Piccione either was ignorant of or merely ignored the difference between Lynch’s decision to put her views out on the public stage, and what Mael did with those views once placed there. His mass email demonized Mael, conflating the journalist’s words and actions with those of misguided and cretinous commenters on Lynch’s tweets. He also took the opportunity to state, as if fact, that the news site for which Mael writes is largely followed by “white supremacist[s]” thereby smearing Mael with the same brush.
Another email was sent out later that evening to the Brandeis community by the leaders of the Brandeis University Undergraduate Student Union. This group issued a full-throated defense of Lynch and condemnation of her attackers, while distancing itself very gingerly from the substance of her tweets. But not one word about Mael and his free speech rights.
When asked, Mael told The Jewish Press: “It is sad that the Brandeis Student Union failed to condemn Ms. Lynch’s vicious rhetoric. I believe that the leaders of the campus community should have the moral courage to take a stand in favor of humanity and against her utter lack of empathy for the murder of American police officers.”
Neither the student government leadership nor, not surprisingly, Michael Piccione mentioned Daniel Mael’s right of free speech and opinion. This disappointed Mael as well. He commented to The Jewish Press:
It is unfortunate that not a single member of the faculty or student administration has condemned the derogatory and abusive language used online that was often libelous. The campaign of grotesque language has created an atmosphere is incitement and intimidation. The silence of campus leaders in this situation is deeply saddening and worrisome.
Attempts by The Jewish Press to obtain a comment from Brandeis University went unanswered.
An email petition campaign, however, was started by an external “Coalition for A Safe Brandeis” asking for signatures calling on Brandeis University to secure Mael’s “safety and free speech rights.” Many alumni have signed the petition, expressing disgust over the contretemps and dismay that the administration has been absent without leave.
Perhaps most troublesome in the student response is that Piccione’s email cites various ways in which Mael may have violated certain aspects of Brandeis University’s Student Conduct Code.
Had Mael scooped up Lynch’s private handwritten notes, Piccione may have had a leg to stand on. But to claim that anything Mael did violated the student conduct code is at the very least preposterous. Still worse, Piccione, as the Daily Caller first noted, is a member of the Student Conduct Board. Whether his emphatic declarations that Mael’s conduct violated the school conduct code, given his role, constitutes an abuse of position, it surely was intended to invest his words with additional weight. The idea that Mael “stalked” or “endangered the health, safety or welfare” of Lynch by simply amplifying her own words is, well, sophomoric.
Most of what Lynch’s defenders excoriate Mael over is making public what Lynch and they claim were her private views. That claim, of course, fails utterly because Lynch chose to publicly share her lack of sympathy for the cold-blooded murder of two completely random police officers.
Not one Mael critic has come up with any errors or inaccuracies in his articles. Some parroted a groundless claim of Lynch’s that Mael slandered her, but that was made in writing and easily dismissible as an improper invocation of the term. Lynch wrote in an email to Mael, who wrote her before publishing his article:
“I do not want my personal opinion publicized and if you do not abide by my wishes I constitute [sic] your disregard as slander.”
LYNCH ON A PUBLIC RADIO SHOW CONTINUES EXPRESSING HER HATRED OF THE POLICE