A left-wing professor at Wayne State University in Michigan has been suspended with pay after posting to Facebook encouraging people to murder ‘right-wing’ speakers on university campuses.

Steven Shaviro, an English professor at Wayne State University, recently posted a disturbing message to his personal Facebook page.

He wrote, “So here is what I think about free speech on campus. Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.

“When right-wing groups invite such speakers to campus, it is precisely because they want to provoke an incident that discredits the left, and gives more publicity and validation to these reprehensible views than they could otherwise attain,” Shaviro continued. “The protesters get blamed instead of the bigoted speaker; the university administration finds a perfect excuse to side publicly with the racists or phones; the national and international press has a field day saying that bigots are the ones being oppressed, rather than the people those bigots actually hate being the victims of oppression.”

“In short, every time protesters shout down a racist or transphobic speaker, they are indulging their own moral sense of validity at the expense of actually strengthening the very bigots against whom they are protesting.”

From Shaviro’s warped, radicalized perspective, the only reason that someone with a different opinion than his own could possibly be coming to speak to students is to trick left-wingers into violently protesting.

On Monday, Wayne State President Dr. M. Roy Wilson sent an email to university students condemning Shaviro’s comments.

“We have on many occasions defended the right of free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but we feel this post far exceeds the bounds of reasonable or protected speech,” Wilson said. “It is, at best, morally reprehensible and, at worst, criminal.”

“We have referred this to law enforcement agencies for further review and investigation. Pending their review, we have suspended the professor with pay, effective immediately,” he added.”

Statement from M. Roy Wilson, president of Wayne State University

 

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