![]() |
Darren Michael |
Michael had been employed by APSU since 2007, and is
referred to as a “professor” in all the accounts Curmie has seen. That may be simply a term for a faculty
member at a university, but it seems to be applied as an academic rank, meaning
that he almost certainly had tenure. What
he appears to have done would be protected speech even if he were a part-time
adjunct, but tenure carries with it an even broader protection… or, rather, it
does at institutions that aren’t run by partisan morons. And the fact that APSU is a state school
means that the First Amendment applies, irrespective of what the administration
might think.
OK, so what did he do?
The university won’t say, specifically, only that he “reshared a post on
social media that was insensitive, disrespectful and interpreted by many as
propagating justification for unlawful death. Such actions do not align with
Austin Peay’s commitment to mutual respect and human dignity. The university
deems these actions unacceptable and has terminated the faculty member.”
The local news, both TV and newspaper, covered the story, but didn’t dig very far. KZTV makes no attempt to determine what Michael said or did; ClarksvilleNow.com mentions that Michael reposted a headline from a 2023 Newsweek article: “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth it to Keep 2nd Amendment.” The irony that it was Kirk himself who suffered because of the nation’s infatuation with guns ought certainly to be worth noting, and no reasonable person would suggest that it’s other than protected speech. (This is not to suggest, of course, that everyone out there is reasonable.)
Primetimer did a little better in their coverage.
First, they identified Michael’s remarks as “insensitive,” which they no
doubt were, although that’s a damned low bar to clear before a right to
censorship kicks in. They also found a post on X by T.R. Sartor (@dripchud), which includes a meme of a conversation between two
well-known fictional characters: “‘Is he
dead yet?’ asked Piglet. ‘No,’ said Pooh. ‘Fuck,’ said Piglet.”
OK, that’s perilously close to celebratory, if it hasn’t in
fact crossed the line. But Curmie notes
two things. First, that meme has been
around since the first Trump administration, and the pronoun in question has
always referred to POTUS. Indeed, Michael
clearly intended that reading: Sartor’s post is on the 10th, the day
of the shooting, but the meme had been posted six days earlier. It’s completely
irrelevant to the Kirk assassination except as an indicator of Michael’s
general political philosophy. It’s
certainly crude and more than a bit tasteless, but, importantly, it’s still
protected speech. There is no “true
threat,” no “intentional incitement to immediate violence.” Oh, and the often over-zealous Secret Service
didn’t show up on Michael’s doorstep.
There’s also, of course, the matter of timing. Michael’s post of the Newsweek headline was on Wednesday evening. He was fired Friday morning: not a lot of time in there for due process. [EDIT, just as Curmie was formatting: the university has changed the dismissal to a suspension, admitting they hadn’t followed due process. Go figure, right?] Rather, this was a typical over-reaction by a narcissistic and authoritarian university president, one Mike Licari. He claims that APSU suffered “significant reputational damage” because of Michael’s posts. Well, that’s utter crap.
APSU, after all, is named for the segregationist Tennessee
governor who is best known nationally for signing the bill outlawing the
teaching of evolution, leading to the famous Scopes “monkey trial.” Of course, those positions were considerably
more acceptable a century ago than today, but still there’s a sort of “only in Tennessee”
feel to the whole business. The university accepts virtually everyone who
applies, and it graduates only 27% of its students. While Curmie is confident
that there are some excellent faculty and students there, APSU is not exactly
going to be confused with an elite institution.
There is not a lot of “reputational damage” to be done.
You know what does cost the school, though? An idiot president who fires a tenured professor for posting something ironic online. As far as Curmie can tell, there was no
accompanying text to Michael’s post, no “Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy” like what got an assistant dean at another Tennessee state university fired.
(Hers was protected speech, too, of course.) Unless there’s something we don’t know about,
nothing Michael did was enough to spawn a raised eyebrow, let alone a dismissal
without due process... or a suspension, for that matter. (Also, of course, Curmie’s willing
to bet there aren’t a lot of people in Clarksville, TN with the skillset to
teach what had been Michael’s classes, either.) There is no such thing as free speech if a state employee can be fired
for saying something someone in power finds distasteful.
Oh, Curmie sees that look on your face, Gentle Reader: “Curmie’s
a liberal, so he’s going to side with them.”
Nope. Curmie was a career educator
and remains a passionate defender of free speech: of an Israeli guest lecturer
at Michigan State most recently, of a law professor at Ohio Northern who opposed his school’s DEI policy, and of a conservative prof at North Carolina State, to
name but a couple of cases. There are
plenty of examples on both sides of the political fence. For the past couple of weeks, the oppressors
have been almost exclusively on the right.
That will change in time: not because they’ll stop being censorial, but
because the left will find their opportunities.
Alas.
One thing is certain: there are some university
administrators out there who are about to get sued. That brings us to the best Facebook comment Curmie
has seen in a while. The honor goes to Leslie Skrzypczak, responding to a story about l’affaire Michael posted by Cape Cod Women
for Change: “They’ve tried to reach him for comment but his lawyer’s eyes were
twinkling and they laughed and laughed.”
What she said.