing the student to shift focus from his own bad manners to a first amendment issue.
^ Again, how do we get to equating what has been reported as “a conversation about Islam” with an engagement announcement? Yes, more context would be nice, and the reporting professors/grad students may dispute the facts as laid out. But there is nothing here to assume that the kid injected an unrelated statement into an engagement announcement, brought up the point in an unrelated discussion, or threatened to fight someone. You have to play the ball where it lays.
And yes, there are people who are boors. I have no trouble at all believing this kid could be one. Certainly repeatedly making even factually accurate statements in the wrong context can get someone in trouble with their employer (this is not an employment situation, I get it). If the transcript disclosed that this kid was continually interjecting this point into discussions in a comparative religion class or whatever, I might see where you all are coming from. But that is not what appears here. It appears that the context is a single statement made in a discussion, which apparently occurred out of class (or at least I infer it did since the kid professed to not having a class with the professor who reported him).
More crucially to me, in the recording that was released, the department chair appears wholly unconcerned with the context you all want. Her point is simple. Making a single derogatory statement about Islam, even if true, is out of bounds because someone may find it offensive. I don’t know how you spin that into something else.
This is from the Gay Star News description of the tape, which is a little more detailed than the other blog Zinhead cited:
Seriously, that doesn’t strike you as off? He joins a conversation in progress, a woman says that she’s Christian and her fiance is Muslim, and he takes that as a cue to say he has problems with Islam. That’s what @Ohiodad51 is calling a “conversation about Islam” “involving academics”? That’s a big stretch for me.
Also – while you keep insisting his comment was factual, the statement “They’d definitely do that in ten countries” is not factual at all. It doesn’t really matter much. There’s a ton of hostility to homosexuality in the Muslim world. He could have said that and been correct, and that’s what he meant. However, the count of countries that have actually executed people for homosexuality in the past 30 years through official legal process, and whose relevant statutes apply to non-Muslims, is probably no more than four or five (you would have to count Taliban-era Afghanistan); the count of countries that have actually executed a non-Muslim for homosexuality in the past 30 years is almost certainly zero. MacDonald wouldn’t “definitely” be executed by any country, unless maybe you consider ISIS a country. He was parroting a USA Today-style factoid, not making a factual argument.
The main point is that even if he happened to be right it was a bizarre response to the statement, “I’m Christian and my fiance is Muslim.” He seems to be swinging way out of his way to express hostility about Islam, and depending on other context like tone of voice or prior interactions that could definitely feel like a threat to others. Maybe he meant it that way, and maybe he didn’t. He says he didn’t, but it’s not clear he has self-awareness on this issue.
Notice that even in the bit quoted by @Ohiodad51 it’s clear that this comment was #5 on a list of issues that MacDonald and his department chair were discussing. We don’t know if the list had five issues, or ten, or twenty on it, or what the others were (except one seems to have been persistent lateness to class, which is hardly inconsistent with being rude to others). The way I read it, it sounds like this incident was part of a pattern of antisocial behavior, the rest of which had absolutely nothing to do with politics or ideas or free expression. This may have been a marginal example, and maybe the department chair shouldn’t have brought it up, but you really have to read/listen selectively to conclude that the point of the meeting was to tell MacDonald not to express his philosophical objections to Islam.
This is a great example of fake news. I don’t appreciate using College Confidential to disseminate it.
*It’s obvious throughout the transcription that Eve knows what she’s trying to do. She repeatedly tries to use misleading language to exaggerate the numbers in favor of her position: she will not say “three professors”, she will say “half of the graduate faculty.” She will say not say “this is the most complaints we’ve had in three semesters”, she will say “this is the most complaints in the history of the program”, even though the program had only been active for less than two years. (There’s no way to know if other students were removed by her hand, too.) She’s very careful to say that she won’t directly dismiss me from the program, such as when she says “no one is threatening you with dismissal”, but she does threaten me with the procedures that could lead to dismissal, which is functionally the same thing.
She even implies dismissal by comparing the school to an office. Specifically, she implies several times that she considers the school a workplace, then states that she’d fire me for that remark at a workplace. This is one of her most revealing remarks. Indirectly, she’s saying that she thinks this remark should be worthy of removal on its own*
His facebook is open to the public. I’d be interested in JHS’s reaction if he has time to read and comment.
One, that construction is not supported by the available record. Two, I was using the term academic in the sense of individuals who work in academia. I assume that was very clear from the original quote, since the word academic was followed by a comma and then the words professors and graduate students.
The statement he is accused of making, according to the transcript, was “I was bothered that I could be killed in ten Muslim countries.” This is of course true, whether you wish it to be or not.
I agree one hundred percent with the first part.
As to the last bit, there are of course a number of issues. One, no one has ever said the “point” of the meeting was to tell MacDonald not to express his philosophical objections to Islam. Nor has any one ever said anything about MacDonald’s particular objections to that religion. Those are strawmen.
Secondly, exactly how “selectively” do you have to read the available document to conclude that “The Islam comment would get you fired” means something other than what is expressed by interpreting the words according to their ordinary usage? It seems to me you can either decide that this was a “marginal” issue and that the other issues brought up by Professor Browning (which are recited in the transcript) were the real point of the meeting. Maybe the rest of the transcript we don’t have goes into more detail about not appearing at symposia, showing up late to class, talking to much in class, or any of the other things mentioned in Browning’s summary. But what we do know is that the kid had one conversation that his department head strongly objected too because a true statement made someone else feel bad.
Much ado about nothing. It sounds like the the student is voicing the concerns of every gay person. I really don’t understand how facts can be so offensive to people and especially why universities try to promote disinformation.
I read the full transcript of the conversation. MacDonald is more articulate than I expected, but he’s clearly an enormous, confrontational PITA. Browning is at a disadvantage throughout, because she’s addressing concerns that others have raised with her, and she doesn’t have all the details. MacDonald’s description of the critical discussion is meaningfully inconsistent with the complaint she received from another professor, to whom the other students involved in the conversation had complained. She was operating with sketchy, third-hand information, and he was not a fully reliable witness.
That’s borne out by the way he describes the meeting, quoted by @alh above. Although she uses the phrases he quotes, there is absolutely no “misleading.” She ups her rhetoric because he’s not listening to her; he doesn’t understand how serious are specific complaints about him from two or three professors in a small program, only a month or so into the semester. He repeatedly brings up dismissal, and she repeatedly says, “We’re not talking about dismissal.” It’s true that she references a procedure that, after an investigation and a hearing, could lead an independent student conduct board to consider dismissal as a possible action, but she doesn’t go there at all, at least not until it’s clear he’s not interested in changing his behavior. It’s all him. What she’s about is “You should try not to piss people off so much” while at the same time coming to an increasing appreciation of why people are so pissed off at him.
Here’s a point in the conversation where she tries to summarize what they have been talking about. It’s a fair summary.
Note that we still only have MacDonald’s own description of what he said to Sarah. It sounds to me like Sarah heard something rather different, but I agree with Browning that even as MacDonald describes it, it was a weird and inappropriate response to what Sarah said. Browning was not certain whether Sarah thought it was an attack on her (for being involved with a Muslim), or an attack on her fiance. Browning’s objections are all about being disruptive and inappropriate (like his classroom behavior), not the content of what he said.
Ultimately, it’s clear he’s not listening to her at all, and just riffing on his own legalisms, so she just tries to get him out of her office. She gives him her list (which has at least eight items on it; they only ever discuss five, but he mentions a 7 and an 8) so he can take it with him. There’s another characteristic exchange:
You really don’t find it at least a little humorous if nothing else that Browning is talking about “upholding the standards of our discipline” while calling this kid on the carpet (at least in part) for hurting another person’s feeling by saying something that was true?
Ohiodad, let’s suppose Sarah wasn’t talking about her Muslim fiancee, but about a child with special needs. Macdonald, who is not a part of the discussion, comes over and says “You know, special needs children cost our economy X dollars per year. Also, most children with disorder X, which your child has, will never live independently or hold down a job.”
Appropriate, or not appropriate? I think most people would view such a comment, even if true, as tone-deaf and perhaps even cruel.
I am pretty opposed to PC-culture run amok, but I don’t think this is a good example of it.
You can be confrontational and threatening saying things that are true. I’ll grant that if the conversation really went as MacDonald described, then maybe the other students were overreacting somewhat, but nothing about MacDonald’s other writing makes me confident that his description is anything but self-serving.
You don’t feel a little sheepish about making a First Amendment martyr out of a guy who comes late to class, dominates discussion with irrelevant matter, and leaves early? Except for the one time he left in the middle of class and came back 30 minutes later? And who says at one point “I don’t talk to other people in the program?” But, yes, of course, he is being criticized for speaking the truth about Islam, not for being a colossal jerk.
What would you have done as the faculty chair? Told him, “Well, of course you’re right about Muslims. Feel free to bring it up again whenever you see Sarah, at least until she realizes what a horrible thing she is doing by marrying one of them”?
The truth of a statement is a defense to a claim of libel or slander. It’s not a defense to a claim of inappropriate conversation in a given setting.
Let’s say your boss’s mother is fat. Her fatness is beyond dispute. I’d 100% expect you to get fired for interrupting your boss’s story about his mom to point out that she’s fat. And if HR did you the kindness of bringing you in to discuss your behavior without firing you, it would be very foolish to defend yourself by emphasizing that the mother wears size 3X, that she’s over 400 pounds, and that she spills over the side of the scooter at Wal-Mart. Because the truth of the statement is utterly beside the point.
@JHS - If Browning wanted to address MacDonald’s classroom performance, she could have done that without bringing up the out-of-classroom comments. You are just dancing around the fact that Browning directly said that the Muslim comment, and the Muslim comment alone, would be enough to get him fired. No matter how hard you try to obscure and excuse them, those are her words.
Of course it would be inappropriate. But there is nothing here that indicates the situation was remotely like that. It is illuminating that everyone on your side of the debate insists on adding facts to make the kid look worse, don’t you think?
I am not making a martyr out of this kid. The first amendment stuff is nuts. Of course he can say what he said, and of course the prof evinced a complete lack of understanding of the rules of employment in a public employer context. You know this. And I can only say so many times that the kid sounds like a jerk. We are not in dispute on that point.
My prime focus here is the professor, a department chair in a philosophy department, and what this transcript says about her mindset. Now maybe she wasn’t paying any attention to this, because she has probably seen a jillion jerks like this kid come through the door over the years and figured he would wash out eventually, so I will grant she wasn’t on her A game. But she evinced a clear closed minded ness. Notice how she repeatedly casts the statement the kid made as an attack on the fiancee, or how she immediately jumps to the general talking points about how Muslims are discriminated against in lots of places, not all Muslims live in countries that provide the death penalty for sodomy, etc. The whole don’t be controversial, this is a college after all unfortunately plays right into the current caricature of universities. And you are right, this is where the context of the rest of the conversation would help. Maybe the woman was just tired of hearing the same song play over and over and over for forty minutes. It could happen. But on the record as it exists, she doesn’t come across well.
Man, some of this is tiring. Based on the record that exists, the kid wasn’t talking about every Muslim. It is wrong to keep intimating that he was making a personal attack. Why do you feel it necessary to inject assertions into the discussion that are not supported at all by the record.
As to how I would handle someone like this based on the actual record we have, I would probably tell him to think about whether his statement the he could be killed in ten countries or whatever was akin to what some of his professors were talking about when they talked about him going off on tangents. I would remind him that the study of rhetoric involves not only the art of what to say but when to say it. If I wanted to actually teach the kid, I would ask him to think about what point he was trying to make, and what he intended to accomplish. I doubt that I would be as fixated on some other student’s feelings. I certainly would not threaten the kid, or at least not in as ham fisted a way as she did. Nor would I be so wildly inaccurate as to say that he could be fired for what he said.
No, @Zinhead . What she was saying was that making the comment in the circumstances described would get him fired. Those circumstances were inserting himself into a conversation, and making an inapposite comment that had nothing to do with what other people were saying. A comment that could be interpreted as a personal attack on a peer, and was in fact interpreted as a personal attack by that person and several other people who witnessed it.
Would you really be fired for that? No, I don’t think so. If it happened once, you would get the kind of talking-to he got. If you (or he) kept on doing similar things, then you would be fired.
^In the public context, I doubt seriously you could be fired for anything like this, unless it becomes a significant pattern of disruption. Maybe @hanna’s statement is a closer issue, given the size of the boss’ mother is not an issue of general relevance, and it is probably harder to argue the statement was not made maliciously. But even there though, don’t think it is gonna happen. Private setting, you would be gone by lunchtime.
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