Charges Dropped, Academic Violation Looms

Some may already be aware that criminal charges against Jacob Miller and Evan Lisull were dropped by President Shelton this afternoon.  However, the Star is also reporting that instead of issuing further criminal citations for chalking, culprits will now be referred to the Dean of Student's Office for a code of conduct violation.  In short, speech acts at the UA will still carry with them punitive consequences.  So though Mr. Miller and Mr. Lisull's criminal charges were dropped, they still face administratively governed ones.  If reflected upon for moment, one can see the same insidious tactic is at play: students will continue to be targeted for speech act violations.    This is not over, and I implore all colleagues not to let up on this issue; as it stands now, our students will no longer have the same right to speech as faculty.