On the behavior of Michigan assistant attorney general Shervill: This one really is a no-brainer

 

This column was first printed in the Traverse City Record-Eagle on Oct. 10, 2010:

In the case of the assistant Michigan attorney general on a personal and vitriolic crusade against Chris Armstrong, the openly gay president of the University of Michigan student body, for the very fact that he is gay and supposedly promoting “a radical homosexual agenda” on campus, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what was wrong with the whole picture.

The state attorney general – his boss, remember – and even the ACLU were saying that he had a right to free speech.

And then it hit me.

Common sense. That’s what was wrong, or actually, missing.

Since last April, assistant state attorney general Andrew Shervill has run a “Chris Armstrong Watch” blog, calling him a liar, demanding his resignation,  running a picture of him with a rainbow flag and swastika on his face. Shervill has staked out and videotaped Armstrong’s house in the wee hours of the morning and harassed him to the point that Armstrong has filed for a personal protection order. The University of Michigan has taken the extraordinary measure of banning Shervill from campus.

Now, I don’t think I’ve ever worked anywhere that there wasn’t an expectation that you would conduct yourself in a way that wouldn’t discredit the employer – on or off the job. The notion of conduct unbecoming an officer certainly translates to conduct unbecoming an employee –especially as it relates to a specific job. I remember the time a public relations person, paid specifically to foster positive communication with the press, was openly trashing the Record-Eagle on Facebook. When you have certain jobs, there are corresponding things you do not do.

It’s called common sense.

So here we have a highly paid public employee, charged with upholding the law, actively engaging in intimidation, stalking, cyberbullying and harassment based on someone’s sexual orientation. Our state attorney general saw fit to do nothing until the national press ran with it a few weeks ago. And this was in the same news cycle that was reporting the suicide of a college freshman out east resulting from harassment relating to a sexual encounter with another man.

Shervill is now on a voluntary leave of absence from his job. He may have a right to free speech, but with a job like his, doesn’t he have an obligation to operate in a way that shows he is fair, rational, impartial and reasonable?

As a parent of two recent college graduates, I can’t imagine what it would be like to have a raging assistant attorney general assign a bullseye to my kid’s head and go after him so publicly and relentlessly as has happened here. This is free speech?

No, common sense dictates it is much more than that.

And that would be scary. Inappropriate. Unacceptable. And not to be tolerated — not from an officer of the law, on the public payroll. Or anyone, for that matter.

 

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