Guns and Free Speech on College Campuses

The Wall Street Journal ^ | May 20, 2008 | ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN

[Jones_the_King]

When Steven Barber turned in a short story this semester for his creative-writing class at the University of Virginia's College at Wise, his instructor was alarmed. The 23-year-old student had produced an imagined account of someone on the edge of a violent breakdown, touching on suicide and murder.

...

[Jones_the_King]

I'm a former student from Wise whose been following this story and I'm in complete agreement with Mr. Barber. One thing that it looks like the Wall Street Journal missed was that Daphne Blanton, who issued Mr. Barbers TDO, actually is a board member with a college affiliated organization. Talk about a conflict of interest. Mr. Barber has a blog up talking about his experience at: http://stevebarbertruthsquad.blogspot.com/

According to Mr. Barber even the ban on firearms at the campus is illegal under Virginia's preemption law, he looks very well cited.

[In veno, veritas]

I'm not familiar with Virginia law, but in Missouri your car is considered to be like your home; you can carry weapons there. So the school cannot ban weapons from your car. That being said, the student does not have a right to carry weapons on him or in his dorm room if the school says no. It maybe a silly and stupid rule, but the law here in Missouri definitely allows certain premises to ban weapons.

[dashing doofus]

Time for a lawsuit, against the school and authorities for 4th amendment violations. This is an unreasonable search, based purely on a work of fiction.

Why isn’t Quentin Tarantino’s car and home searched? He makes violent films, and glorifies murderers.

[VeniVidiVici]

The author implies at the beginning of the story that Barber’s guns were found in his dorm room. Not till the end of the story does he implicitly state they were found in his car.

I find it ironic that Liberals have instituted Big Brother policies of locking people up in mental wards and nary a word is uttered by the press or politicians against it.

[gracesdad]

“The author implies at the beginning of the story that Barber’s guns were found in his dorm room. Not till the end of the story does he implicitly state they were found in his car.”

The author left the question of where the guns were found in limbo until near the end of the story, but I see no inference that they were found in the room.

“I find it ironic that Liberals have instituted Big Brother policies of locking people up in mental wards and nary a word is uttered by the press or politicians against it.”

Do you object to the fact that Cho was forcibly sent to a psychiatric hospital?

[GovernmentShrinker]

the story's references to the class and its assignments and to the murder of a professor called Mr. Christopher, a name identical to his own first name. Mr. Barber, a Navy veteran who served in the Iraq war, wrote of stockpiling alcohol and drugs for a binge and sleeping with the "cold and heavy steel" of a gun under his pillow. "I knew I had a choice," he wrote. "Murder or suicide. Either way, death was imminent."

I'll back the university on this one. The contents of the paper, particularly the use of the professor's name and the adjective "imminent", combined with the information the administration would have had from his application re his fairly recent service in Iraq, was enough for a reasonable person to be concerned that this might be a veteran with serious psychiatric issues related to his military service, and that the "fiction" might well represent actions the student was seriously contemplating taking in real life. They then searched his dorm room (university property) and his car (on university property, and perhaps with a warrant and/or per a standard written agreement re student parking permits that allowed the search) and found loaded guns, which further confirmed a reasonable concern that the writing might not be entirely fictional.

Not grounds for involuntary psych lock-up IMO (unless there was a separate court hearing to approve that), but any college/university should be free to use its discretion in removing students who it reasonably fears might pose a danger to other students. Should a publicly funded university be allowed to impose an outright ban on this kind of writing in a creative writing class? IMO, no. But I feel quite sure that if the student had discussed his proposed topic with the professor in advance, to make clear that it was pure fiction and intended to address issues of current interest such as the possible state of mind of the Va Tech shooter, that he would not have faced any disciplinary action as a result of turning in the same story.

If this student HAD gone out and starting shooting people on campus, or shot himself, the paper would have promptly come to light, and everyone would be asking "How could they not have taken action when he turned in that paper?" A college student should be mature enough to anticipate such concerns and address them in a responsible manner before turning in a potentially alarming piece of writing.

[dashing doofus]

I see your point, but still believe that cases like this one raise important constitutional issues. I am concerned with the slippery slope.

We all know how “progressive” and activist many university professors are, and if they have ability to judge this piece of fiction as indicative of a threat, and use that to obtain a search warrant and order psychiatric testing, I think it has all kinds of first and fourth amendment implications.

[Postman]

I went on to read more in the WSJ. I am fascinated by the irony that Christopher Scalia, the instructor who initiated the response to Mr. Barber’s short story, is, as reported, the son of Antonin Scalia, our beloved originalist Justice on the USSC.

[VeniVidiVici]

The author left the question of where the guns were found in limbo until near the end of the story, but I see no inference that they were found in the room.

The inference was by omission. Why not have the clarity at the beginning of the article where he mentioned the room and car search rather than wait till the end of the article? I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was left with the impression it was found in his room.

Do you object to the fact that Cho was forcibly sent to a psychiatric hospital?

Here, at the risk of being politically incorrect, let me play devil's advocate for a minute. What good did it do to force him into a mental hospital?

[muawiyah]

Cho was not successfully forced into a mental hospital. The judge on the case prescribed outpatient treatment and he was turned loose on the student body.

Guy was nuttier than a fruitcake; the judge was negligent; the university had its problems in following up, but what do you do when the judges tell the crazy people it's OK to wander the campus ~ at the least they should have posted warnings.

[wastedyears]

Firearms and free speech on campus = two concepts inherently foreign and alien to Liberals.

[Jones_the_King]

I can see the sense in investigating the student, that was never an issue. But I do have a problem with public universities that have complete bans on firearms, which UVA Wise has, and I definitely have a problem with Universities that expel students when they are investigated but they come back with a clean bill of health.

Another point of interest is that Barber was not involuntarily committed, even though the campus faculty said he was(which is what lead to them stripping Barber of his concealed carry permit). So faculty at the school lied about Barber being involuntarily committed to the Commonwealth Attorney to have his permit taking away, which is complete BS. Heres a link to the news story from the Roanoke Times on that: http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/154908