Once “Harassment” and “Obscenity” Have Failed, Let’s Just Move On To “Treason”
Will our long national nightmare never be over?
Step one: follow link. Step two: observe argument that Insurgent violates “harassment” clause of Student Conduct Code:
Harassment is prohibited at the University based on race, gender, religion and other characteristics if it involves “specifically insulting another person in his or her immediate presence with abusive words or gestures when a reasonable person would expect that such act would cause emotional distress or provoke a violent response,” according to the code.
Step three: regard text within bold tags. Step four: go about your day, leaving the Insurgent unmolested, because there is no fucking way that they have violated this portion of the Student Conduct Code.
Meanwhile, Senator (and law student) Wally Hicks provides a quote that’s either sinister or hilarious, depending on your tastes:
With Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito on the bench, I would hesitate to assume anything right now with regard to obscenity… Obscenity is always arguable to some degree or another.
Get it? They’re conservatives! So of course they’ll be on board for this idiotic fishing expedition! Make no mistake, it is in the best interests of nobody for the ASUO to start selectively enforcing a nebulously-defined obscenity standard. Even if Hicks is correct that the Insurgent could be judged “obscene” – and I don’t think he is, or at least I hope he isn’t – this would set an incredibly bad precedent for the University.
I wrote this post’s headline as a joke, but now it’s making me wonder: it would be amusing for someone to file a grievance asserting that the Insurgent actually is guilty of treason. I’m starting to think it would receive serious consideration, particularly once someone explains to Dallas Brown that organizing a public execution might get him on the news.
Yeah, the “immediate presence” hurdle is insurmountable. The rules tracks US Supreme Court opinion language that was explicitly intended by the Court to bar printed or otherwise reproduced materials from coming under this kind of regulation. That is why those words are there — because reproduced materials are protected speech in this instance. The problem with Stees’ argument is that it’s the paper and not the person that is in your immediate presence at a distribution box. You are annoyed, not harrassed.
The “reasonable person” standard is also a stumbling point because it’s general and not particular. That is, it’s not up to the “reasonable devout Christian” to determine if this is harrassment, but a more general reasonable person. I’m sure there are one or two on campus somewhere.
Although saying that, you never see them in the same room together do you?
Incidentally, what Olly’s missed in the above text regarding the general unenforceability of the harassment clause is the relative impossibility of finding “a reasonable person” in Oregon.
For the last time, you’re not Mickey Bricks.
If this is another attempt to lure me out of retirement for one last big score, Stan, I’m having none of it.
Uh, hi: sorry to interrupt – does anyone know Olly’s current e-mail address? The wee tyke is somewhat elusive at the moment…
It’s very hard to find copies of the Insurgent on campus. Many have tried. Few succeed. I agree with Olly. I understand the resentment, though.
PS. Wasn’t the Conduct Code “harassment” argument brought up in the Students of Faith grievance and dismissed by bureaucrat-extraordinaire David Goward?
Stees: the offending material can, at some subsequent point, be in your immediate presence – but that doesn’t mean the insult was made in your immediate presence.
If Don Goldman starts going up to Catholics on campus and shouting his interesting theories about the Catholic Church at them, then there’s grounds for calling that harassment. However, if he types the theories up, and then a few weeks later they appear in the pages of the Insurgent, and the Insurgent is then haphazardly distributed around campus – no, that’s not “in the immediate presence” of the outraged Christian hordes. This “harassment” claim is a complete non-starter.
“…in his or her immediate presence…”
If you walk up to a news box and a copy of the insurgent and the boner of Jesus Christ is staring you in the face, and then walk down a couple blocks, maybe into the emu, and there he is again, isn’t that in your immediate presence?
Pantheist.
Don’t you get it, Olly? Jesus is all around us, inside of us, you are always in his immediate presence! The Insurgent was harassing Jesus!