Back in May, an art professor suggested Republicans should be shot. After the shooting of Republicans last week, Democratic Socialists at U. Georgia doubled down on that in a tweet and now they’re in trouble.
The College Fix reports:
U. Georgia Young Democratic Socialists in hot water for death-wishing tweet
The Young Democratic Socialists at the University of Georgia are in a bit of trouble after they … “elaborated” on a professor’s tweet which stated House Republicans “should be lined up and shot.”
The YDS apparently quoted Art Institute of Washington professor John Griffin‘s tweet, and then added “This is absolutely outrageous! House Republicans should NOT be shot! They should be guillotined.”
According to The Red & Black, the YDS Twitter account is now protected; however, a screencap of their death-wishing tweet was preserved by Campus Reform.
After the YDS remarks were featured in articles on The Blaze and the Associated Press, university police and the UGA Office of Student Conduct began investigating.
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Comments
“They should be guillotined.”
They fancy themselves quite the Jacobins, no?
I think that the Supreme Court precedents in Yates v. United States, Watts v. United States, and Brandenburg v. Ohio make the speech in question here fully protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. That is not to say that the tweet in question should not be condemned by people of good will and common sense, merely that it is not the place of government to punish theoretical advocacy expressed in hyperbolic terms that does not have the intent or likelihood to incite immediate acts of violence.
This is clearly protected speech, and as a government institution the university could find itself in hot water if it were to discipline them for it.
It’s not even advocating violence, though that, too, is protected. Guillotines are an instrument of judicial execution, not of crime, even more so than nooses. If one says someone ought to be hanged, one is not understood as advocating their murder, but rather that they be tried, found guilty, condemned, and executed by the law; and this is so even though lynching is a thing, and one could have meant that. How much more so with the guillotine, which has no lawless equivalent.
But it makes no difference, because even advocating outright murder is protected speech, so long as it’s not both intended and likely to cause someone to go out immediately and act on it, without first thinking it through for themselves.
Daniel Pearl could not be reached for comment.
Remember everyone, only those nasty Republicans are capable of hate speech…
I wonder exactly what the university police and Office of Student Conduct are investigating. Probably something a bit bigger than some sniggling kids’ notion of mordant wit. College Fix says the Young Democratic Socialists at the University of Georgia has renamed itself the Athens Democratic Socialists of America, and has begun to “distance itself from UGA” … it sounds like something a big bigger than a dumb tweet is percolating down there.