Whenever I am in the Twin Cities, I look for a copy of City Pages. You can almost always find a pile of them when you walk into any brew pub or Indian restaurant. It contains a lot of information about events in the cities, as well as cartoons and some interesting journalism. The politics is hard urban left, and always a bit nutty. But now and again you find a surprise. This piece, by Ward Rubrecht, is a surprise. It concerns the case of Troy Scheffler, a Hamline University grad student.
A gun-toting concealed carry permit holder, he rarely leaves home without his sidearm. He feels safer in the rough areas of town when he's armed, though he knows not everyone feels safe around him. A couple of days ago, he got pulled over for speeding. When the cop noticed the concealed carry permit, he ordered Scheffler out of the car, patted him down, and searched his car.
Apparently the exercise of legal rights in the cities is probable cause for Minneapolis's finest. But it was Mr. Scheffler's views on the Virginia Tech tragedy that got him in trouble with Hamline's administration.
In the aftermath, officials at Hamline University sought to comfort their 4,000 students. David Stern, the vice president for academic and student affairs, sent a campus-wide email offering extra counseling sessions for those who needed help coping.
Scheffler had a different opinion of how the university should react. Using the email handle "Tough Guy Scheffler," Troy fired off his response: Counseling wouldn't make students feel safer, he argued. They needed protection. And the best way to provide it would be for the university to lift its recently implemented prohibition against concealed weapons.
"Ironically, according to a few VA Tech forums, there are plenty of students complaining that this wouldn't have happened if the school wouldn't have banned their permits a few months ago," Scheffler wrote. "I just don't understand why leftists don't understand that criminals don't care about laws; that is why they're criminals. Maybe this school will reconsider its repression of law-abiding citizens' rights."
I don't happen to share Mr. Scheffler's view that right to carry laws are the best way to protect students against random acts of violence. But I do think he has a right to express such views, and to petition authorities on this matter. Hamline University does not agree with me.
Hamline officials took swift action. On April 23, Scheffler received a letter informing him he'd been placed on interim suspension. To be considered for readmittance, he'd have to pay for a psychological evaluation and undergo any treatment deemed necessary, then meet with the dean of students, who would ultimately decide whether Scheffler was fit to return to the university.
The consequences were severe. Scheffler wasn't allowed to participate in a final group project in his course on Human Resources Management, which will have a big impact on his final grade. Even if he's reinstated, the suspension will go on his permanent record, which could hurt the aspiring law student.
This is a flagrant violation of freedom of speech and freedom of petition. But freedom is not what the modern university is about, is it?
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