In a letter to the editor to the University of Tennessee’s Daily Beacon, law school graduates Tayo Atanda and Will Perry argue that Professor Glenn Reynolds of the popular Instapundit blog should face sanctions for his recent tweet that people should “run down” protesters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Except that, the duo concedes, the First Amendment indeed protects Reynolds. However, they contend that “if UT Law cannot take action, then the wider law school community must do so.”
What form might that “wider law school community” action take?
Well, if you can manage to make it through the now-lawyers’ numerous misgivings about Reynolds, all they appear to really offer is that other law professors should “condemn” him.
Professors Wendy Bach and Lucy Jewel have the right idea. Yesterday they posted an open letter “condemn[ing] [Reynolds’s] incendiary words as inconsistent with the values of equality and justice, values long held by the legal profession and enshrined in our Constitution.” And they did not mince words. “First,” they explained, “to tweet ‘run them down’ in response to an image of multi-racial citizens protesting yet another police killing of an African American citizen dehumanizes the protesters.” “Second,” they continued, “the tweet ‘run them down’ diverts energy away from the ongoing conversation about the hail of bullets that continues to kill Black citizens on a near daily basis.”
MORE: U. Tennessee investigates ‘Instapundit’ law professor for Charlotte riots tweet
We need to hear more from the people who have been teaching with Reynolds for decades, and law school alumni, parents, students, and donors also must speak. No one expects a miracle here. We are, after all, in Tennessee, where the legislature gutted the larger university’s office of diversity and inclusion earlier this year. But Reynolds’s tweet discredits UT Law’s “commit[ment] to ensuring . . . a welcoming, open, and inclusive community.” Our silence now would do the same.
As Reynolds explained, and as was understood by many, his controversial tweet pertained to those endangered in vehicles surrounded by an angry mob. Perhaps Professors Bach and Jewel did not catch any of the violence during the Charlotte protests?
Atanda and Perry must have missed the violence too, as they (ironically) accuse Reynolds of “dispensing street justice from the lofty spires of the ivory tower […] promoting violence against black citizens peacefully protesting the killing of unarmed black citizens.”
The lawyers mischaracterize another of Reynolds’ positions, claiming he advocated last year that “protestors at Yale, Mizzou, and other college campuses should lose the right to vote.” He actually proposed merely raising the voting age from 18 to 25 because, in his view, the way protesters act “isn’t the behavior of people who are capable of weighing opposing ideas, or of changing their minds when they are confronted with evidence that suggests that they are wrong.
“It’s the behavior of spoiled children […] too young to be responsible for their actions. And spoiled children shouldn’t vote.”
The professor has threatened to vamoose from Twitter and take up residence at Gab in its place; his continued presence at UT should also be his choice.
MORE: ‘Instapundit’ won’t be punished by U. Tennessee for Charlotte riots tweet
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