Bellarmine University Prof Suspended for Inflammatory Remark About Attempted Assassination of Trump
“If you’re gonna shoot, man, don’t miss”
Some of the people who are supposedly the smartest and most educated among us are showing themselves to be absolutely vile.
The College Fix reports:
One prof suspended for ‘don’t miss’ assassination post, another claims shooting ‘staged’
Several professors have reacted with extreme comments regarding the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, drawing criticism and, in some cases, consequences for their remarks.
Within 24 hours of the Saturday incident, one professor from USC had his column deleted by Forbes after he suggested Trump will use his “surviving gunfire” story to appeal to black voters, and another from the University of British Columbia deactivated her profile on X after getting backlash for posting “Damn, so close. Too bad.”
On Monday, more headlines surfaced regarding another pair of professors in hot water.
Bellarmine University suspended instructor John James, who teaches English, after he posted on Instagram: “If you’re gonna shoot, man, don’t miss,” and included a screenshot of an article on the assassination attempt, the Courier Journal reported.
“The post went viral after being screenshotted and posted by Libs of TikTok on X, formally known as Twitter,” the Journal reported.
In a statement to the newspaper, a university spokesperson said:
Words and actions that condone violence are unacceptable and contrary to our values, which call for respecting the intrinsic value and dignity of every individual. We strive to create an inclusive community that welcomes all and models a spirit of goodwill. We are aware of an offensive and unacceptable social media post made by an employee over the weekend. That individual has been placed on immediate unpaid leave.
Meet John James. A professor at @bellarmineU. He’s very sad that the sh**ter missed.
.@bellarmineU any comment? pic.twitter.com/KOvMZsauwx
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 14, 2024
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Comments
Bellarmine, of course, is a private university, so it can fire him for this. A government university, bound by the first amendment, would have to make do with a condemnation.
Suspension is not firing though. I personally know that there is no shortage of potential faculty, particularly in something like English, and he could easily be replaced by the runner up in the hiring process.
We don’t need more communists on university/college faculties. They are the root of the antisemitic Hamashole problem, and the otherwise inexplicable acceptance of socialism by college students.
you probably are not aware of this recent ruling:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit seeking to limit the government’s ability to communicate with social media companies about their content moderation policies. By a vote of 6-3, the court ruled that that the plaintiffs did not have a legal right, known as standing, to bring their lawsuit.
So? How is it in any way relevant?
Unless this fellow has a well-known presence as a progressive, I can’t impute any particular animosity to his posting.
What he posted was neutral wisdom, a statement which was considered erudite when Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote essentially the exact same observation. (Mmmmm, the guy teaches English.)
One might write the same sentence under a photo of the (alleged) shooter’s bloody lifeless head, and suddenly it would seem to say something completely different.
(I have nowhere found the actual post this fellow made, so I am going by descriptions others are making of his posting.)
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I’ve never heard of Bellarmine University but anybody with any brains knows it’s not a good idea to post stuff like that on social media if you want to keep your job as an instructor. Even English majors know that. It looks like it is a nice school. Fortunately this news may give some exposure to their college and it might improve their 88% acceptance rate.
In a government school, or in a private school that is genuinely and absolutely committed to freedom of speech, to the extent of acting in this regard as if it were bound by the first amendment, an employee might feel free to express such vile views, knowing that the school could not openly do anything about it.
Yes, the school can do little about it. But the person who speaks out like this will never get tenure and probably will not have any job at the end of the year.
They’d have to have a plausible excuse for not renewing his contract, or he could sue claiming it was retaliation for his protected speech (which of course it would be).