White supremacist talk show ranter and blogger Hal Turner has had a tough month.

The James Von Brunn heir apparent, known for espousing “Turner Diaries” type viewpoints on his blog and currently off the air radio show   was arrested earlier this month after officials spotted an entry on his blog that called for residents “take up arms” against Connecticut lawmakers.  .

The statements referred to legislation that would affect which group members of the Roman Catholic churches have control over parish finances.   In addition to his call to arms he  threatened to publish the addresses of lawmakers who sided against church officials.  In addition, his blog(no longer online) reportedly contained the following statement:

“These beastly government officials should be made an example of as a warning to others in government: Obey the Constitution or die. If any state attorney, police department or court thinks they’re going to get uppity with us about this; I suspect we have enough bullets to put them down too.”"

Turner was  charged  with “inciting injury to three state officials, a felony.  Turner claims he  was exercising his right to free speech.

Not long after the above arrest, he was arrested again by the FBI on charges he threatened to kill three federal appellate judges in Chicago.   As in the Connecticut matter he posted the addresses and this time included photos of the judges along with his rant.  The federal criminal complaint(pdf) reads:

“the defendant threatened to assault and murder three United States Judges with intent to retaliate against such judges on account of official duties in violation of Title 18, United States Code Section 115(a)(1)(b)”

As you can see from the actual language in the complaint there is some pretty strong languagee. Does it rise to the level of a threat to kill a federal judge or is it 1st Amendment protected speech?

My thoughts.

In the Connecticut case there is no 1st Amendment protection for his statements taken as a whole.  If he would have left it as a call to arms he would have been fine.  He would have  been ok  with the  addresses as well.

In my opinion however, the statements “obey the Constitution or die“ and ” I suspect we have enough bullets….“ taken together are present ability threats of violence and have no protection.

In the Chicago case, the language that is clearly inflammatory and inciting.  Does it rise to the level of personal threats as defined by the statute?

The statement “It appears another lesson is needed” go a long ways towards hanging him(figuratively) on that charge as it puts it in the present and makes him part of the threat, bringing him within the statute.

Protected free speech or criminal incitement and threats?  Where do ideas end and criminal instruction begin?  They don’t end with Hal Turner.  This is not an issue of the Constitutionally protected debate of ideas.  He is instructing people to commit crimes.  He is threatening federal judges with violence and with a present ability to carry it out.

It appears that Turner — who in the past has advocated spitting on Jews and carrying out “good old vigilante justice” against “Negroes” will have to adjust his rant to suit his prison audience who may be inclined to take up arms of their own. The difference is that theirs may have shivs in them.  As despicable as Mr. Turner is, I am not asking for a  call to arms.  I do think everyone who reads this should send him a copy of American History X COD.

There has been a lot of talk within the Jewish community about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s responsibilities as  a Jew within the confines of the Facebook Holocaust Denial  dispute.    Some have argued that because of his religion he has some greater personal and corporate responsibility to see that these groups or antisemitism in general do not flourish within the Facebook social networking universe.

I could not disagree with this more.  Facebook is not a Jewish company in the sense of corporate goals.  To my knowledge it does not set out in it’s corporate mission statement that it will espouse Jewish values and traditions.  If it did, I would feel differently.

There are certainly circumstances where the ethnic makeup or religion of a business owner, customer or end user does play a part in how the company operates.  Chik-fil-A is closed on Sundays for that very reason.   It is reflected in the Corporate Mission Statement:

“To glorify God by being a faithful steward to all that is entrusted to us.  To have a positive influence on all who come in contact with Chick-fil-A.”

Everyone can probably agree that in a social networking company like Facebook one of the primary “products” they sell is the “free exchange of ideas”.   To argue that outside of a “religious goaled” company.  a social networking CEO has some greater  responsibility to be sensitive to one idea over another based on the CEO’s personal religious beliefs or upbringing is not practical or proper.  It would be akin to arguing that Jewish sports-team owner’s Ed Snider(Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers) Mark Cuban(Dallas Mavericks)  or Jerry Reinsdorf(Chicago Bulls and Whitesox) should arbitrarily shut down their teams on Jewish Holidays, not allow their team to play on the Sabbath, or screen for  Holocaust Deniers at the stadium entrance.

So am I siding with Facebook now?  I am not.  My argument has never changed.  I  simply understand Facebook’s obligation to meet the needs of all customers and it’s efforts to define hate speech on that basis.  Having been around some pretty smart CEO’s in my life, I am in agreement that this is a sound business philosophy.

Where I part ways with Facebook is over how those needs are met and should be met on a continuing objective basis. In my mind, the primary dispute is over how Facebook defines “direct hatred” and whether their current definition is appropriate for the times we live in.   I wonder whether their definition while striving for “binary certainty”  relies to much on form over substance to be truly effective in battling the alarming rise of online hatred including Holocaust Denial.

From a corporate CEO perspective, Mr. Zuckerberg does have that responsibility.  A responsibility that not only affects Jews but Muslims, Armenians and a slew of other ethnic and religious  minorities who are the targets of online hate.  We are all Facebook customers.

My argument is and has always been that you can not look at “direct- hate” in a “binary vacuum”.  Hate is constantly evolving.  The corporate values of social media companies that serve as breeding and recruiting grounds for these groups  must also evolve.

A perfect example is Facebook’s “nipple rule“.  This rule evolved in response to the outcry over their decision to remove certain photos of depicting women breastfeeding.  Their rule as I understand it is that if nipple shows it violates TOS.  If the nipple is covered it is ok.  Would that be the same standard if Facebook was around in 1900, 1920, 1960?  Will it be the appropriate standard in 2050?  Societal norms evolve with history.  For Facebook to ignore this fact in my mind is lazy and enabling the rise of a major problem for which they must take partial responsibility.  For Facebook to take the position of “we will wait until a crisis to re-evaluate”  simply enables a repeating of  historical cycles hate.

That’s my argument.  Its not about religion. Lets keep religion out of it.

On January 19, 2009  University of California-Santa Barbara sociology professor William I. Robinson sent out an email message to his “Sociology of Globalization” students  equating Israel with Nazi Germany and Gaza with the Warsaw Ghetto. The email  entitled:“Parallel images of Nazis and Israelis,“ read in part as follows:

“I am forwarding some horrific, parallel images of Nazi atrocities against the Jews and Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. Perhaps the most frightening are not those providing a graphic depiction of the carnage but that which shows Israeli children writing “with love” on a bomb that will tear apart Palestinian children.

Gaza is Israel’s Warsaw – a vast concentration camp that confined and blockaded Palestinians, subjecting them to the slow death of malnutrition, disease and despair, nearly two years before their subjection to the quick death of Israeli bombs. We are witness to a slow-motion process of genocide (Websters: “the systematic killing of, or a program of action intended to destroy, a whole national or ethnic group”), a process whose objective is not so much to physically eliminate each and every Palestinian than to eliminate the Palestinians as a people in any meaningful sense of the notion of people-hood.”

The e-mail also  contained more than two dozen photographs of Jewish victims of the Nazis, including those of dead children juxtaposed with similar images from the Gaza Strip.

Two students who received the email dropped the class  They reportedly also sought advice from the Simon Wiesenthal Center and were allegedly advised to file formal grievances with the university.  They grievances were filed accusing the professor of intimidation and “violating the campus’ faculty code of conduct by disseminating personal, political material unrelated to his course.”

Professor Robinson defended the email stating that it was designed to prompt open discussion and debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that the school was violating his 1st amendment rights and right of Academic Freedom.  He also alleged he was being retaliated against for his anti-Israel statements.

An investigation ensued under a firestorm of controversy including the way the inquiry was conducted. Professor Robinson alleged he was denied due process . During the course of the 5 month investigation professor Robinson was called out with harsh criticism by the Anti Defamation League.(ADL)

Professor Robinson, who is Jewish, was cleared of any wrongdoing. He is now demanding an apology from the University. Is he owed one?

There are 1st Amendment/Free Speech and academic freedom considerations here.  UC-Santa Barbara is a state school.  Professor Robinson does have 1st Amendment protection for certain types of speech.  Compare this to a private company such as Facebook where there is no 1st Amendment protection for posted content.  An end-users free-speech rights in that realm are controlled entirely by Facebook Terms Of Service.(TOS)   Compare also to a private university where there would generally be no 1st amendment protection. A professors speech rights would generally be  controlled by whatever rules and regulations regulating speech the university has in place.(California in fact grants greater free speech rights at private universities)

Like Facebook, UC-Santa Barbara has its own version of TOS. It has it’s of Faculty Conduct.  That code says that a professor may not use university resources to disseminate personal, political materials unrelated to his course.”

There is no question here that the email and photos sent out by professor Robinson were political. The issue becomes whether it was course related or a personal rant.  Whether there is enough relation to what he is teaching to trigger his “right of academic freedom“. This right allows him to teach his course without undue interference from the University.

Was the email germane to the course he was teaching and advancing a legitimate educational objective? I was  able to locate a copy of the syllabus for the course Sociology of Globalization(130SG) taught by professor Robinson.  I may have missed something but I did not see anything even remotely connected to the content of the email.

Is Professor Robinson Anti-Semitic as some claim?  He may or may not be but as long as he does not bring it into the classroom it is irrelevant.  Is the email itself Anti-Semitic? It is certainly not Anti-Semitic  to  simply criticize Israeli policy. As we all know however, semantics and form over substance are often involved in these issues.  Holocaust Denial is a perfect example. While the mere fact of “Denying The Holocaust” may not carry words of hate in it, there are those, including myself who feel that Holocaust Denial is nothing more than an Anti-Semitic pretext for bringing those together who hate Jews.

The Robinson analogy does by implication portray Israelis as  genocidal mass murderers  and in that context could be viewed as Anti-Semitic.  I also view the email as historically insensitive as well as bizarre and buffoonish in its analogies.  It certainly damages Professor Robinson’s credibility as a scholar.  I would not be taking any comparative history course from him.  The 1st Amendment and right of academic freedom however allows Professor Robinson to be a buffoon and historical idiot.

What the email did do is procedurally violate university policy.  Using university resources, Professor Robinson sent a personal, inflammatory, political email that could have no other intent than to influence his students.  His subjective ,after-the-fact statement of  intent does not change the real time context of the email when it was it sent. If a professor could always justify a potentially university policy  violative exchange of content with a subjective after the fact intent statement, nothing with ever violate a Code Of Conduct.   There simply was no context.  The course syllabus has no relation whatsoever to the content of the email.

What if he had simply read the contents of the email in class, putting the pictures up on a big screen as he read the email?

While I can not speak to the alleged lack of due process, in my mind the email clearly violated the Faculty Code Of Conduct. Professor Robinson should have been disciplined.   An apology is owed but not by the University…

Here is Professor Robinson’s side of the story in a April 29, 2009  interview given to Counterpunch.

Below is the perspective a student in the class.