There is an interesting lawsuit filed against the University of Oregon after Portland State University Professor Bruce Gilley was blocked from a social media account. Gilley claims that he was blocked after he tweeted “all men are created equal.” The lawsuit names Tova Stabin, communication manager for the university’s Division of Equity and Inclusion, as the sole defendant. Gilley may believe that “all men are equal” but the censoring of his post suggests that, as in Orwell’s Animal Farm, “some are more equal than others” at the University of Oregon.
Gilley told College Fix that he viewed the lawsuit as necessary to protect academic freedom values.
The controversy began on June 14, when UO’s Equity and Inclusion Twitter account tweeted “You can interrupt racism” with a wording prompt on how to start a conversation about racism: “It sounded like you just said [blank]. Is that what you really meant?”
Gilley responded with a posting that “all men are created equal,” tagging both the University of Oregon and its Equity and Inclusion Twitter accounts. That is when Stabin allegedly blocked Gilley and “[b]locking also removed Bruce Gilley’s ‘all men are created equal’ reply from @UOEquity’s timeline and prevented other users from viewing it or interacting with it, and with Gilley, including followers of the @UOEquity account.”
The complaint alleges “Tova Stabin blocked him from the Equity Division’s Twitter account, because he promotes a colorblind viewpoint with which she, and her employer, disagree. Stabin’s blocking constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination, and it violates the First Amendment.”
Here is the screenshot from the Complaint:
College Fix reported that Gilley has been previously targeted in 2018 after authoring a book in defense of colonialism and his course on conservative political thought was canceled by Portland State.
Gilley’s complaint details his dissenting views on the faculty:
“50. Bruce Gilley categorically rejects his employer’s claims that his university sits on “stolen land” and resists attempts by his employer to impose the ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus. He has previously declined to sign a “black lives matter” statement because it amounts to an ideological pledge. He also resists what he views as the ideological indoctrination of students.
51. Bruce Gilley is a critic of the DEI principles promoted by the Division, VPEI and defendant Stabin, because he believes that DEI calls for discrimination against university faculty, students, and applicants who are not members of groups favored by the Division, VPEI and defendant Stabin.
52. He also believes that the principles they promote are based on what is called “critical theory,” which threatens freedom of thought at Oregon universities; including by labeling competing ideas, such as colorblindness, as “racist,” “white supremacist,” “oppressive,” and otherwise “unsafe” to express in public.”
As a state school, the University of Oregon is subject to the full weight of the First Amendment, making such censorship a viable legal claim. The notice of his blocking clearly shows the school emblem on the page:
We previously discussed Oregon’s checkered history on free speech, including its announced program to monitor social media accounts. It has also faced controversies like removing its famous Pioneer statue. Even the school’s president has faced cancel campaigns from campus activists. Conversely, the school honored a professor who assaulted pro-life activists.
education in the us has gone political and is pointed straight downhill and would shrivel up and die tomorrow without federal funding. The student loan forgiveness story is very telling and tells of a once-proud and valuable institution now gone to the dogs pretty much. As they say with business, ‘get woke, go broke’, and the same will happen with US higher ed as well as k12. Too many ‘educators’ with some kind of agenda. If you really studied ethnicity like in biology class then you understand its only seven layers deep and matters about as much as a paint job on a car. Who dares speak against CRT indoctrination and the rest of the P.C. B.S.? I do, for one. All the wokesters need to clear out of campus so they can resume formal instruction that is honestly worth attending. Or, stop calling themselves a university. It’s mainly Phil Knight’s sports betting machine anyway.
Colonization was the best thing to ever happen…..period.
Gilley knows the truth
You folks sure are up in arms against this movement.
I personally am not too frightened.
If you get off of social media you wont experience much of this behavior.
So you’re advocating an “out of sight out of mind” personal policy. That doesn’t mean nefarious actions aren’t going on around you, only that you choose to ignore them. To be a citizen (rather than a resident) one must be involved in stamping-out poisons that sooner or later affect all.
RE:”f you get off of social media you wont experience much of this behavior…” Seriously??? Many of the issues which JT comments on are never touched by the MSM, political persuasions notwithstanding. These matters of discrimination on the basis of the expression of socio-political thought, in their various incarnations happen to be one of them.
One day they’ll be coming for you… because “silence is violence” you are required to actively advocate for their reverse racism.
At some point we need a national re-evaluation of our “values.” Clearly, the values enshrined in the Bill of Rights are no longer acceptable to the liberal-left fringe. The question is, what would they replace them with? From all I’ve seen, they fall back on subjective and factless notions about who is worthy of rights and who isn’t. Their economics revolve around taking from one group to give to another. There’s no win-win in the lib-left mind. The philosophy they’re imposing is all about retribution, reparations and revenge against those who have made good in this society. The reason the fringe despises history is that history contradicts all their propaganda about race and biology. They have reinvented the past so they can manipulate the present.
You are correct. The Woke ideology, which is swamping our culture is a progressive death wish, collective suicide. In their self-hatred, they have no image to replace what they are destroying. Self-immolation is their ultimate destination.
For the life of me, I cannot understand the midget mentality of those that prefer going to such a school. But worse is that they are trying to force their idiocy on the rest of us.
Sure glad I’m not a CPA. Elizabeth Warren wants the IRS to prepare our taxes from now on. From now on on payday, you won’t get a paycheck, you’ll get a bill.
Or a bullet…..
Equity and inclusion. That says it all
The American thesis is Freedom and Self-Reliance.
Pursue happiness and create wealth; don’t beg in pursuit of charity and “free stuff” from the “white man’s money.”
To clarify and be more accurate, JT and the complaint should cite the 14th amendment as well since this matter involves a State University.
In one of the Outlander books, a modern Native American traveled back through time, with the intention of stopping tribes from welcoming European explorers and pilgrims. He landed a bit later than he’d wanted, about the 1700s. The natives thought he was crazy, ranting about Europeans. So they tortured him to death.
Native Americans have a fascinating history and culture, but they were not peace loving hippies. Roman history and archeological finds are fascinating, too, but I wouldn’t want to live in Ancient Rome. They burned people alive in bronze bulls, were slavers, women had few rights, and the emperors could do anything they wanted to anyone.
Learn from the past. Enjoy studying it. But do not misrepresent or engage in anachronisms.
We can keep Native culture alive, but we need to focus on the American bit of Native Americans. We should do away with the reservations. Divvy up the Res land among the residents, and allow them to buy or sell their plots to whomever they wish. Keep important land as national parks. The concept of tribes as separate nations, with separate sovereignty and governments needs to end. They are Americans. The Picts, Celts, Anglos, Saxons, Visigoths, Vikings, Gauls, and all the other ancient European tribes make up modern Europe. Stop balkanizing Native Tribes.
Native American tribes did not believe in land titles or deeds. They did not believe that hunting or fishing gave them ownership of that land, through every generation, in perpetuity. Strong tribes held land, or pushed weaker tribes out. They seized land over resources, such as when nerds moved on or water dried up. They seized land over tribal warfare, with ancient enmities. They seized land to gain power. The Iroquois Nation and the Aztecs were particularly feared by their neighbors.
Like the succession of Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Anglos, Saxons, Celts, Picts, and other tribes in Europe.
The difference is that after the overland migration route to the New World was cut off, tribes quarreled and took land from only each other for a few thousand years. Once a sea route was established, the far more technologically advanced “tribes” of Europe arrived, and were the strongest tribe.
Native Americans took land, enslaved women and children, and committed total genocide on the tribes they conquered. Slaves were forbidden from speaking their former language, and were eventually absorbed into the tribe, unless they were worked to death or killed out of hand.
It is appallingly historically inaccurate to claim the US is on “stolen” land, or to claim that the last tribe to live in an area was the “real” owner. Why not the tribe before that? The Black Hills changed hands through half a dozen tribes in 300 years alone, prior to Europeans moving in. Who “really” owns the Black Hills?
As for colonization, without Columbus and Cortez, the Aztecs would have continued human sacrifices. Perhaps if there was some magic barrier that would prevent Europeans from ever finding America, the Aztecs would have kept expanding north until they conquered the continent. The Apache, Cheyenne, Crow, Lakota Sioux, Blackfeet, Tlingit, and all the rest might be moldering skulls in massive skull towers, their bones ground to dust and used as mortar. The Aztecs had already accumulated towers made from hundreds of thousands of the skulls of men, women, and children.
There would be no wheel in America. No modern medicine, paved roads, horses, cars, planes, trains, electricity, computers. It would be the law of the club. Since Western civilization ended slavery, it would likely still exist in America. Women would still be kidnapped and turned into sex slaves by tribes. There would still be no written languages, beyond pictographs.
Why do people agonize over the formation of the US? Do the Celts want Ireland back? The past wasn’t safe for anyone. You cannot unwind the wrongs of the past, because every step led us to where we are today. You cannot unwind colonialism, without also having unchecked Aztecs.
Any land “returned”arbitrarily to the last tribe, should have to be given to the tribe before that, and so on until they trace as far back in “ownership” as possible. And then all vestiges of Western civilization should be given back. The wheel, electricity, cars, etc. If you want to undo colonialism, then undo the good it brought, as well. You don’t get to keep the technology and jurisprudence, but get back land lost to a stronger tribe.
RE::”Why do people agonize over the formation of the US?..” Because their narrow historical perspectives and paucity of knowledge can be likened to that of Whoopie Goldberg’s concept of ‘racism’ until forcibly enlightened. Thanks for this anthropological review of the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere.
A superb statement. Spot on. What is most remarkable is that after the neolithic tribes inevitably succumbed to the civilized ones, the efforts of the latter to invite the former into their community, with all the blessings it that promised, has been forever reviled by our counterculture. The tribes enjoy the benefits of our culture while wallowing in their permanent culture of grievance.
RE:”A superb statement. Spot on…: On reading Karen’s statement, my wife observed that NA’s reject assimilation and prefer to remain separated and in control of their own territories. Balkanized if you will. Depending upon local ordinances, law enforcement may have no control in those areas.
Brilliant. We are continuly burdened by a sophomoric, sentimentalization of other peoples, countries, and cultures as criticism of this country and all of Western civilization.
Hispanics are a perfect example–they are descendants of colonialism, just as many in the USA; the main difference being that Hispanics’ economic, social, and government structures ended in comparative failure. Hispanics are not otherwise inherently noble because of a darker skin tone or for any other reason, no more than Americans today are inherently evil. The former simply failed. They did not have a birthright, if that even mattered, to the areas of California or Texas. The colonialists south of our current border were brutal in taking and attempting to hold onto these lands.
It may also surprise many that, although few in number, Native Americans kept Black slaves and even towed them along on the Trail of Tears.
Black tribes held slaves from other tribes and trafficked in them for thousands of years. It was they who captured their neighbors and sold them to the English and others.
History reveals a common lesson: humans are flawed things no matter their origins. Litigating the past with simplistic characterizations doesn’t help anyone past or present and may do more harm than good. Fairly applied approbation and criticism are the path to understanding. I wish we could get past the idealistic notions people harbor.
RE:”I wish we could get past the idealistic notions people harbor…” The evolution of Western Civilization is characterized by the subsuming of one culture and the building of another upon the bones of the former who were deemed inferior by their conquerors. The hypocrisy lies with those who would right the wrongs of the past by committing the sins of the sinners in their endeavor to build a better world.
Your typo “when nerds moved on” makes me laugh and think of fly-fishing math majors.
Are there any historians (or maybe ethnologists?) who have published accepted studies that support the claims above. They certainly seem plausible, but these were not people who preserved written records of anything as far as I know. Are oral histories the bases for these assertions? Archaeological studies? Something else?
It takes a long stick to plumb the depths of stupidity that the University of Oregon has reached. Maybe there isn’t one long enough–it’s too deep.
But have a look at this science article that addresses a feminist scientist’s study of glaciers.
https://reason.com/2016/03/07/this-university-of-oregon-study-on-femin/
The deliciously stupid part says this:
“Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist glaciology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-ice interactions.”
My own ‘just and and equitable…human-ice interactions’ inevitably involve a glass with just and equitable amounts of ice cubes.
If my own human-ice interactions are not just and equitable is there someplace where an ice cube can sue, an International Court of Ice Cube Justice? These days there may be.
When told they were idiots, the University of Oregon actually, and huffily, defended this bit of trash, making them idiots squared.
Thus we have the ivy, not so hallowed, halls of the University of Oregon.
By the way, ice doesn’t have a sex/gender or pronoun issues.
if it is any consolation, physicians are fleeing academic medicine. I know of many physicians at large universities on the East Coast who have given 2 weeks notice, broken contract, or have turned down full time positions and offers within the medical school to be faculty, preferring instead to be part-time clinical providers, i.e. see patients for only 2 days per week. Physician burnout in America has historically been high across the profession for 10 years. Within academic medicine, once seen as a coveted career, is now witnessing a brain drain. The adoption of Marxist thinking in academia is having a huge and negative effect on educated professionals affiliated therein.
Estovir, so if reasonable physicians like yourself opt out, who’s going to be teaching the next generation of med students? Now I’m worried.
Diogenes, don’t you get worried when your Internist’s eyes never meet your own because they are locked onto the computer screen? Welcome to corporate medicine.Try calling only to be put on hold and after waiting an interminably long period of time only to be told an appointment can be given after your due date, but a PA can see you sooner. It gets worse every year.
https://youtu.be/i38PB4cQZxI
0:54 – 1:17
No people necessary. 🙁
RE: “Now I’m worried!” Too late! Telephone customer service representatives are asking how one prefers to be addressed. I’m retired and my son can’t wait to give up practice. Alea acta est!
ZZDoc, no worries, I’m sure they’ll be an apt for that.
who’s going to be teaching the next generation of med students?
Several years ago I earned an MBA Degree, after having worked as a consultant within the pharmaceutical industry. I came to conclude that Physicians need to arm themselves with the language of business in order to thrive in the field of medicine. Angel investors are the way to go so that physicians who have vision, can accomplish great goals, reach their targeted patients and hopefully make money. I have no intention of retiring until God calls me home. Doctors Michael DeBakey & Denton Cooley are my inspiration: practice medicine until you die. Debakey practiced medicine until age 99, Cooley age 96. If they can do it, with God’s help, I hope to join them.
I would suggest to look for physicians who have passion for what they do. They are hard to find but they exist. I collaborate with a few of them as far as UCSF, Harvard, Yale, Miami and Houston. They tend to be very focused on their work and not engage the noise around them. It is healthier for them and for their patients.
Ignore the noise. There will always be noise. Stay focused on what matters to you.
Cooley performed open heart on me 60 years ago. My parents wanted the best. I wouldn’t be typing these words right now if it wasn’t for him.
Diogenes………wow!
🙂
Estovir……Dr. DeBakey lived in our neighborhood in Houston. I went to high school with his boys…..we would see Denton Cooley often at the small neighborhood corner grocer’s. In Houston, one became accustomed to being around important people.it came with the territory. Dr. Red Duke (ugh!) lived directly behind us…didn’t care for him, though. We were 5 min from the Medical Center, which used to have a children’s amusement park with ponies(!) directly across from it on South Main. Good times! 🙂
RE: ” But have a look at this science article that addresses a feminist scientist’s study of glaciers.” It becomes clear now precisely why the iceberg sank the ‘Titanic’. Vendetta!! Fools to have called for women and children first. Apparently Bruce Ismay knew better!
Funny, it works just as well if the Tetons were being researched.
““Merging feminist postcolonial science studies and feminist political ecology, the feminist geology framework generates robust analysis of gender, power, and epistemologies in dynamic social-ecological systems, thereby leading to more just and equitable science and human-rock interactions.”
“Merging feminist postcolonial . . . interactions.”
If you can unpack the meaning of that academic gobbledygook, then you have mental powers beyond mere mortals.
What would be my motivation to hire any of these new, woke studies grads?
Upstate, I’ve hired a lot of people and skip those with a chip on their shoulder or those that wish to bring their personal feelings into the workplace. Some on the left might find them refreshing, but wait until the business clashes with the idea of the woke. That is when real problems take off.
S. Meyer,
Well, the term “go woke, go broke!” has already had impacts on some businesses.
Netflix seeing a decline in revenue, has canned a number of their low rated woke projects.
There was a all “woke” coffee shop in Philly that went under after being declared as not woke enough for their employees.
Same went for a bar in Portland.
If I owned a business, I would have the room where all the interviews are held with American Flags, Gadsden flags, a jumbo sized Constitution and Bill of Rights, even a NRA flag, all on display. The 1980s Top Gun/Red Dawn/Uncommon Valor/First Blood movie posters.
Make sure HR mentions we have a shooting team, a bowling team, a BBQ/Brisket team and a 4-H Club. (Disclaimer: A good friend of ours is a member of the LGBT+ community. She can GRILL! And likes to shoot.)
Hell yeah, bet you have a black friend too!
Also: trying to win a culture war with cultural icons that are popular in the nursing home may not be effective
There is no validity to your statement when you feel you have to justify it by appending some qualufier to a non sequitor entities inclusion – disgusting lack of resolve
Off topic. Document and video not seized at Mar A Lago.
Trump had a video of Hunter Biden talking to Putin. Hunter leaves the meeting with a suitcase and plastic bag full of U.S. 100 dollar bills. Hunter can be heard to say on his smartphone that he just got a million.
Trump will have someone release this after he is on the Tepub ticket and Biden on the Dem ticket.
The University of Oregon is public and must strictly adhere to the U.S. Constitution.
The public university’s division of equity and inclusion, and all similar organizations and acts, must have been struck down by the judicial branch and the Supreme Court as unconstitutionally biased, providing unconstitutional favor to particular individuals and groups, and differentiating based on gender and race.
The public university must accept and facilitate students based solely on merit and achievement apropos of education.
All men are created equal by God and nature.
After creation, Americans are provided freedom to pursue happiness under a government that has no enumerated power to favor any individual or group.
The Constitution does not provide any form or degree of success or failure to any individual.
The Constitution is neutral and does not favor any gender or race; it leaves success or failure to the individual in the absence of favor or bias.
Affirmative action and assistance to particular individuals or groups are illicit and unconstitutional, and are not provided by the Constitution.
Congress may tax for and fund ONLY the “…general Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding the funding of individual welfare, specific welfare, particular welfare, favor or charity.
Americans are free to “claim and exercise” dominion over their private property absent of any and all interference or intercession by Congress or governmental agency.
Government has no power to exercise dominion over private property by compelling rent control, “non-discrimination” laws, “fair housing” laws, etc., against private property owners.
Freedom and free enterprise determine the direction, outcome and condition of the nation through the free unobstructed “pursuit of happiness” and the exercise of dominion over private property by free Americans.
The entire American welfare state must have been struck down by the judicial branch, the members of which swore an oath to support the literal “manifest tenor” of the Constitution.
The singular American failure has been and continues to be the judicial branch and Supreme Court.
_______________________________________________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
This Lawsuit should keep Oregon out of the Big Ten. The Big Ten does not want to lower the intellectual bar
Are you actually referring to sports organizations?
There is a lot of “not getting it” happening here.
This lawsuit should keep Oregon out of the Big Ten.
Humans are not created. All men and all women are equal. Up to a point . Like when a human points a gun at some other creature . Then they need to be shot.
“Guns are bad, shoot people”?
I wish I had what you are smoking.
I am confused by this. Portland State University is in Portland, Oregon, and is completely independent of the University of Oregon in Eugene.
Iowa has three state universities.
University of Iowa
University of Northern Iowa
Iowa State University.
Independent, but all answer to the same Board of Regents.
irrelevant. PSU and UO have distinct governing boards.
I think the idea is that since they’re a public institution they can’t block his access to their tweets.
If I read #50 aright, is it the university leadership that claims the place sits on stolen land? If so, when are they either going to vacate the premises and surrender it to whomever they stole it from, or make an offer of paymenr for it? Oh, that’s right . . . That would require both having a scrap of integrity and forfeiting their orecuous soapbox.