University Threatens Criminal Charges Over Firefly Poster

[SyphonX]

University Police Chief, "threat assessment team"... ?

What?

Why would anyone want to give upwards of $30,000 to an organization like this. Oh, right, that whole illusionary bit about "your only choice at achieving success". Good job fascism, I see what you did there, you trickster imp.

 

[Blimey]

I don't want to live on this [planet anymore.

On another note, at my University they have a gorramed class on Firefly where we watch episodes nd discuss the various meanings hidden beneath them. I also look at naked women in my Art of the Middle Ages class.

I had no idea I was so disturbed by these violent images, and nekkid womens.

 

[Asehujiko]

You can insult me. You can insult my country. Hell, you can insult my family. But, when you insult the Captain... you've just stepped over the line, buddy.

On a lighter note, what in the hell is a "threat assessment team" and why would any university need one?

They "assess" the "threat" of successfully getting countersued after they pull some legalese bullshit.

 

[UltimatheChosen]

I'm not big on suing...but he should drill them.

Screw anyone that is so stupid they'd be alarmed by that poster.

Good lord...does no college trust Google yet?

This was a bone-headed move by the professor. Every college/university in America is bat-shit crazy when it comes to violence and anythign that could REMOTELY be misconstrued as supporting unlawful or self-depricating actions.

And they're right to do it. Because yes, 99% of the campus won't be effected. But that 1% will. and that 1% leads to another Virginia Tech, another suicide, another rape, another problem.

You might not believe it. You might not think it's true. But then you've obviously never been to any higher education facility, and if you have attended one, you probably weren't involved in any sort of leadership position.

College is a time of extreme stress where the slightest thing can send someone over the edge. It's full of hormones, alcohol, drugs, and sex. Combine those ingredients and you have a recipe for impending disaster.

having lived through VT, the JMU riots, Radford related troubles... knowing people who go to such schools as LSU and UCLA, etc., I completely understand and support the university's decision.

I'm not going to waste too much time since you spent a paragraph being an asshole. I bolded it in case you are oblivious to your own rudeness.

The 1% of people who snap (which is hyperbolic at best, 1% is FAR too high) are going to do so regardless.

It was an overreaction by the college, you cannot protect anyone by censoring things. It was silly of the college.

I went to college, I lead multiple organizations and I was routinely published in the college paper. There was a tragic death while I was in college, that death would have happened no matter what posters had been posted anywhere on campus.

The girl who did the killing got off free, because they quote "didn't want to ruin her life." She had been driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol and ran down a foreign exchange student.

It gets worse, he could have survived had she not left him bleeding out on the street. And beyond that he had just got done calling back to his home country to tell his family he had made it to America safely.

Survives 20+ years in another country, dies within 24 hours of being within the US. (Western Washington University if you care to look up the incident).

It was a tragic event, I was furious she got off, but that doesn't change the fact that no amount of pussy footing by the campus could have saved that kid.

Anyways I'm wasting far too much time on you. Enjoy going around insulting people.

What does this story have to do with anything?

His point wasn't that every unfortunate incident could be avoided by not putting up posters, it was that certain messages can cause problems.

Anyways, I'm siding with the university on this one. Devoid of context, that quote and that poster convey a very different message than they do in Firefly itself.

 

[Lingering Frey]

The reaction to the posters has nothing to do with being PC. At all. The reaction was also clumsy and inappropriate by the campus police.

For those wondering what a threat assessment team would be, I'm not familiar with that particular university. That being said, I am a prof. at a state university. After the VTech shooting colleges were ordered by state governments to put in place policies designed to protect students and employees at the schools.

Why? It had nothing to do with ACTUALLY protecting anyone from violence. It was to protect against lawsuits after an act of violence.

Faculty and staff were tasked with creating policy, procedures and guidelines etc. that produced things like "threat assessment teams". It's nonsense of course, but it's legal covering.

They may have an absurd policy in place that made the posters out of line...NOT due to some "PC boogeyman". Violence happens, then someone sues saying the university "contributed" in some way to promoting violence on the campus. Incompetent local judge with axe to grind against university allows case to go forward.

At my university, the committee put in charge of making the policy took it a little too seriously at first, although they certainly didn't have a job anyone wanted to do. They ended up with a policy the faculty had to reject because it required us to report to something like the "threat assessment team" ANYONE who showed a certain number of "red flags" of how they looked or acted. My wife, who also is a prof. at the university, pointed out that the policy would require her to report herself.

Anyway, I strongly expect that's what is going on. Toss in the theater prof not being liked by those campus cops, perhaps.

 

[dickywebster]

But the firefly quote always seemed honourable to me...
But i suppose those kinda ideals r long dead.

 

[Sperium 3000]

Oh America, I love you, but you just keep on finding new ways to redefine stupid.

 

[BlackWidower]

What is education? Education is, basically, the sharing of ideas and information. Some of the greatest science fiction has challenged peoples ideas. If that's not education, then what is!?

"A free country is a marketplace of ideas, and college should be more free, not less." - Penn Jillette

It's not a question of whether ideas are good or whether science fiction is good. It's a question of whether the poster was appropriate and if the police chief was within her mandate to remove as an overseer of campus safety.

The poster itself is open to interpretation. It doesn't say "I'm an honorable man" it says "If I kill you, this will be the circumstances" and from that you can infer that he's intended to portray himself as honorable but mostly it's just a poster talking about getting killed by the guy on the poster, which itself was on the door of a university professor, who through the poster was probably trying to say something about himself or how he fancies himself to be.

So a university professor saying "if I kill you, this is how it'll go down" is a little open to interpretation and can be taken in a manner which is not at all appropriate.

Also, we are talking about a poster, we're not talking about hitting someone. Even if it offends someone, so what? I'm offended every time I pass by a church, doesn't mean I want every church to shut down. Also, what do you mean by inflammatory? Do you mean something that people might get angry about? If we worry every step of the way that we might say something that offends someone, then we will never say anything, because everything can be misinterpreted.

By inflammatory I mean the second poster. The first gets taken down, then he puts up a second poster which basically says "police are fascist" and also mentions killing which was forbidden in the warning, what do you think is going to happen?

So the police chief decided to take down the poster, and warned the professor that it would happen. Are you saying he shouldn't fight it? It's a goddamn poster, and he's in the right. It doesn't hurt anyone, but telling people they can't say certain things, well, it hurts us all.

There's a difference between fighting and baiting.
I'm saying his approach from the get go should have been different. His response to the warning should not have been to bait the warning but to challenge the previous decision to take his poster down in the first place. All he did was escalate the situation in a very passive aggressive way when he should have been trying to defuse it.

See, this is the crux of my point. If we say you can't say this, this, this or this. We literally can't say anything. See, when adults discuss serious issues, sometimes they might accidentally say something that can be interpreted as a racist, or homophobic, or sexist, or violent statement. Even if that's not the intention.

For instance, if I say something along the lines of: "I've never met a gay man I've actually liked." What I mean is, all the gay men I have ever met in my 25 years on this planet, I've failed to get along with. It does not mean I hate all gay people, even though many may interpret it as that.

Anything can be interpreted as anything, and if we worry about something being misinterpreted, we can't say anything. We should never censor because if we begin to do that, we get people to fear speech. Now, give me one reason why that should be the case.

Next, you want to talk about the specific posters. Fine. The Firefly poster I interpret as a metaphor. It's not literally about killing. Killing is used as a metaphor by the character in question, whoever he is, to say he's a noble man.

The fascism poster. Well let's be clear, it wasn't saying "I'm going to kill you," it's saying, "these people will kill you if we let this bullshit continue." Now, tell me, are you saying that poster is lying? That fascism doesn't cause death? That people haven't died because of fascism?

Yes, both mentioned death because death exists in reality. If they ban posters that talk about death, then that means one can't put up a poster memorializing JFK, because it mentions that he died at one point. Now of course they wouldn't do that, because it's not about death. It's about controlling people and silencing those that disagree with them. That is why the fascism poster was taken down. Don't fool yourself.

Of course it could just be that they thought any mention of death is a threat in any context. But in that case, they are complete morons!

 

[angry_flashlight]

[Comment removed by Campus Threat Assessment Team because it could cause material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat]

 

[silent_noir_67]

true they more like to believe that they don't want to be coddled haha.

Once a person is over 18 they can be dumb as a brick but they're recognized as being legally independent while they do lol

 

[Something Amyss]

On the one hand, I can sort of see the issue they take. On the other, it's Nathan Fillion. Don't mess with him.

 

[Aurora Firestorm]

This is why we can't have nice things.

Because people are oversensitive and don't know how to take good humor.

 

[Liquid Paradox]

Hmm... it seems that people are pretty one-sided about how they feel about this issue, so I think I'll play devils advocate for a bit with an unpopular opinion.

Yes, the poster is threatening. Yes, the school had the right to have it removed. No, this is not "fascism" (a word which seems to be thrown around a lot lately).

Lets look at what the poster is saying. Essentially, Nathan explains the circumstances in which he would kill someone, and not just any someone: specifically, the reader of the poster.

"But in the show, he's talking to a new crew member and explaining that he's not just some murderer!" well, that is irrelevant. The problem with alteration is that it assumes that the reader if familiar with the core material. By not explicitly stating that Nathans character is speaking to a crew member, it becomes assumed that the professor, as owner of the poster, is communicating to the reader.

"But that statement isn't a threat, it's a philosophy!" Err.. no, it's a philosophy defined by a threat. Yes, on the one hand, the good captain is trying to put his newest crewman at ease by explaining that he won't simply murder him in his sleep. Cool. Great. Did you notice the other message in there? The one that says 'but cause any shit, son, and I will kill you'? He never says that he will not kill the crew member, only that he may, in fact, kill him, under specific circumstances.

"You would have to be pretty dumb to feel threatened by that." Perhaps, yes, but remember, we live in a world with unhinged people. Nathan's criteria for killing someone is a bit broad (an officer of the law, who is on duty, could fit that description. So could a student with a compass, or a janitor with a box cutting knife, or a cafeteria lady cutting tomatoes for a salad), and since the poster is hanging in the professor's office (meaning that it represents his personal thoughts and feelings), a person could begin to wonder about the professors mental stability.

And yes, I do think that it's a stretch to actually feel threatened by the poster; however, I also know that there will still be, in the vary least, one person who feels that their safety is compromised, and that is unacceptable. Are they kind of dumb? yes, but it doesn't matter. the poster has a questionable quote which may or may not indicate violent tendencies in the professor, and therefor, it is inappropriate for a school.

I mean, imagine if a doctor hung, in his office, a poster of Stewie, saying 'I like you. When the world is mine, I'll kill you last." Yeah, it's funny to someone who gets the reference. Doesn't change the fact that it is a threat.

Tlr
Frankly, if your interested in my opinion, read it. Otherwise, don't quote me with Tlr. Just clutters up my messages.

 

[RDubayoo]

And the wussification of the United States continues!

 

[LazyAza]

I wonder what would happen if he put up a poster with a character saying something like "sex is a thing". They'd probably say he was a child rapist.

Fucking modern society, so so stupid.

 

[mp123]

This is appalling and ridiculous. Clearly the University of Wisconsin is not teaching students to live, but rather to cry "Mommy" anytime they feel ignorant. The lack of common sense and humor in these people is repulsive. Can they really not grasp the simplistic concept of humor? And to think, we trust these fools with the responsibility of teaching. I fear for any poor soul attending the University of Wisconsin.

 

[DeathsHands]

Liquid Paradox has a point; even though it's not actually a threat, it can be construed as one. Simple enough matter to just take the poster down. Kinda seemed like the professor was tempting fate with the second poster as well.