FIX EXCLUSIVES
‘Heated’ phone call and email don’t justify punishment, free speech group says
A free speech group is intervening to help a student punished by Central Washington University for criticizing financial aid staff in an email.
The public university in Ellensburg 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.”
“Why is it every year you guys drop the ball,” Unger wrote, according to a recent letter sent by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. “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,” he wrote on June 11.
“How incompetent are you,” he also asked. FIRE’s letter states Unger had a “heated phone call” with a “student financial aid worker” over the situation as well.
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.’”
But this violated his First Amendment rights according to FIRE.
FIRE’s Senior Counsel Haley Gluhanich told The College Fix “a public university’s code of conduct cannot attempt to regulate speech that the Constitution protects. If the speech is protected by the First Amendment, we’ll defend it,”
“Nothing in the student’s email can be construed as intending to commit an act of violence,” Gluhanich told The Fix via email.
She disputed the university’s claim that the criticism hindered the work of the financial aid office.
“Especially given there was a single email and a single phone call, it’s hard to understand how the student’s expression interfered with the staff’s ability to do their job,” Gluhanich told The Fix. “Considering that nearly 9,000 students attend CWU, the Financial Aid Office no doubt already receives a large number of emails and phone calls each day,” the free speech group wrote in its letter.
The Supreme Court, Gluhanich said, “has a clear definition of what a true threat is.”
Unger’s case did not meet this threshold, she said. Central Washington “is bound to follow” First Amendment law as a public institution, FIRE’s attorney told The Fix.
The free speech group asked the university to “rescind the disciplinary sanction it has imposed on Unger and clear Unger’s record of this matter.”
David Leder, a spokesman for CWU, declined The Fix‘s request for comment. CWU’s faculty union also declined to comment.
However, a former college provost and professor who now leads an academic reform group said the university acted properly.
“Free speech is not a license to threaten another individual with violence or retaliation,” Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars told The Fix.
“The school acted appropriately in disciplining the student,” Woof said.
“Laws against threats, intimidation, and violence will be enforced, and the consequences will be real.”
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: The campus of Central Washington University; Central Washington University/Flickr
