Glenn Reynolds Reiterates Belief in the Summary Execution of Protestors

Glenn Reynolds, a law professor, called for the summary execution of protestors. In a non-apology apology, he clarified that he still believed there were numerous circumstances in which people should kill protestors. In a follow-up post, he approvingly posts an email trying to define Reynolds’s tweet as an answer to the “trolley problem”, because apparently anyone in a car when protestors use the common tactic of blocking traffic is in “reasonable fear for his life.” Right. There is no possible defense for this, and Reynolds has an extensive history of this kind of thing.

And, yet, I agree with Henry that Reynolds should not be disciplined. Reynolds’s words, reprehensible as they are, were not plausibly an incitement in the sense that would exclude them from First Amendment protection. Reynolds should be protected by academic freedom, even if his own commitment to the concept is less than robust.