MIZZOU MUSCLE PROF ATTEMPTS OTTER’S ANIMAL HOUSE DEFENSE IN THE WASHINGTON POST. Link safe; goes to a post at Prof. William A. Jacobson’s Legal Insurrection blog titled “Mizzou Muscle Prof: We want people to take chances, don’t we?”
Click writes:
As a Media Studies scholar, I understand how the increased surveillance resulting from advances in technology like digital recording and wireless broadband has come to mean that our mistakes will be widely broadcast — typically without context or rights of rebuttal — exposing us to unprecedented public scrutiny.
But I do not understand the widespread impulse to shame those whose best intentions unfortunately result in imperfect actions. What would our world be like if no one ever took a chance? What if everyone played it safe?
Sites like YouTube and Twitter host forums in which everyday people are subjected to the kinds of excoriation we have typically reserved for politicians and celebrities — those whose public and private actions, due to their vocations, are judged within the public sphere.
In recent years, however, earnest mistakes made by ordinary, unknown people have increasingly become national topics, their errors invoking astonishing amounts of political fury and having unanticipated impact on their careers, families, and futures.
Reaction to the footage containing my errors has resulted in months of scrutiny and most recently the loss of my job….
Whose interests are served when our drive to combat societal imperfections is defeated by fears of having our individual imperfections exposed?
And what value do our rights as citizens have in a culture increasingly ruled by snap judgments and by regulations that are easily rewritten to suit changing political interests?
We should all be concerned about the larger issues my situation raises.
As Jacobson quips in response, “Click writes that she was just stressed that day and Social Justice!” Given that Click is a self-described “Media Studies scholar,” I’m sure she’s studied this legendary media moment:
Otter: Ladies and gentlemen, I’ll be brief. The issue here is not whether we broke a few rules, or took a few liberties with our female party guests — we did.
Otter: But you can’t hold a whole fraternity responsible for the behavior of a few, sick twisted individuals. For if you do, then shouldn’t we blame the whole fraternity system? And if the whole fraternity system is guilty, then isn’t this an indictment of our educational institutions in general? I put it to you, Greg — isn’t this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do whatever you want to us, but we’re not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America. Gentlemen!
[Leads the Deltas out of the hearing, all humming the Star-Spangled Banner]
Was it over when the Germans dropped some muscle on Pearl Harbor?
