Midwestern State University Professor Nathan Jun called for all law enforcement officials to be strangled to death in August, and now he’s facing death threats and doxxing attempts.
According to his faculty page at the school, Jun teaches courses “Health Care Ethics,” “Philosophy of Race and Racism,” “Multicultural Philosophy,” and “Philosophy of Horror and Macabre,” among others.
What are the details?
Jun made the remarks in a now-viral Facebook thread, which painted a grisly picture of capitalists and police officers.
According to the College Fix, Jun wrote, “I want the entire world to burn until the last cop is strangled with the intestines of the last capitalist, who is strangled in turn with the intestines of the last politician.”
After Jun’s statement went viral, the school issued a public statement backing Jun’s right to make such statements.
“As a public university, we recognize and protect individuals’ free speech rights under the First Amendment so that ideas and information may be freely exchanged and examined without the threat of censorship or retaliation,” a statement shared Friday on KFDX-TV said. “Occasionally individuals will express opinions that may be offensive and even shocking, but are nonetheless entitled to First Amendment protection. When our faculty members speak or write as citizens within the confines of the law, they are free from institutional censorship or discipline.”
“Though we take advantage of every opportunity to encourage all members of the campus community to express their opinions in a civil, respectful manner, we view avoidance of censorship as an important part of maintaining the culture of diversity of opinion and academic freedom that is so important to our role as a public university,” the statement concluded.
What is Jun saying now?
Jun, however, took issue with initial reports on the matter and said that it was important that all of his comments be taken in context.
He said the lack of apparent context “helped gin up the latest in a long line of violent, hysterical attacks against [his] person and property,” according to the Fix.
Social media user “Dead Legendre” shared what appeared to be a note from Jun to his “comrades” explaining the context of the remark.
A portion of the lengthy note said, “Within 24 hours of [a speech Jun delivered on Sept. 24 during a rally for Breonna Taylor] I already had received several death threats. The situation quickly escalated after fascists (acting in concert with local media) disseminated a comment I posted on a friend’s Facebook page.”
Jun then cited the above-mentioned reporting from KFDX.
“As of this morning, I have received more than 300 death threats by phone, email, text, and private message. I also discovered that my home had been vandalized again … the fifth time since June,” he wrote.
“The harassment has been so intense that I have been compelled to relocate to a hotel for my own safety,” Jun said, according to the Fix.
“It is only because we are living in the midst of a phony, ginned-up hysteria (known by scholars as ‘The Antifa Scare’) that the local right has decided to go after me,” the professor insisted, as reported by the outlet. “As a person who doesn’t own a gun or have a criminal record — and who belongs to a member of a historically persecuted group that is greatly underrepresented in Wichita Falls — I am very clearly an easy target for them.”
He told KFDX that he does yearn to be a part of a utopian society that excludes police officers and politicians.
“I do long to live in a world in which we no longer have cops, which we no longer have capitalists, and which we no longer have politicians,” he admitted. “Because those are my political beliefs and I own them and I make no apologies for those beliefs.”
What else?
In 2014, Jun shared a video to YouTube titled “What is Anarchist Studies?” in which he describes … well, what “anarchist studies” is supposed to be.
Spoiler: He’s not sure what it means, either.
In the video, he says, “First of all I think that ‘anarchist studies’ is a contested term. I don’t think that there’s any real consensus necessarily among those of us who like to think of ourselves as working in ‘anarchist studies.’ I think it’s something that we’re still trying to figure out. I think that we’re engaged in active discussions with one another about what ‘anarchist studies’ is, and what it entails, and what it might be.”
“With that said,” he continued, “I think that it’s possible to provide at least a general account of ‘anarchist studies,’ and I would say that according to that account, ‘anarchist studies’ is simply what anarchists do when we reflect honestly on and think critically about ourselves. So, ‘anarchists studies’ is what anarchists do when we think about what it is we believe, and what it is we do, and what we want to bring about, and how we want to bring it about and so forth.”
