Central Washington University “required Victor Unger to take an ‘anger management assessment’ and apologize after he called financial aid staff ‘incompetent’ for ‘what he saw as an erroneous denial of student loans that would imperil his ability to graduate,’” reports The College Fix.
“Why is it every year you guys drop the ball,” Unger wrote on June 11. “Seriously I will come down and take [c]are of this myself. The incompetence in your department is unbelievable….I will be there at 3:30pm today, have the whole staff gather for a meeting so I can take care of your job for you, and teach the rest how simple the job is.” “How incompetent are you,” he added. Unger also had a “heated phone call” with a “student financial aid worker” over his plight.
The College Fix reports that
The school required Unger to take an “anger management assessment” and write an apology letter. The punishment came after a conduct staffer “found Unger responsible for Disruptive/Obstructive Conduct and Personal Offenses claiming he ‘unreasonably hindered the daily administrative operations of the Financial Aid Office’ and ‘incited staff members … to be fearful for their safety.’”
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression notes that this violated Unger’s First Amendment rights.
FIRE attorney Haley Gluhanich says “a public university’s code of conduct cannot attempt to regulate speech that the Constitution protects…Nothing in the student’s email can be construed as intending to commit an act of violence.”
Unger’s speech was protected by the First Amendment. It was mild compared to angry speech that nevertheless was deemed protected, by the federal appeals court with jurisdiction over Washington State and universities in it, such as Central Washington University. For example, that appeals court ruled that a college’s ‘‘workplace violence’’ policy violated the First Amendment, when it was applied to the writings of a professor who celebrated imaginary violence against his college president, such as ‘‘dropping a two-ton slate of polished granite on his head,’’ and made references to ‘‘go[ing] postal.’’ (See Bauer v. Sampson, 261 F.3d 775 (9th Cir. 2001)). That speech was deemed protected, despite the extreme hostility it displayed.
