Inside Higher Ed has a strange story today about a professor at Maricopa Community College who is in hot water for having sent an email with George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving address. The trouble is that the prof got GW’s address from Pat Buchanan’s blog and linked to it. Now he’s being charged with harassment by other faculty members who are upset because they don’t like Buchanan’s policy positions.
Back when I was in law school, in torts class we discussed the problem of the eggshell plaintiff — the person who is so hypersensitive that no reasonable person could foresee that his conduct would cause any damage. If I recall correctly, the legal test is whether harm was reasonably foreseeable. But that’s tort law, when common sense often prevails. Federal harassment law may well be different. Why someone would file a complaint over a blog site he can easily ignore? I think that the answer is clear: Anti-harassment law was intended as a shield, but it can be used as a sword also. Here, some faculty members saw a chance to get back at a colleague whose ideas they don’t like.
