Noel Jackson, an associate professor of literature at MIT, was really upset after the shooting of Michael Brown — so much so that he took to Twitter to go on lengthy rants, but also to lambaste colleagues at his school and elsewhere.
He ripped his “surprisingly placid” fellow academics for “sitting quietly on the sidelines as activism, both digital and physical, spread across the country.”
After criticizing two professors from the University of Maryland for their “inhumane” and “disgraceful” silence regarding Brown’s killing, he then bashed MIT’s School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences for “promoting garbage.’” He also said that institutional racism should be destroyed — “by force if necessary.”
The next day, “four to six” police officers got Jackson out of bed and took him to the hospital … for a psychological evaluation.
In subsequent tweets, Jackson claimed he was given no paperwork or explanation for his medical detention, and warned: “Just putting the word out there… Your institution will do you in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY (if you dare to say something)”
Then—after a stream of non-stop tweeting—Jackson’s Twitter account went conspicuously silent. Five days later, he reappeared, saying he was doing well but had been placed in the hospital by MIT. “I was section 12’d by my employer. This was the unexpected but not altogether unsurprising end to my experiment in excitable speech.”
The law under which Jackson was allegedly hospitalized is presumably the 12th section of the Massachusetts General Law, which stipulates “the admission of an individual to a general or psychiatric hospital for psychiatric evaluation and, potentially, treatment.” The law can be triggered if the person would “create a likelihood of serious harm by reason of mental illness” and allows them to be kept for up to three business days against their will.
On Twitter, Jackson attributes his alleged institutionalization to one series of tweets on the afternoon of August 29 in which he writes that he hopes to slice the “weak guts of #whitesupremacy” with a “MOTHERFUCKING SCALPEL.”
MIT “would only confirm that Jackson is part of the school’s faculty,” but now on leave.
The professor has now lawyered up, demanding that MIT provide the “#LegallyActionableTweet” or reinstate him.
Many of Jackson’s tweets make those of Steven Salaita — to whom Jackson compares his “academic freedom” situation — seem tame in comparison.
One commenter at The Daily Beast article says “… the school did the right thing by reporting it. Imagine the backlash if this idiot had done something violent and the school did nothing.”
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