|
Probation for His Conservative Politics FOX News A student at Fresno State University is suing his professors for allegedly putting him on disciplinary probation because of his politics, and he has video that he says proves his case. The trouble started in May 2011, when Neil O’Brien, a senior at Fresno State who is active in student government, went to talk with two professors in Fresno’s Chicano and Latin American Studies Department. O'Brien, who is widely known on campus for advocating against policies such as the DREAM Act, the proposed law that would give young illegal immigrants a path to citizenship, was miffed that they allowed a poem he found offensive to be published in a university-sponsored newspaper. The poem starts with the passage “America, the land robbed by the white savage” and continues along those lines. When O'Brien approached the professors separately in their offices, the same thing happened in each case: they said they didn’t want to talk with him. Openly recording the encounters on a video camera, O'Brien told them he just wanted to ask questions. They again told him to leave, and closed their doors. What happened next is what got O'Brien in trouble: The professors called the police. According to police reports, the professors said that O'Brien had been “threatening” and “harassing” them. Police took O'Brien in for questioning, but decided not to file charges after watching video he took of the incident. O'Brien, who filed suit in California Superior Court last month, says that the video proves he didn’t do anything wrong and that he was just asking questions. He said he taped the encounter – and typically tapes his political interactions on campus – precisely to avoid these types of claims. California has a two-party consent law for recording communication -- meaning both parties must agree. But because O'Brien wasn't hiding the camera and the professors did not object, his recording of the incident was apparently legal. “I wanted an accurate record of what was said and what happened,” he told FoxNews.com. “You can see that even though the video completely exonerates me, I still went through all this hell.” O'Brien's troubles continued when he was called into the Dean’s office and told he would face a disciplinary hearing in which he would not be allowed to have a lawyer present. In the disciplinary hearing, O'Brien says he repeatedly asked his questioners to watch the video of the incident – but they refused, even though he brought a DVD with the footage to the hearing. University Vice President Paul Oliaro ultimately gave O'Brien disciplinary probation for a semester – which forbade him from serving as the president of a student group he formed (a chapter of Young Americans For Liberty) and banned him from going “within 100 feet of the Chicano Latin American studies faculty or staff or their offices or classrooms in which they are teaching.” O'Brien said he thought the punishment was ultimately because of his political advocacy. “I can’t think of a reason besides that they just don’t like conservatives, and just don’t like to answer questions on anything.” READ FULL SOURCE ARTICLE: 12/11/2012 Editor's Note: Progressives are the most totalitarian, oppressive, intolerant and un-inclusive ideological group ever to lie, cheat and steal their way into positions of authority and elected office... The BasicsProject.org informational and educational pamphlet series is now available for Kindle and iPad. Click here to find out more... The New Media Journal and BasicsProject.org are not funded by outside sources. We exist exclusively on tax deductible donations from our readers and contributors. Please make a tax deductible donation today.
|
||||||||||||||||||