A satirical poster on a theater professor’s door was removed by campus security as a clear and present danger to public security. The poster displayed by Professor James Miller showed Nathan Fillion’s character in Firefly along with a quote from the first episode.
You don’t know me, son, so let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you’ll be awake. You’ll be facing me. And you’ll be armed.
The quote was in response to another character’s question, “I’m trying to put this as delicately as I can. How do I know you won’t kill me in my sleep?”
When Miller asked that his first amendment rights be respected, Lisa A. Walter, chief of police for University of Wisconsin-Stout, responded that he could face criminal charges if he displayed the poster or something similar again. Miller reacted by putting up a fascism poster.
That poster was removed as well for mentioning “violence and death.” Miller was told to meet with the university’s “threat assessment team” this Friday.
Firefly was a show about spirited individuals who worked together when faced with threats to their freedom. Every challenge to free speech gives us the same opportunity. If we don’t speak out for Miller’s Firefly poster, what will they come for next?
Contact University of Wisconsin-Stout police department with your concerns
and register your protest via the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
So no Jayne Cobb “Chain of Command” posters allowed, either? 🙁
Plenty of quotes by Shakespeare would be out too.
Mark Twain witticisms too.
That poster was/is great and would just have loved to have a professor with a sense of humor like that.
This is what happens when you leave the the requirements for joining the police force low.
Good news on this 🙂 The school ended up over turning the original disallowance of those posters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iAOtkpFGhc is a youtube link to the video I watched recently on this topic.