Courtney Lawton, a graduate English instructor the University of Nebraska, decided to mount a one-person protest of the conservative student organization Turning Point USA this past fall, a turning point for her teaching career at the school, Dan King writes.
Lawton’s case drew the attention of state politicians who were pressured by conservative activists and citizens after a separate video shot earlier that day got thousands of retweets on social media.
This video shows a different faculty member telling TPUSA students they must go to the “free speech zone,” with their “propaganda.” As the university later explained, the school has no designated free speech zones, and TPUSA was within their rights to carry on with its recruitment.
The outraged began bombarding the university with emails. Some made threats. Others said they would refuse to send their children to UNL because of the issue. One emailer argued that Lawton should be let go because, “Since when do you allow UNL personnel to heckle and flip off young students (kids basically) … hardly a safe campus atmosphere for all.”
Like the liberal “snowflakes” conservatives like to criticize, the emailers failed to distinguish between words and violence. At no point in her protest did Lawton ever make a threat, act in a violent manner, or do anything that could be misconstrued as such.
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