A Professor Is Suspended for Suggesting It’s Better to ‘Kill’ Racist or Homophobic Speakers Than Shout Them Down

Steven Shaviro, a professor of English at Wayne State University, in Detroit, was suspended this week for a Facebook post saying that it is “more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.”

Shaviro prefaced the inflammatory comment by saying he does not support people breaking criminal codes. He also wrote in the now-deleted post, made on his personal Facebook page, that right-wing groups invite such speakers to college campuses “to provoke an incident that discredits the left.” Shaviro declined to comment to The Chronicle.

In an email to the university community on Monday morning, M. Roy Wilson, the president of Wayne State, wrote that the university had referred the situation to “law enforcement agencies” and that Shaviro, who was not named in the email, had been suspended with pay “pending their review.”
Asked why the university decided to report the professor to the police, a spokeswoman said that she could not provide information about personnel matters.

We “feel this post far exceeds the bounds of reasonable or protected speech,” Wilson wrote in the email. “It is at best, morally reprehensible and, at worst, criminal.”

Two graduate students who had worked with Shaviro told the campus newspaper that they didn’t think his post was threatening and that the professor was, in their view, simply drawing attention to a problem: speakers with offensive views who come to public universities primarily to spark protests.

Over the last few years, many professors have drawn attention for provocative online comments about political issues. That attention is often stoked by conservative- and libertarian-leaning websites presenting the comments as evidence of liberal bias in higher ed — and, in some cases, calling for colleges to punish the professors. (In Shaviro’s case, Wayne State officials appeared to act before such articles were published.)

The question of how colleges should respond in such cases has been extensively debated — particularly when professors are making comments as private citizens, outside of their professional capacity. Institutions have taken different approaches, with some defending a faculty member’s right to speak freely and others taking disciplinary action.

Shaviro posted his comment as colleges across the country grapple with a fresh wave of demands from students to cancel events featuring controversial speakers this semester — particularly when those invited speakers oppose LGBTQ rights. The protests have prompted some critics to argue that students are unwilling to learn and merely aim to shout down opposing viewpoints when they come to campus.

At Stanford University’s law school, the law dean and president apologized to a federal judge appointed under former President Donald J. Trump after he was heckled by students during a campus event. Students had called for the judge to be disinvited, arguing that he had made court decisions that harmed women and LGBTQ people. An administrator who stepped into the fray and condemned the judge’s viewpoint, while also supporting his right to speak, is now on leave following the incident.

Mary Eberstadt, a conservative essayist who has written about, among other things, religious freedom, consequences of the “sexual revolution,” and critiques of pop culture, published a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Sunday saying she refuses to speak at colleges where she believes she will be met by an “angry mob.” She said she’d just rescinded her acceptance of an invite to speak at Furman University.