Professor Kevin Allred a Montclair State University lecturer has been fired after tweeting for Trump’s assassination. Questions of free of speech.
Perhaps he should listen to his students more often? Kevin Allred a former Rutgers University professor and gender studies professor at Montclair State University has been fired after tweeting for his wish for someone to assassinate President Donald Trump.
Twitted the educator on Friday (in a now since deleted tweet): ‘Trump is a f—ing joke,’
Adding, ‘This is all a sham. I wish someone would just shoot him outright.’
But it gets better…
Over the weekend Professor Kevin Allred shared the notorious photograph of Kathy Griffin holding a beheaded prop of Trump, with the caption ‘mood.’ He also personally indicated the President was ‘a traitor and a terrorist.’
Smart tweet. Why’d you delete it? pic.twitter.com/AfdJjWBxNF
— Hello, Friend (@MattsIdeaShop) July 29, 2017
A report via townhall cited Allred having since locked his Twitter account from public view, while accusing ‘Trump’s base’ and ‘Trump trolls’ for lashing out and pressuring the university to fire him.
Additionally, Allred said that Montclair State had ‘caved’ to conservatives and was ‘firmly taking a side’ against liberal viewpoints like his.
Maybe then again publicizing as an educator the assassination of another individual, particularly that of the President was never going to do Allred any favors, whether one agrees (and this author does) if Trump is a terrorist facilitator or not.
Which raises the awkward question does one still have the first amendment right to freely express themselves, even if that includes expressing vitriol and the death of another? (unless of course a foreign power we here in the US are not suppose to like, which might then pass muster according to talking heads …).
Leading into his dismissal and before the start of the soon to begin school year, Allred was an adjunct professor for Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies with the self described ‘Beyonce Professor,’ teaching a controversial course called ‘Politicizing Beyonce’ at New Jersey‘s Montclair State University.
Or note, prior to Tuesday morning’s announcement that Montclair had sacked Allred, the college lecturer Monday night sought to clarify his position, posting that he hadn’t literally meant that he wanted someone to kill Trump.
Noted lawnewz in a thoughtful take: ‘Allred’s termination from a public university over exercising his free speech—particularly political speech—raises constitutional issues. While saying he wishes someone would shoot the President may be in poor taste, it doesn’t convey an imminent threat. Such a threat would not be protected by the First Amendment, but even if Allred was serious, which he claims he was not, his statement was more of a general statement than a specific threat or instruction to harm President Trump.’
But it isn’t Allred’s first time to high jinks center state, back in November 2016, the college professor while employed at Rutgers, was admitted to Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital.
The ‘gesture’ reported the nydailynews at the time was so the educator could undergo mental evaluation after he made threats ‘to kill white people,’ burn the flag and abuse gun laws.
‘Rutgers police told them I’m a threat based on political statements I’ve made on campus and on Twitter. This is for exercising my … First Amendment rights,’ Allred wrote to Twitter after cops showed up to his Brooklyn home for questioning at the time.
Adding at a a later stage, ‘And this is for exercising my f***ing first amendment rights. i’m being labeled a threat and put in a psych hospital’.
At the time, despite claims of students taking offense, Allred was not terminated from his former position at Rutger’s, with the educator soon leaving to teach at Montclair. Which is to suggest teaching and elucidating one’s free point of view does indeed come with a very heavy price sometimes, something any student of history would have been able to have told Professor Kevin Allred.
