Academia, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Society

California Professor Faces Possible Assault Charges After Stealing Sign From Pro-Life Protesters On Campus

milleryoungincident2 We have recently discussed a number of incidents of professors acting badly in shouting down student protesters or journalists on campus. (here and here and here). This has include prior attacks on pro-life demonstrators. Now a teenage pro-life demonstrators has accused a University of California (Santa Barbar) professor of taking her sign and assaulting her on campus. Thrin Short, 16, and her sister Joan, 21, have posted a videotape of Feminist Studies Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young walking away with their sign and getting into a confrontation with the teenagers.


thrinshortmilleryoungThe Shorts were handing out pro-life pamphlets when they say Miller-Young confronted them and became irate over their demonstration. They videotaped her after she appeared to organize students in yelling “take down the sign.” They say that she grabbed the sign and walked off–ignoring the protests of the teenagers. Campus police were called and Short says that she was pushed by Miller-Young three times — leaving bruises on her wrists — at an elevator confrontation.

On the video below, Miller-Young is seen taking the sign with graphic images and saying “I may be a thief but you are a terrorist.” At the elevator, she can be seen shoving the teenagers and blocking them. The fact (as noted by her students) that the teenagers do not go to the school is no excuse for this type of conduct. If there was some real violation in the protests (which seems dubious), Miller-Young has no authority to quash the speech. This appears a clear content-based act by Miller-Young. It is even more disturbing to see her encouraging her students to silence opposing views by stealing a sign. It is the very antithesis of the academic mission which is based first and foremost on free speech and association — and civility.

Miller-Young lists her areas as “Pornography; Sex Work; Black Film, Popular Culture and Art; Feminist & Queer Theory; African American & African Diaspora Studies; Visual Archives; New Media; Ethnography; Oral History.” Her bio states that she focuses on pornography and African-American women.

According to reports, Miller-Young has retained an attorney. Catherine Swysen of law firm Sanger Swysen & Dunkle (Notably, Swysen draws not only from her considerable legal experience but experience as a former teacher in the University of California system). She is making no comment but a student her Women of Color class, insisted that she was write to do what she did because “She’s pregnant, so she’s very sensitive to horrifying images like that.” It is very distressful to see a student supporting anti-free speech conduct, a concern expressed recently with regard to French students in suing Twitter.

She could face assault charges based on the videotape. My greatest concern is with her conduct as a faculty member. There are few violations as serious by an academic than attacking free speech or violently trying to stop the expression of viewpoints. Her actions are clearly incompatible with the position of a faculty member. The question is whether the university will act to remove her from the faculty based on this videotape. Putting aside the criminal allegations (that should be left to the criminal justice system), there is the separate question of her judgment and conduct as an academic. The delay in issuing an apology is only going to reaffirm concerns in the minds of some faculty. I fail to see a viable defense for this conduct. Once again, regardless of the status of these teenagers or the disturbing images of the protests, this was an act of free speech. If there is a prohibition on such displays (which would itself raise free speech issues), this was not how academics address controversial speech. If Miller-Young had a legal concern, she can call the police — not lead students in stealing signs and trying to silence their speech.

The faculty code states that faculty “accept the obligation to exercise critical self-discipline and judgment in using, extending, and transmitting knowledge.” This includes a prohibition on “any exploitation, harassment, or discriminatory treatment of students.” Misconduct includes:

1. Intentional disruption of functions or activities sponsored or authorized by the University.
2. Incitement of others to disobey University rules when such incitement constitutes a clear and present danger that violence or abuse against persons or property will occur or that the University’s central functions will be significantly impaired.

The admission on the tape that she has stolen the sign will not help in any university investigation. Regardless of any claim of provocation by Miller-Young, the means chosen by the professor is clearly unacceptable and inimical to the academic mission. To call people with opposing views “terrorists” is a shocking view for an intellectual. To enlist students in an act of censorship only magnifies that violation.

What do you think should be the proper discipline (if any) for Miller-Young?

197 thoughts on “California Professor Faces Possible Assault Charges After Stealing Sign From Pro-Life Protesters On Campus”

  1. “What have been the long term results of the program?”

    ****************************************

    About 31% had not reoffended on five year followup. See the brief summary of the stats I posted. The original point of all this was to point out the futility and immorality of forcing counseling of any kind on someone. If someone doesn’t want to talk to you, look at pictures or buy into your agenda, then leave them the hell alone. It’s called “choice.” Their choice, not yours, not mine, not anyone else’s.

    1. Under some circumstances I would accept your conclusions, however the psychological community has a history of forcing people to look at pictures, talk to them or buy into their agenda. My friend had no choice when she was sent to a mental institution, she had no choice as to what drugs she was taking and she had no choice with the electro-shock therapy.

      So, you are saying that judges who send DUI or low-level narcotics users to AA and NA are immoral? And if I read the preface to your program correctly, didn’t judges send inmates to you? Some, it appears who didn’t want it? Were they immoral?

      1. Forced therapy is unethical and immoral. It violates the ethical codes of both the American Psychiatric Association and American Psychological Association. In fact, if forced it is no longer therapy. It could even be called torture. We just went through that with some rogue psychologists working with the CIA at Gitmo.

        The judges liked our program and suggested to the defendant at sentencing the program was there and they might find it helpful. They did not order anyone into the program, and we did not accept involuntary applications. AA is based on a religious (belief in a higher power) model, and IMHO, ordering a person into AA would be no different than ordering a defendant into a church the judge chose. The First Amendment is bloodied and battered, but it is still the law.

        1. AA is not based on a religious belief but rather that you have no power over your addiction. I know the higher power thing is a problem for some people, however, you are allowed to select anything as a higher power, even a rock. Just something more powerful than you. Still, some people will use any excuse not to go.

          It do not think judges should send people to AA, but for a different reason. I think it cheapens the product. The forced participants take a while to get with the program, if they ever do. In the meantime they are sucking up the oxygen of others at the meeting. Willing participants are easier to work with. Even then it is a crap shoot. I was an unwilling participant at my first meeting, but found a home. I was very lucky.

          It is only your opinion that the psychologists at Gitmo were rogue. IMHO they were doing the country a great service.

  2. Some programs, like AA or NA take everyone. They do not have to take a pledge to ‘want to stop.’
    ========================================

    The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking.

    1. pete – with the judicial assignments to AA and NA I am not sure that wanting to stop drinking is a requirement. And I think you go to AA you don’t belong. 😉

  3. Chuck, thanks for posting that excerpt from your report, very interesting. Forcing counseling on someone who hasn’t committed a crime is wrong and wasting it on someone who doesn’t really want it doesn’t make sense.

  4. Paul, we did not refuse people because they would be “hard.” We turned them down because they had no intention of changing, and just applied for the program for reasons other than getting help for their problem. We had a limited number of bunks, and those were saved for people who wanted help. If somebody got in our program and we discovered they were just playing a game, we booted them. No point in wasting limited resources on somebody who does not want help. I wrote the following. It is part of my 635 page report to the US Department of Justice:

    The statistics generated by AA claimed a success rate in the early days at around 75% up to 93%. The claimed success rate of AA at the present time is about 2.4% up to about 4.8%. The error rate is unknown, so these figures have to be taken as largely anecdotal or impressionistic. In order to obtain a success rate even as high as 50%, rigorous pre-screening of some type is necessary. In fact, when we review the early work of Dr. Bob, we find that he used a rigorous prescreening methodology. Furthermore, it appears that people who dropped out of the program early were not counted in the final numbers. Sgt. Bill S. began an AA treatment program at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas in the early 1950’s. In the Sergeant’s groups, he had a success rate of about 50%, which he describes in his book, On the Military Firing Line in the Alcoholism Treatment Program. Sgt. Bill describes in some detail the rigorous screening methods he used, which accounts for his impressive success rate. For one thing, Sgt. Bill excluded people whom he determined to have serious mental problems that would interfere with treatment. He refused to admit airmen who were so mentally disturbed that they might qualify for Section Eight (psychiatric) discharges from the Air Force.

    Bill W. the founder of AA, wrote and spoke on several occasions that there were good and bad AA groups. He was aware that the difference between the two was whether prescreening was done before admitting alcoholics to the program.

    The treatment modality of AA is for the participant to attend meetings regularly for support and encouragement. The Twelve-Step program is described in the Big Book, which is the book written by Bill W. in the early days of the organization. The participant is encouraged to take the recovery process step by step, all the way through the twelve-steps. The program has a strong spiritual component, as well as some practical things one must do to achieve sobriety. A discussion of the twelve steps is beyond the scope of this report, but the reader can obtain a copy of the Big Book from any local chapter of AA. There is also an Alcoholics Anonymous web site at http://www.aa.org. The Big Book can actually be read on-line at the AA web site.

    It was probably almost inevitable and probably predictable, but the twelve step design, as well as the AA name, has been borrowed by other groups that deal with addictive behavior, such as Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous.

    Synanon was founded in 1958 by Charles E. Dederich in California. Mr. Dederich was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1913 to a Catholic family of German ancestry. He attended Notre Dame University for a brief time. He also was twice married and divorced before he wound up in California some time in the 1950’s. He had been involved in Alcoholics Anonymous for about two years, but felt the AA approach was too limiting. He started holding small group meetings in his apartment, with a core group he had met through AA. He later rented a nondescript storefront in Ocean Park, California as a place to hold the meetings. The group first met under the name, TLC, which stood for Tender Loving Care. The advantage of the storefront was that there was enough space that people who had no place to go could stay overnight. As time went by, the focus of TLC gradually shifted from mostly alcoholics to narcotic addicts. After some disputes with the AA organization over how things ought to be done, Dederich’s group incorporated into a separate organization, severing ties with AA.

    The name Synanon was created when an addict attempted to say “symposium” and “seminar” in the same sentence. It came out “Synanon.” The name stuck.

    Synanon has evolved through three distinct stages. From 1958 until 1968, Synanon operated as a therapeutic society, much like the therapeutic community we know today. Starting about 1969, it became a social movement with the goal of being an alternative society. Finally, beginning in 1975, Synanon became a “church,” with the goal to serve the spiritual and religious needs of its members.

    In 1959, Dederich moved the group from the storefront into an old National Guard armory building in Santa Monica. During the therapeutic years from 1958 until 1969, Synanon used rehabilitation and reeducation with addicts, with the long-term goal that they could return to society with new coping skills. The recovery process was designed as a two year program. The program began by detoxifying the addict “cold turkey.” This means that the addict was expected to withdraw from drugs abruptly, going through the extreme discomfort that withdrawal entails. After the withdrawal was complete, and there were no serious side effects, the addict was expected to take on an increasing level of personal responsibility. The ultimate goal of Synanon’s treatment was for the recovering addict to go to an outside residence and a job. The other alternative was for the addict to take a position within the organization. The former was referred to as “rehabilitation,” and the latter was called, “absorption.”

    Almost from the day of its inception, Synanon was praised by the press and popular media as the true answer for drug addiction. Even the U.S. Senate got into the act with the praise for Synanon. In retrospect, as we look at the Synanon phenomenon, the praise was premature. Most people who went through Synanon were absorbed rather than rehabilitated, using the group’s own nomenclature. This throws a cloud of suspicion over the success rates claimed by Synanon. One sociologist, Dr. Richard Ofshe of Berkeley, found that between 6,000 and 10,000 people went through the Synanon process in the ten years following the founding in 1958. Between 1958 and 1968, Dr. Ofshe was only able to document 65 people who were rehabilitated, using Synanon’s own definition of rehabilitation. In other words, only 65 recovering addicts were known to be able to live independently outside Synanon during that ten year period.1 This is an admitted success ratio of between 0.65% and 1%, suggesting a 99% (or worse) failure rate. Obviously, the early hyperbole surrounding this new treatment for addiction was premature. Dr. Richard Ofshe won the Pulitzer Prize for his investigative work and writing about Synanon.

    The success-failure ratio of AA and Synanon is instructive. It highlights the difficulty in treating alcoholics and drug abusers.

    —-snip—-

    Over a five-year period, fifty-three RSAT “treatment failures” (those who were rearrested) spent 10 months less in jail than the average comparison group member who returned to jail. This constitutes a 530-month savings to the state of Tennessee (15,900 inmate days). At approximately $31.00 required to house state inmates per diem, a $492,900.00 savings is realized with “treatment failures” alone. This number, by itself, almost fully justifies the entire cost of our program over a five-year period without even considering the impact of treatment success stories. This number is especially meaningful as it based on the objective findings and is not subject to conjecture or extrapolation.

    It is a much more difficulty and controversial process to attempt to quantify the cost savings generated by those who have not reoffended due to the their participation in the RSAT program. Clearly, they are not incarcerated at all and this is a substantial savings to the state of Tennessee. However, it would be naïve to assume that all of these successful subjects will never return to jail. Furthermore, if they were to return to jail, there is no way to predict what type of charge(s) they would return on or what the duration of their sentence might be. However, if we were to estimate the fiscal impact of RSAT treatment successes, we would have to outline a hypothetical situation. Given that our success rate was 31% with the base rate of rearrests accounted for, 40 people would have come to jail on an undetermined sentence if they had not attended the program. A very conservative scenario would sentence these “would be offenders” to an average of 2 years of incarceration. If this were the case, 40 inmates, for 730 days, at $31.00 per day, equals a $905,200.00 savings. When a precisely calculated “failures” rate of $492,900.00 and an extremely conservative estimate of $905,200.00 for treatment successes are summed, a $1,398,100.00 reduction in cost is observed.

    Given that the claimed current success rate of AA is somewhere between 2% and 5%, and Synanon was found to have a success rate of between 0.65% and 1%, I reckon the program I designed with its 31% success rate worked better. I do know what I am talking about when I talk about trying to “counsel” those who don’t want or need counseling.

    BTW, when the full analysis was done, our program had the highest success rate and lowest recidivism rate of any similar inmate treatment program in the country. Did I mention my report to the DoJ ran 635 pages?

    1. Charlton – AA does not keep these kinds of records and I am a little queasy about the supposed outside studies. I am glad your program did well though. Having said that I know that judges send DUIs to AA for 30 days or 60 days. Since they were unwillingly committed there, it could sway a lot of figures on sobriety. Do your 30/60 days, then out. And you do not have to be sober to attend an AA meeting.

      You had the luxury of cherry-picking your participants which would make your results suspect for the general population. Although am I sure it would transfer to other federal facilities. What have been the long term results of the program?

      ——-
      annie – Charlton’s patients committed a crime. And sometimes those who don’t want it realize they do want it when it is fully presented to them. If they do not take the opportunity it is on them, but it has been offered and presented to them. Ever have a patient who did not want to take a particular drug or get a particular treatment? Courts have intervened on occasion.

  6. This thread is going down the tubes, fast. Maybe we should switch over to the more recent post and maybe it will become more productive. I am an eternal optimist.

  7. Spinelli, you are pushing it once again. I did not say I expected kudos. I don’t expect or deserve professional disparagment either based on my politics or opinions and THAT is what Samantha was doing and I was responding to. I get to defend myself and my career. Now I suggest you back off.

  8. I was not speaking SPECIFICALLY about anyone’s career. It is odd that ANYONE would expect kudos for doing their job regardless of their client/patients politics. It is odd that anyone would even think in those terms. A professional would not even have their clients politics cross their mind. It is irrelevant. Now, stop the childish, uncivil, baiting and try to contribute something positive, if that’s possible

  10. Paul,

    You asked me if I knew what the phrase “beyond the pale” refers to. I answered your question in the affirmative. It would seem to me that someone who understood the meaning of the word “pale” in the phrase would know its correct spelling.

    I’d suggest you lighten up. I’ll leave it at that.

  11. Paul,

    I didn’t provide any history with regard to the phrase–so I don’t know how you could determine that my history is wrong. I copied and pasted something from and provided a to link to a website to show that my spelling was correct–spelling that you claimed was incorrect. I’ll give you a shovel so you can keep digging yourself a hole “beyond the pail.”

    1. Elaine – I asked you what it referred to. You did not answer that question.

  12. “on 1, March 22, 2014 at 8:42 pmnick spinelli
    It is more than a bit odd to pat oneself on the back for giving a patient professional care no matter their politics. It does give everyone a glimpse into the mindset of a person who says it!!”

    THAT is an odd statement. I’m proud of my nursing career and Spinelli if you have something you want to say, say it.

  13. Elaine – you are wrong on the history of “beyond the Pale.” Since I know you have competent computer skills, I have the absolute confidence you can find the answer. 🙂

  14. Charlton – these are not strawman arguments. These are case histories in the making or the past. I can appreciate your stand with the judiciary so that you did not have to bother with the hard cases of addiction. It would give your program a higher success rate. Some programs, like AA or NA take everyone. They do not have to take a pledge to ‘want to stop.’

  15. It is more than a bit odd to pat oneself on the back for giving a patient professional care no matter their politics. It does give everyone a glimpse into the mindset of a person who says it!!

  16. Samantha, point out to me what I said that was disparaging. I believe I can hold the opinion that they should be free to protest, while disagreeing with what they protest about.

  18. “It’s underhanded to disparage me as a nurse because you disagree with my stance on abortion, or my opinion on any given subject.”

    Are you serious, after having commented, yourself, disparagingly against those who defend pro-life and religious expression? One commenter even made mention of religious bigotry that just doesn’t seem to go way.

    That said, I was already aware of your previous defense of the adolescent protesters. That’s why I found your comment shocking, seemingly negating your previous support of the girls.

  19. Elaine – lighten up!!!! As you have before you have inferred things that are not in evidence. I made no such comparison. Charlton and I are having a dialogue about counseling in general. BTW, do you know what ‘beyond the pale’ refers to? And you misspelled it.

  20. Comparing the counseling of a woman with an unwanted pregnancy to the counseling of bunny boilers and arsonists goes beyond the pale.

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