Destroying Free Speech

Northern Kentucky University professor is being investigated for encouraging her students to destroy an anti-abortion display on campus last week according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

The campus Right to Life group had received permission to erect 400 crosses to create a temporary cemetery that represented aborted fetuses.

According to the Enquirer, literature and language professor Sally Jacobsen admitted the destruction was caused by about nine students in one of her graduate-level classes. Jacobsen was also quoted by the paper as saying “I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to.” The professor also told the paper “I have no comment,” when asked if she participated in the destruction. For someone who seemed to be so defiant this is a milquetoast answer.

And since when does expressing freedom of speech rights mean that you can destroy property? This is a pretty bizarre interpretation if you ask me.

Even more ludicrous was her explanation as to why she did it when she told the Enquirer that “Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged,” Jacobsen said. She also compared it to citizens tearing down Nazi displays on Fountain Square.

Now the pro-life movement is compared to Nazism?

James Votruba, the NKU president promised to turn over any evidence of criminal conduct to prosecutors and didn’t buy the idea that destroying property is an act of free speech. He added that if Jacobsen was found to have participated in the removal of the crosses that it would be “outside the conditions of her employment.”

The university should make it clear that they won’t tolerate this type of behavior by the students and in particular the staff and fire her despite her tenure.

Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media.