No Excuse at Syracuse for Gagging Student Satire
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"Syracuse University tried to derail my legal career simply because of a blog that satirized life in law school."
In 2010, Syracuse University College of Law (SUCOL) student Len Audaer was summoned to a meeting with Associate Professor of Law Gregory Germain, where he was told he was being investigated for "extremely serious" charges, which included allegations of "harassment."
The charges being investigated stemmed from Audaer's alleged involvement with "SUCOLitis," an anonymous, satirical blog about life in law school meant to emulate "The Onion."
"[The posts] were extremely frivolous in nature and there was nothing malicious about [them]," says Audaer in FIRE's latest video. "They were designed to just lampoon everyday life. We had one about our class president being elected out and being replaced by a beer bong. It was very popular with a lot of students at the time. People liked that it was a little break in the monotony of what's a pretty dull experience at times at law school."
Despite the light-hearted nature of the posts, a disclaimer posted on the website indicating that "no actual news stories appear on the site," and a lack of clear evidence of Audaer's involvement with the site, the university pursued its investigation for 120 days, during which time SUCOL proposed a gag order to prevent Audaer or his attorney from talking publicly about the case, as well as to prevent any media outlets from reporting on it.
It was only after Audaer got in contact with FIRE that the university began to back down.
"Because of FIRE," says Audaer, "Syracuse University College of Law stopped prosecuting me for exercising my right to free speech."
For a complete transcript, please visit: thefire.org/article/15730.html
For more details on this case, please visit: thefire.org/case/845.html
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Produced by Ted Balaker. Music by audionautix.com.
Пікірлер: 17
The words "faculty" and "prosecutor" never belong together.
Persecuting speech that is clearly constitutionally protected is clearly a frivolous use of resources and therefore a dereliction of duty.
Messing with someone else's livelihood for frivolous reasons should be a capital crime if anything should.
This is the kind of argument that leads to an eternal loop. I could accuse you of being bully by saying that I'm the bully. Anyways From what I see often is that "don't get offended" after being shamed in public or after being made fun of. It is like free speech to call your mom a nasty names
Imaginaari, the problem is that people are taught to construe ANYTHING as bullying nowadays. Students think that they have a right not to be offended, and also that they can claim anyone who disagrees with them is offending, or even harassing them. This was obviously NOT bullying, and it's kind of troubling that you think this is the case; what could you say in response if I were to accuse you of bullying Len by accusing him of being a bully?
52k per year. nd now a gag order
oh yeah, and who did so for free because the issue was greater than the man
it is truly scary that these reputable higher education (corporations) are so nasty and narrow minded.
What I hear is the he bullied someone. He got pissed and told to university. You didn't even co-operate with uni or anything and now you whine when they took action against your bullying.
You shouldn't misquote people.
He deserves that treatment,you shouldnt misqoute people.
FIRE burns all evil. Nice.
oh my. Little boy blue feels the Imaginary bully blues? hehe