There is a disturbing free speech controversy at Lincoln Memorial University’s College of Veterinary Medicine after the school accused student Erin Lintag of violating the school’s code of conduct by telling President Donald Trump supporters to “unfollow” her. It is a direct assault on free speech and should be immediately withdrawn with a commitment to prevent such actions in the future.
“If you are my classmate and you voted for trump or support his ideals unfollow me. We will still be civil because we have to be, but you dont need me as a friend and I don’t need you.”
“Another reminder: Trump, Musk, RFK, & etc supporters will get the cold shoulder but if we have to fake it for our grade then we will. But otherwise, UNFOLLOW ME. QUICKLYYYYYYYY[.]”
Those were statements made on a private account off campus on a political issue. They should have been clearly outside the realm of school regulations and the conduct code.
Nevertheless, on January 28, the LMU-CVM Student Affairs Office notified Lintag that she was under investigation for possible violations of the Ethics and Honor Code of Conduct for a “Political social media post where ‘classmates’ were called out[.]”
Three days later at a meeting with the student, Associate Dean for Student Affairs and Admissions Elizabeth Devine charged Lintag with “Posting Instagram posts that were targeted at her ‘classmates.’” Lintag was given only 48 hours to accept or refuse responsibility.
By accepting responsibility, Lintag was told that she would be given an order to write a two-page paper “on the dangers of social media and how it poses risks of cyberbullying, privacy issues and mental health effects on others.” However, if she dared to contest the sanction, she would face a harsher penalty.
She relented and admitted guilt.
The university was wrong in launching this action and wrong in the heavy-handed treatment of the student. Even if this were a valid matter of investigation, there is no cognizable reason for a university to give a student just two days to make a decision or face severe penalties.
Lintag has every right to oppose President Trump and, while I disagree with her excluding those with opposing views, she has a right to limit her circle of friends and associates. It would certainly make for a better campus environment if students were more accepting of others with different political views. I get that. However, if Lintag wants to create her own echo chamber with like-minded people, she has every right to do so.
Lincoln Memorial University should apologize and guarantee that, in the future, the free speech rights of its students and faculty will be afforded greater protection.
The real question here has gone unanswered.
Why did the university feel the need to take this action ????
This is a clear and obvious violation of the student’s rights.
The answer is obvious. The university is acting out of fear of Donald Trump, who has been actively attacking colleges and withdrawing federal funding. As a veterinary college they almost certainly have federal funding for their animal research programs. Clearly they are afraid that Trump will turn on them and withdraw the funding. This fear has motivated them to undertake this egregious violation of a student’s rights. They are willing to sacrifice these rights to avoid an attack from a dictatorial administration.
Another important question is how the university found out about the post by this student on her private account.I doubt that the university monitors all the private social media accounts of all their students.
Obviously a fellow student, undoubtedly a MAGA adherent, complained to the university. This created a situation where the university feared that the student had also complained to the Trump administration. This fear motivated them to violate the rights of the student.
This is how dictatorships operate.
They use fear tactics to threaten institutions into submission.
They use the power of the state to force compliance with their objectives.
They use snitches to rat out perceived opponents.
They use fear of retaliation to motivate citizens to turn on each other and create discord.
This is how Hitler operated.
This is how Stalin operated.
This is how Putin operates.
This is how Donald Trump operates.
# there’s absolutely no evidence of anything you’ve said.
Ironically, you have just described the habitual habits of prog/left fanatics for at least several decades. And to now infer that this sort of snitchy behavior is somehow attributable to conservatives while avoiding that elephant in the room that sane, adults have seen for some time is not only laughable but pitiable and frightening at the same time as it illustrates the truly destructive nature of the prog/left and their inability for self-reflection and their penchant for hypocrisy.
If this student is not a victim of a conservative snitch, then the only rational explanation for the university’s discovery of her post is that they are monitoring the private social media accounts of all 6,000 students.
Definitely unlikely!!!
And you have left unanswered why the university was moved to act in such a draconian manner to perfectly reasonable, constitutionally protected free speech about Trump, posted to a private social media account with no connection to the university.
What are they afraid of ???
Clearly they are afraid of retaliation from Trump.
The university is willing to sacrifice the free speech rights of an innocent student in order to avoid a retaliation from Trump.
“This is how Hitler operated.
This is how Stalin operated.
This is how Putin operates.
This is how Donald Trump operates.”
THIS IS HOW OBAMA/BIDEN AND THEN BIDEN HARRIS OPERATED, USING THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, AND THE JUDICIARY AS THEIR PARTY’S STASI, KGB, AND GESTAPO ROLLED INTO ONE.
Fixed that for you little Democrat communist, as you keep reading to us from your autographed copy of Obama/Biden’s “Trump-Russia Dossier”.
Veterinary medicine. How is the university’s application of it’s conduct rule reasonably calculated to make a vet better able to help a horse with laminitis (founder)?
The lasting impression I will keep in mind for both Lincoln Memorial University’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Erin Lintag:
1. What institution will I keep in mind when deciding NOT to contribute either direct funds or estate planning?
2. What veterinarian will I decide NOT to use for fear their bigoted beliefs would impact the services they may/may not provide.?
Academia is more ignorant than ever before.
“Acedemia” has been this way for decades. The good news: The ‘social media’ phenomena has exposed them and their fellow stooges.
@Anonymous
It really is. At its best, academia was an initiation into the adult world through critical thought, exposure to new ideas, social exposure, independence, and the acquisition of knowledge and skills pertaining to a particular interest. Nothing more or less.
People are supposed to graduate and move on, not get permanently hooked into the pod. I have always thought it was alternately pathetic and exhausting when much older people continued to trot out their degree like some kind of feted calf. Fond memories are fine, but by their nature they no longer exist.
Coming from these milieus today, these kids are never going to be ok, and the rest of us are paying the price in trying to continue a functional society that includes them. For now, it’s likely to get worse.
When enlightened thinkers like Locke and Rousseau elevated ideals of free speech, they couldn’t possibly have anticipated software apps where “sharing ideas” equates to shallow loyalties expressed by clicking a “follow” button.
Free speech is meant to break down and neutralize tribalism, not intensify it. Turley’s early 20th century ideas turn to gobbledegook faced with the borderless, norms-denuded, deception-riddled, instantaneous public square of the 2020s. The anarchist and the totalitarian enjoy unprecedented power to influence, while sober, open-minded, candid, civil discussion finds no purchase except in the safety of private quarters.
Your comment says more about the state of education than anything else. Could the “anarchist and the totalitarian enjoy unprecedented power to influence” if the public were well educated? Can “sober, open-minded, candid, civil discussion” actually take place within a group of poorly educated individuals?
The failure is NOT in the inability to “anticipated software apps where “sharing ideas” equates to shallow loyalties expressed by clicking a “follow” button.” The failure is to not recognize that the education system has NOT empowered the citizens to engage in “sober, open-minded, candid, civil discussion finds no purchase except in the safety of private quarters”.
The student is clearly an entitled little shrew, but yes, that is her right. The university had no business taking this action against her. Her own tiny mind is likely misery enough.
Dean’s conduct hardly seems in keeping with ‘Lincoln Memorial”.
The logic test: what would the reaction be, if the university did the exact same thing – except her post had been directed towards those who voted for Biden/Harris instead of Trump?
If the response is “Well, then it would be completely different”, then common sense has never infected you and you’re wasting your time at this blog.
You pay universities a fee for them to provide the service of teaching you in return. Unless your speech is off the reservation i.e. “kill all the Jews and Trump”, you did not pay that fee to a university for them to provide the service of monitoring and editing your speech in your personal life.
My first instinct is to say that turn about is fair play but my educated side says that she has a right to disassociate herself from anyone she wants to. Using the same tactics that the left uses just morphs you into a leftist in favor of censorship. In the process it just gives those on the left the right to point the finger and say, see you’re no different from us. When winning a battle in the defense of free speech don’t step on your own appendage.
Institutions of higher education are being morphed into institutions of higher indoctrination, and at an alarming rate. Whether the First Amendment (and for that matter, the Republic) can survive this trend remains a serious question. Lamentably, Ben Franklin’s admonition is creeping closer with each passing day.., and with each “higher institution’s” fruitcake policies.
I fear that , to be most accurate, your present participle needs to be changed to past tense.
That was a quite civil unfollow me request. Just another school to also “unfollow”.
The school’s logo (at top of article) states “with malice towards none” “with charity towards all” so she clearly did instead opt for the complete opposite and create an adversarial situation.
Is it a free speech issue or breaking of a contract… at any rate the school reinforced its commitment/promises while exercising its own free speech rights.
“Is it a free speech issue or breaking of a contract”
Contracts of the type you imply require signed documents. If such a document existed, I’m certain the school would have referenced it. That means your comment is nothing but idle, useless, blather.
I certainly do not understand this University’s logic, if there is any. The student is perfectly within her right to associate with or not associate with anyone of her fellow students. I think her desire to do so in the manner she decided upon was poorly done and of questionable value but it was her right to do it. And she does not have to justify this action to anyone, including the university.
I would suggest the student not limit herself to echos because that only restricts what you learn and knowing an opponent or enemy is the best way to counter or deal with their arguments. You occasionally learn something quite valuable from someone who has a different worldview, or a different type of logic or a very different approach to problem solving. I know the young often think they have everything worked out but keeping your mind open is a valuable tool in survival. And many of us change our minds. And even us older types still don’t have everything figured out. Each and every day has the potential to spring something totally unforeseen and shake the foundations of your beliefs.
Agreed. Not sure what Lincoln Memorial was thinking.
#. If only Zelensky could tell Putin- unwar me or Israel tell Hamas- unwar me!
Petty tyrant punishing people at Lincoln whe the complainer should have been told, well unfollow her. You’ll feel unangry.
Legally, I agree with the Professor. This was a violation of the first amendment. But I think he is mistaken in his “disagee[ing] with her about excluding (I suppose he means either morally or pragmatically) those who do not agree with her about certain things. What if we upped the drama and said she was excluding neo-Nazis. Would he disagree with her on that? I accept among friends and family all kinds of opinions. We all disagree about somethings. But there are some things that are beyond the pale for us as individuals, and there is nothing wrong with it. Personally, though I don’t exclude leftists who I feel are either ignorant or delusional, and I am civil to them (they sometimes are not with me), I understand when people don’t want to be friends with those who make them angry or upset, because I would exclude those who I feel are evil, have crossed over from supporting fascists (which the D party has become) to actually being a fascist themselves. It’s a thin, wobbly, gray line. And guess who gets to decide who crosses it? That’s why even if I am completely opposed to her politically, think she’s wrong as can be about Trump, I don’t have a problem with excluding people either legally or morally (or pragmatically) from her life.
Freedom is a wonderful concept, until people with authority get to decide what other people are allowed to say, print, or think. I avoid the hive-minded libs on X, and was thankful the butterfly group, went away. The term #commonsense, doesn’t mean what the university thinks it means. I may never agree with what, Lintag says, but I will defend her right to say it.
Then you spend your time on bluesky now?
question can we file a classic action suit against EVERY democrat for conspiracy against America for electing Biden and his band of treason?
this is why we need to end federal aid to colleges….. let capitalism FIX college. State funded money delivers state directives!
Who is “we”. Capitalism broke college. If the state directs, then the status quo will not end. There’s not a public or private college/uni. in Massachusetts that is not irrevocably woke.
Withdraw fed funds and you’ll change the system. Naaa….
(shrug)…this stuff happens all the time…..a family member posted on Facebook that if friends and family believed that “all lives matter” to please unfollow/unfriend her as she had no time for “racists” in her life.
It’s a real shame that with so much student behavior genuinely meriting discipline, this University should choose to sanction what shouldn’t be sanctioned. Which they have no business sanctioning.
The girl’s an idiot, but if that’s the issue it’s a matter for her professors to deal with.
I don’t know professor. on the one hand, yeah, her speech should be protected. but on the other hand, it seems that she is attempting to restrict the ability of others to interact in free speech. if I only think of free speech in terms of what is said I’m not sure that captures the full gist of the term. just as a tree falling in the woods without anyone around doesn’t make a sound, speech is really only relevant when there’s someone there to listen. if we say to someone in the public sphere, you have no right to listen to me, or you have no right to hear what I say, isn’t that a form of free speech restriction? I’m just thinking out loud here
That logic only applies to the government not private citizens.
I wonder how that would apply to NPR?
I wonder how that would apply to NPR? Private and federal funded.
NPR? I’ve unwatched it.