A Morgan State University professor thinks Trump should be assassinated. She will keep her job, and if her university tried to fire her, she could probably sue under the First Amendment. As professor Eugene Volokh explains, if a government employee expresses approval of a presidential assassination attempt, the First Amendment will protect that speech from being grounds for termination, as long as that speech doesn’t create a deep rift between the employee and her co-workers, or affect their agency’s operations by enraging the public that the agency serves. Morgan State University is a progressive, predominantly black college in a liberal state, and most people there aren’t all that offended by the professor hoping Trump will die, so there isn’t really any “disruption” as a result of the professor’s speech that the university could point to to justify firing the professor. In 1987, the Supreme Court divided 5-to-4 in ruling for a law enforcement employee who said of the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan, “If they go for him again, I hope they get him.” You can’t incite “imminent” lawless action against someone, but approving of assassination may not be deemed a call for “imminent” lawless action, according to the courts.
A news website reports on what the Morgan State University professor said:
After the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at his Saturday campaign rally, one Baltimore, Maryland professor is claiming that she and other Black Americans justifiedly wish that the attempt to kill “evil” Trump had been successful.
In a July 15 opinion piece published by NewsOne, Dr. Stacey Patton, a professor at Morgan State University, wrote of hypotheticals surrounding a successful attempt, stating that Black Americans “are wishing for the death of evil”.
The piece, titled “‘Is He Dead?’ Why Black People Are Not Grieving The Failed Assassination Of Donald Trump”, explores how Black Americans would supposedly have responded to Trump’s assassination.
Patton begins by citing two historical assassination attempts on the infamous German dictator Adolf Hitler; the 1923 attempt in Munich, and the 1944 attempt in Rastenburg.
In doing so, she likens Trump to Hitler. For both instances, Patton describes how the world would have been better off, had the assassination attempt been successful.
“Is it immoral to yearn for the death of another human being? Of course it is, in most cases,” Patton writes. “But when we look back upon the past and see the acrid smoke of crematoriums and mountains of bodies, can you blame people for weighing the value of a single life against the salvation of millions?”
Patton then describes the July 13 attempt in a similar matter. She justifies the attempt, stating that “this country was born in political violence and has sustained and exported it for centuries.”
“Violence is America’s main currency and Donald Trump has served as the spark for the official rebirth of white supremacy,” she continues.
Patton then shifts the focus toward Black Americans and their supposed wish for Trump’s assassination. “Black people are not reveling in violence. We are wishing for the death of evil. We are longing for the prevention of evil. For a moment on Saturday, we held our collective breath. We were suspended in uncertainty, caught between desperation and hope, asking: What if?”
Patton argues that Trump’s survival could be detrimental for Black Americans, stating, “this failed assassination has radicalized and emboldened his supporters to complete the unfinished business of the first Civil War”.
