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Victory: College Backtracks After Punishing Professor for āGame of Thronesā Picture
NEW YORK, Oct. 28, 2014āIn a victory for free speech, New Jerseyās Bergen Community College (BCC) has rescinded its punishment of an art professor it placed on leave and forced to undergo a psychiatric evaluation for posting a picture of his daughter wearing a Game of Thrones T-shirt.
After learning of BCCās outrageous actions, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (¹ū¶³“«Ć½app¹Ł·½) connected Professor Francis Schmidt with FIRELegal Network member Derek Shaffer, a partner at the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, and Gabriel Soledad, an associate at the firm.
In a recent letter to Schmidt, BCC Director of Human Resources Patti Bonomolo acknowledged that the college āmay have lacked basisā for punishing him and that doing so āpotentially violatedā his constitutional rights. āLest there be any doubt, BCC recognizes and respects that you are free to exercise your constitutional rights, including your right to freedom of speech and expression, even to the extent that you may disparage BCC and/or its officials,ā wrote Bonomolo.
āIām very happy to have my First Amendment rights back. Iām glad to have this thing behind me and would like to get back to teaching animation,ā said Professor Schmidt. āIām happy to know groups like FIREare out there, protecting my valuable First Amendment rights as an academic. Without them our higher education system would be all the weaker.ā
āSaying that Bergen Community Collegeās punishment of Francis Schmidt āmay have lacked basisā is like saying that King Joffrey may have been a less than ideal ruler,ā said FIREPresident Greg Lukianoff. āNevertheless, weāre glad to see BCC finally acknowledge Professor Schmidtās First Amendment rights and rescind his punishment. FIREwill continue to work with students and faculty to make sure administrators understand that they must respect the First Amendmentāor risk answering for their absurd overreactions in court.ā
Schmidtās ordeal began in January when he posted a picture on Google+ of his young daughter wearing a T-shirt with a quote from the hit HBO show Game of Thrones: āI will take what is mine with fire & blood.ā After Schmidt posted the picture, an automatic email was sent to his Google+ contacts, including one of BCCās deans. She reported it to other administrators, who summoned Schmidt to a meeting to explain his āthreatening email.ā
Even after Schmidt and other BCC personnel assured the administrators that the quote on the T-shirt came from a popular TV show, they continued to insist it posed a danger. According to the head of security, the word āfireā in the quote ācould be a kind of proxy for āAK-47s.āā
In response to the posting, BCC placed Schmidt on leave without pay until a psychiatrist attested to his mental fitness. Even after he was reinstated, BCC placed an official warning in his file and threatened him with āsuspension and/or terminationā if he made ādisparagingā remarks about the college or acted in any way BCC determined to be āunbecoming.ā
Under pressure from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, BCC expunged the reprimand from Schmidtās record in late September, stating that āany penalty or restrictionā Schmidt suffered is now ārescinded and acknowledged to be null and void.ā The letter confirms that Schmidt āwill be in good standing with BCC as if the Incident never occurred, and BCCās records shall so reflect.ā
Schmidt has filed a grievance against BCC for denying him a sabbatical and other unfair employment practices. That complaint remains outstanding and is proceeding.
FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, freedom of expression, academic freedom, due process, and freedom of conscience at our nationās colleges and universities. ¹ū¶³“«Ć½app¹Ł·½ās efforts to preserve liberty on campuses across America can be viewed at thefire.org.
CONTACT:
Katie Barrows, Communications Coordinator, ¹ū¶³“«Ć½app¹Ł·½: 215-717-3473; katie@thefire.org
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