Thursday, September 29, 2011

Poster's of Fascism and TV show promotion deemed "threat" at UW Stout Campus.

How threatening is the poster to the right?

Not very. In fact, it's a timely warning considering the authoritarian political party in power right now in Wisconsin. But most surprising is the reaction by the UW Stouts administration, who have taken a dangerous turn toward subjugation.  
WEAU: A UW Stout professor Jim Miller is speaking out about having two posters taken down after they were deemed violent by the university … the two posters were far from violent, and says he can't figure out why he was targeted. The university says the posters made an implied threat of violence.
Here's the story:


We would hate to warn anyone about fascism, or for that matter, post an old TV show promotional poster on a wall. Where are the adults in the room...
It all started with a poster and a quote from the end of the first episode of the show Firefly. The poster was of the actor Nathan Fillion and the quote, “You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed," was at the bottom. “It was clearly a, hi firefly fans you win I'm aboard,” says Professor Dr. Jim Miller.

He says he received an e-mail from the campus police chief saying the poster was taken down … Miller says that's when he put up poster about fascism. The university says the second poster depicts violence so (it) needed to come down.

Infinite Unknown: Astoundingly, UWS Chief of Police Lisa A. Walter escalated the absurdity … emailed Miller again, stating that her office had removed the poster because it “depicts violence and mentions violence and death.” She added that UWS’s “threat assessment team,” had decided to have the poster removed, and that this poster was reasonably expected to “cause a material and/or substantial disruption of school activities and/or be constituted as a threat.”

College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Interim Dean Raymond Hayes has scheduled a meeting with Miller about “the concerns raised by the campus threat assessment team” for this Friday.

Miller came to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help. “Colleges and universities are supposed to foster brave and bold environments of freewheeling intellectual inquiry and expression. If a quote from a network science fiction show is a bridge too far, something has gone seriously wrong,” FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. 

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