Whoops, I'd better shut up now...
...about weapons on campus. Evidently, at Hamline University, such discussion is a suspendable offence.
Or is that what it is? I'm down with both WND and FIRE, but even with the information presented, it's pretty clear that this student is imperfectly bolted down. And perhaps he should have been suspended for illiteracy unbecoming a college student. If in fact Hamline is following its own written procedure and rules, and not just pushing the VT panic button, as a private institution it has a right to do what it will, and to suffer the consequence: a loss of reputation for free inquiry. I think that the suspension/shrink evaluation is way out of line. But there may be more to this than we're being told.
Of course, as always, that's just my opinion, not Case's.
UPDATE: More from Declan McCullagh, including something I somehow missed: Scheffler is a graduate student. It seems that Hamline now has more to be embarrassed about than their "Ham"-fisted approach to campus security. He's also a CCW permit holder. As for the all-important "written procedure and rules" mentioned above:
But then, after FIRE pointed out being suspended for expressing political views violated the school's freedom of expression policy, President Hanson retreated to a fallback position. Hanson said that the suspension was also based on "critical input from various members of the Hamline community."The bizarre thing is that to this day, Hamline has never informed Scheffler what those anonymous allegations were (or who his anonymous accusers are).
Comments
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: October 11, 2007 10:00 PM
To say that CCW carriers allow people to be better protected is equal to asserting that authority can't properly protect people. And of course authority can't let people get away with saying that, especially since it's true.
However, going by the news tonight, it's not grad students they need to be concerned about, it's fourteen year olds. (And one of them was sort of up your way, at Billy Gates Academy.)
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: October 12, 2007 09:20 AM
You know what's sad? If it weren't for people out of town asking me about this, I wouldn't be paying attention to it. I'm that blase.
How do you like his reading list?
And they say wingnuts are the dangerous ones.
What I don't get is how somebody with that kind of history got into an elite school. At least he had the grace to remove himself from the gene pool before he could reproduce.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: October 12, 2007 08:25 PM
Chomsky? That's a sure recipe for a screwed up mind.
Was it an elite school? My impression (gained from quick camera shots of students on campus and one young man who made a generic comment for the newspeople) is that it was a charter school for inner city kids--Mr. Gates trying to offer the ghettoes an alternative to the public schools.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: October 13, 2007 06:41 AM
"Elite" in that you had to meet some sort of standards to get in there...young Asa had been worried that his spelling wasn't up to snuff and would keep him out, but it didn't. So they were worried about academic preparation but not about behavior? As for it being a Gates school, that hasn't been mentioned at all in the local media, so either it's not so or somebody around here thinks it's worth hiding.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: October 13, 2007 06:51 AM
And they just arrested Mom, for lying about her other hoodlum son not being home. Lori Looney? Asa Coon? If a novelist had used those names, his manuscript would have been instantly rejected.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: October 13, 2007 09:00 PM
Not just rejected, but shot out of a cannon rejected--a black named Coon?!
The news report on CBS identified it as a Gates endowed school. (The other person in the house things Katie Couric is a good reporter, and it's not like Brian Williams is significantly better.)
Of course, their journalistic standards may not be the best, and I've been too busy with other stuff to watch what the newspapers are saying--and anyhow they seem to be fixated on the kid in Philadelphia and his mother the arms dealer.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick.
Posted on: October 13, 2007 09:39 PM
*Ahem* Mr. Coon was a Caucasian. I can't find it right now, but PD ran a picture of him winning a chess championship. He looked a bit like a very young John Belushi.
I don't doubt your info re the school...I just find it very odd that the media here aren't playing that angle.
The Philly case may ultimately be more important, as an excuse to destroy the gun culture by keeping it from being passed.
Posted by: jeffrey smith
Posted on: October 14, 2007 10:51 PM
The news clip I saw showed only black students, so I assumed Master Coon was (as my college roommate used to say) of the Negro persuasion as well.
The Philly case may be the excuse, but I doubt Mom was passing on any culture. Apparently Junior was in a funk, so she tried to unfunk him by buying him stuff for his hobby. Unfortunately for her his interest was not Magic: The Gathering.
Posted by: Jeffrey Quick
Posted on: October 15, 2007 08:37 AM
If I remember the stats I read, the school is about 6% white and 7% Hispanic.
Treating psychological ills with firearms doesn't sound like a good idea to me. Self-administered psychosurgery with high-velocity lead probes has a high success rate against depression and psychosis, but the side-effects are killer.