In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings – which could possibly have been thwarted had VT not been a gun-free zone – people and institutions around the country responded.
In the case of my neighbor, Hamline University in Saint Paul, the response involved punishing students that spoke out for concealed carry reform on the “gun-free” campus:
In the aftermath, officials at Hamline University sought to comfort their 4,000 students. David Stern, the vice president for academic and student affairs, sent a campus-wide email offering extra counseling sessions for those who needed help coping.
Scheffler had a different opinion of how the university should react. Using the email handle “Tough Guy Scheffler,” Troy fired off his response: Counseling wouldn’t make students feel safer, he argued. They needed protection. And the best way to provide it would be for the university to lift its recently implemented prohibition against concealed weapons.
“Ironically, according to a few VA Tech forums, there are plenty of students complaining that this wouldn’t have happened if the school wouldn’t have banned their permits a few months ago,” Scheffler wrote. “I just don’t understand why leftists don’t understand that criminals don’t care about laws; that is why they’re criminals. Maybe this school will reconsider its repression of law-abiding citizens’ rights.”
Ironically, Concealed Carry Reform Now of Minnesota – the group that drove the Concealed Carry reform issue for a decade in Minnesota (not, as the media would have you believe, the NRA) – had most of its meetings at the Hamline University law school auditorium.
But after the Virginia Tech massacre, school administrators across the country were ramping up security. Flip to any cable news channel and you’d hear experts talking about warning signs that had been missed. Cho had a history of threatening behavior and stalking. And a psychological evaluation had deemed him a threat to himself.
So Hamline officials took swift action. On April 23, Scheffler received a letter informing him he’d been placed on interim suspension. To be considered for readmittance, he’d have to pay for a psychological evaluation and undergo any treatment deemed necessary, then meet with the dean of students, who would ultimately decide whether Scheffler was fit to return to the university.
The consequences were severe. Scheffler wasn’t allowed to participate in a final group project in his course on Human Resources Management, which will have a big impact on his final grade. Even if he’s reinstated, the suspension will go on his permanent record, which could hurt the aspiring law student.
“‘Oh, he’s the crazy guy that they called the cops on.’ How am I supposed to explain that to the Bar Association?” Scheffler asks.
For exercising his right to speak freely, he’s branded as a nutcase by the school’s administration.
Sort of like the Soviets used to do.
While Hamline doesn’t have the rep for relentless PC noodling of, say, Macalester or St. Thomas, it gives both a run for the title.
He has also suffered embarrassment. Scheffler obeyed the campus ban and didn’t go to class, but his classmate, Kenny Bucholz, told him a police officer was stationed outside the classroom. “He had a gun and everything,” Bucholz says…Now Scheffler is looking to hire a lawyer of his own. Even if Hamline lifts the suspension, he doubts he’ll return to campus, he says. “If they’re going to treat me that way before, how will they treat me after?”
Dunno, but I hope his suit draws blood.
Note to any Hamline administration reading this space; your worthless frat trash’s “puke on Mitch’s property” privileges are permanently revoked.
You just have to love our compassionate, tolerant friends on the left. No, really. You HAVE to. Or else.
Yeah, Kerm, the guy should transfer someplace conservative, where they tolerate all points of view. Liberty University, say.
If the story’s true, of course, the administration is stupid. Not sure the guy needs to run whining to the courthouse, but the school should expunge the expulsion and do whatever it must to put him back on an equal footing with his classmates.
I hate lawyers and lawsuits, but since this type of thing is recuring and this affects his entire life, I say sue the hell out of them.
I have degrees from two University of Wisconsin system schools. Both have chosen to discriminate against their Christian students. In both cases there were lawsuits, in both cases the colleges quickly lost lawsuits. UW-Madison was a third Wisconsin school the discriminates against Christians and lost in court.
Sometimes when bigots and dumbasses run our higher educational institutions, you have to do these things.
Boohoo, the guy missed a couple of classes. If the administration fixes what it did, there’s no reason to clog up the courts. Guess you wingnuts are only against lawsuits when they’re by poor people or minorities.
If the administration fixes what it did, there’s no reason to clog up the courts.
It’s Hamline. That’s a big “if”.
Guess you wingnuts are only against lawsuits when they’re by poor people or minorities.
Actually, the lawsuit by the poor Afro-Americans in New Orleans whose guns were confiscated by the authorities after Katrina gets my full support.
Guess you wingnuts are only against lawsuits when they’re by poor people or minorities.
Ah, it’s only justified when (L)liberals sue. When it’s a wingnut – it’s justy clogging up courts.
You forget, plain, that Angryclown is the most rational being in the universe. If some lefty college kid went whining to the papers cause he missed a couple classes, Angryclown would be saying the same thing.
I think angryclown should be put on acdemic probation for claiming to be “the most rational being in the universe”. That and forgetting to capitalize Universe.
If it was an honest mistake and Hamline makes things better, fine. But they chose to go after a student whose only crime is saying he supports second amendment rights. Then they said he has to go to a shrink, at his expense, before they would consider letting him back on campus. They placed an armed guard outside the classroom to arrest him if he tried to attend his classes.
I say part of the settlement should be that the Hamline admistration take diversity classes and 2nd amendment sensitivity training. Maybe we should have an affirmative action program to set quotas on students with conceal/carry permits.
No no, AC, you’re the most “rash-anal being in the universe.”
If some lefty college kid went whining to the papers cause he missed a couple classes, Angryclown would be saying the same thing.
Yeah, as a general rule I agree.
But it’s interesting, all joshing aside for the moment, that the crypto-maoist City Pages is where this piece came out.
I think angryclown should be put on acdemic probation for claiming to be “the most rational being in the universe”.
That can be your gig. I have to remain silent, after declaring myself the Twin Cities’ foremost feminist.
Although to be accurate, that is true.
That and forgetting to capitalize Universe.
I thought for a moment it was Clown and my mutual friend in the Florida legal profession, who un-capitalizes Universe as a sign of its importance relative to him.
Kermit blathered: “I think angryclown should be put on acdemic probation for claiming to be “the most rational being in the universe”.
Mitch affirmed:
“[Blah blah blah.] Although to be accurate, that is true.”
Mitch also observed: “But it’s interesting, all joshing aside for the moment, that the crypto-maoist City Pages is where this piece came out.”
Will that be enough for you and your merry band of high-spirited pranksters to give City Pages a brief reprieve? Or should they also expect some good-natured lies from you cutups?
Since the City Pages dabbles in its own fair share of “lies,” I see nothing wrong with doling out the same.
Will that be enough for you and your merry band of high-spirited pranksters to give City Pages a brief reprieve?
I’ve given them many. I’ve pointed out many times over the years that CP actually does (or did, in the recent past) a lot of great gumshoe local reporting.
Or should they also expect some good-natured lies from you cutups?
If they become a wholly-owned bald-faced subsidiary of the DFL, should they expect to be treated with monastic deference?
What I find most ironic is that the posters here aren’t questioning the validity of the story. When the article is detrimental to the conservative side of the political spectrum it is usually chalked up as a BS piece of propaganda.
So why aren’t the same questions floating around now about the journalistic integrity of this piece?
“If they become a wholly-owned bald-faced subsidiary of the DFL, should they expect to be treated with monastic deference?”
Nope. But you shouldn’t lie. It’s one of God’s Top 10 things not to do for a reason.
Thou shalt not prank!
Fulcrum,
Actually I would like to see the actual email to make sure there isn’t more to the story. Sometimes people spin things.
What I find most ironic is that the posters here aren’t questioning the validity of the story.
Why?
When the article is detrimental to the conservative side of the political spectrum it is usually chalked up as a BS piece of propaganda.
Actually, I usually just point out where they’re wrong. As ultra-left as they are, City Pages has actually been fairer and more dispassionate than most local media on Second Amendment issues.
So why aren’t the same questions floating around now about the journalistic integrity of this piece?
So what are the questions? I have none.
Mitch, you have no questions b/c the piece fits your world view about those evil liberal colleges repressing conservatives.
The reason I ask why nobody questions the validity of the story is that after the election day piece in the CP which included some “overheard” conversations they were quickly dismissed as fiction.
I would agree with Chuck that the smell test wasn’t fully passed on this one. My guess, is that there were other emails along the lines of this one he sent, ones that may be the real reason he is in trouble.
“In fact, three out of three students just in my class that are ‘minorities’ are planning on returning to Africa and all three are getting a free education on my dollar,” Scheffler wrote with thinly veiled ire. “Please stop alienating the students who are working hard every day to pay their tuition. Maybe you can instruct your staff on sensitivity towards us ‘privileged white folk.'”
It’s the whole “admission contrary to interest” thing. If the proprietor of Kabob’s in Edina says that his samosas are utterly wonderful, he may be right or wrong; take it with a grain of salt. (I don’t know if he’s said that, but he should — yum. Pick up some food there. Trust me.) If he says that they’re a bit off today, take that to the bank.
The City Pages is reliably leftist; if they publish something challenging the crushing of rightish dissent that’s so common on college campuses, they’re trustworthy.
(And yeah, by and large, on gun issues, they’ve been a lot fairer than one would expect — certainly lightyears beyond the Star “leaping handguns” Tribune.)
Of interest, I believe it was city pages that ran a story about a year ago on how hard it can be to be a professor at Hamline. A couple of lefty professional-victim students were harrassing a more mainstream liberal-type instructure (or that was my take from the article).
Can’t remember the exact details, but it was over something really stupid and minor. But everyone is a victim today.
“But everyone is a victim today.”
Apparently including rightwing gun nuts.
“Boohoo! Your rule against guns on campus is extremely disempowering!”
Well, not so much “disempowering” as both insulting (assuming that a law-abiding person who’s got a clean record and has passed a training course is in any way a threat to everyone else) and kinda dumb (how DOES Hamline figure its safety rules supercede those of the city and state around it?)
But no, Vobo, no victims here. We’re a vast conspiracy.
Mitch queried: “(how DOES Hamline figure its safety rules supercede those of the city and state around it?)”
The same way they can make a rule banning skateboards or dogs or anything they damn feel like. It’s a private school that can control what takes place on its private property. And gun nuts can suck on it.
Used to be conservatives thought property rights were important.
What if the dog is on a skateboard, carrying a firearm, and maybe even has a smoke hanging out of his mouth…….
Poor guy wouldn’t stand a chance at Hamline.
The idea that people think they can actually “ban” guns on property would be laughable if it weren’t so tragic. “Guns are banned on these premises” signs look great until somebody decides to go through the premises gunning people down. I imagine if somebody would just stand up and explain there’s a gun ban on the premises, the gunman would sheepishly stand down, cheeks flushed in embarrassment.
I imagine if somebody would just stand up and explain there’s a gun ban on the premises, the gunman would sheepishly stand down, cheeks flushed in embarrassment.
Cho must have missed the “Guns Are Banned On These Premises” signs at Virginia Tech. If only he had seen them…
Note to self: Next time, when writing to a bureaucrat, make the note short and sweet and to the point. Do not ramble. Do not add extraneous commentary.
One other thing. The motto over at City Pages is “Question Authority.” They don’t care whether the authority is liberal or conservative, Dem or GOP. If someone has a tale of being on the receiving end of authority, then City Pages will print it. Bonus points if that someone is also a disgruntled former employee with an obvious ax to grind.
Mitch, you have no questions b/c the piece fits your world view about those evil liberal colleges repressing conservatives.
That’s a fair point; people do tend to be less skeptical of things that fit their pre-conceived notions about the way things are (which is why many conservatives believe the relative lack of intellectual diversity in newsrooms often leads to slanting the news towards the left). It struck me as rather odd that there was nothing in the story about the full content of the emails, whether the individual in question had a history of mental illness, whether he had any complaints made against him by other faculty or students, or whether there were previous incidents that led up to this one.
My own experience in dealing with administration at Hamline as a student is that they’re generally pretty reasonable people who actually do want what’s best for their students. I have three experiences where I met with a dean over issues that came up. I know other people who have similar experiences and the consensus seems to be that most of them would bend over backwards to help a student and give you as many chances as they can because they WANT you to succeed.
Which is what makes this account surprising. I have a tough time believing that a student would get suspended over an email or for being obnoxious. The CP account didn’t answer a lot of questions not did it indicate that they were even asked. I for one would have liked to have known:
Is this the first time he was in trouble at Hamline, if not what happened the other time(s)?
Has he had other complaints made against him and if so what was in the complaints and how were they resolved?
Did he actually bring a gun in one of the buildings on campus (I was told it was grounds for expulsion during orientation) or EVER say or do anything to anyone to suggest that he had one with him?
Did someone actually make a complaint that they felt physically threatened by something that he said or did?
Does he actually have a history of mental illness or has he ever exhibited behavior that might make someone reasonably think he was suffering from a mental illness?
What was in the rest of the email(s)?
Now it’s entirely possible that this somewhat limited and one-sided account in CP is a fair representation of what happened. But I have a tough time, based on my own experience as a Hamline student and the fact that none of these questions were covered in the story, in thinking that this is an accurate representation of everything that happened. He could be getting a raw deal but if there was actually a police officer sent to a classroom (assuming it was related to him) and he was suspended pending a psychiatric evaluation, I’m betting that there is more there than he’s telling.
The Mighty Thor said: “He could be getting a raw deal but if there was actually a police officer sent to a classroom (assuming it was related to him) and he was suspended pending a psychiatric evaluation, I’m betting that there is more there than he’s telling.”
Critical thinking in Mitch’s comment section. Who’da thunk? Angryclown is with Thorley on this one. Betcha there’s more going on here.
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