The Michigan Technological Foul Against Matthew Schultz

[XLFD]

In the age of text messages, the Twitter tweet, and various social media chats, sometimes what you post can come back to hurt you, even when there was no intent on your part to do so.  Others with the power to negatively affect your life may read something threatening into your writings that can lead to some very serious charges that could land you in prison for up to twenty years

They may even pervert the original intent through duplicity, by taking words totally out of context, or as in the following, edit out words that converts an innocent statement into a very guilty threat.  Consider only reading the top of the meme below and believing that the gentleman brandishing his belt has admitted his guilt for multiple charges of assault...

...until you read the bottom.  Had you been a conscientious police officer reading a meme, text message or tweet that had the incomplete thought above the man's head, you may have tried to arrest or press charges against him until your investigation uncovered the rest of the text. 

But what if you were that investigating authority, totally aware of the completely innocent statement made, and decided to reveal only the partial statement to the media, and tried to have the man prosecuted for repeated assaults on his wife. 

This is essentially what happened to a young man named Matthew Schultz from the small upper peninsula town of Norway, Michigan who made what he thought was a harmless post on a social media smartphone application called Yik-Yak.  His words, or more correctly, some of his words, were seen and relayed to local authorities through another young man in the area, smartly edited and provocatively presented.  What happened next is exemplary of how authorities often run afoul of common sense and decency in order to conduct a witch hunt on someone whose only crime was sharing a thought which actually runs counter to what he purportedly posted.

You may recognize Schultz's name if you are a frequent Ludington Torch reader, he was featured in an article comparing and contrasting his plight with the so-called MSU Bathroom Stall Glamour Terrorist in an overview on Michigan College Terrorism...  This article related that the threat Mr. Schultz allegedly made was "Gonna shoot all black people" back in November 2015 while going to school at Michigan Technological University (MTU) in Houghton.

On December 7, Houghton County Prosecutor Michael Makinen decided to drop all charges against Schultz, claiming that while authorities take the situation very seriously, the action did not merit a terrorism charge,  nor did the evidence suggest the lesser misdemeanor of disturbing the peace.  You will note that this editor of the LT wondered why Schultz's "Gonna Shoot all Black People" was treated so cavalierly while MSU's Sidney Gort was getting serious charges made by serious prosecutors for what the law clearly did not define as anything resembling an "act of terrorism". 

But while Schultz was getting vilified by the Torch, many other news outlets, and fellow social media users, the truth behind what Schultz had actually posted was being withheld from the public and the media by the authorities at MTU, the police, and the prosecution.  These continued to be withheld from everyone outside the 'investigation' even as Matthew Schultz's life was being ruined from being labelled a violent racist and having to deal with the very real fear of somebody taking their own hatred of his words into acts of retribution. 

This ignorance would continue until Schultz's recent filing of a federal lawsuit naming Michigan Tech University, 11 MTU staff including the President and police chief plus several vice presidents and a former MTU student as defendants (Man Sues MTU).  The honor student with a promising future as an automotive engineer accuses them of ruining his life by falsely portraying a social media post he meant as a joke, turning it into a national news story falsely portraying him as a poster boy for white racism. 

The suit illustrates the original social media post:

“Gonna shoot all black people…….a smile tomorrow”.  That statement ends with the symbol of a “cheesy smiley face” called an emoji.  Shooting someone a smile is definitely not a violent act, it's actually quite the reverse.  The lawsuit expresses Schultz's intent, which seems reasonable considering the context that he was making fun of other racist posts: 

“With the intent to point out the ridiculous nature of the threats (‘shoot every black person’) and the illiterate language used by racists (gonna) Matthew post the following: ‘Gonna shoot all black people…….a smile tomorrow,’ meaning he is going to shoot a smile at black people, expressing in a humorous way, that he is not racist.”

The following already-existing meme shows that Matthew Schultz's double-meaning was not new:

The suit  argues that MTU officials overreacted and thrust Schultz into the national media spotlight – when on Nov. 12, 2015 at 1:46 p.m. a post by Schultz – or at least part of his post – was taken to heart and disseminated by MTU officials (by a local troublemaker. Ryan Grainger) who then shut down the campus sparking a media firestorm.

On that late fall day last year, and just hours before the heavily armed U.P. deer season – Schultz “noticed Yik Yak posts that included comments about recent threats on the campus of the University of Missouri and posts about MTU having its own racial issues.”

After publishing his post, Grainger snipped off the latter part of the post before allegedly taking it off of Yik Yak and sending it to MTU's Public Safety director, a MTU veep, and the college's active Twitter feed.  The veep had also been sent the unedited post directly.  After arresting Schultz and getting search warrants for his effects and Yik Yak account, they reportedly never informed him of the altered post, while spreading the edited post and Schultz's picture throughout the nation as someone who threatened to shoot all black people, winding up even here at the Ludington Torch, and as Exhibit R in the lawsuit. 

The lawsuit in its entirety portrays both MTU, its Public Safety Department and the local police as keeping the public in the dark about what they were doing, fumbling facts, and conducting secret hearings to make Matthew Schultz's life go into a tailspin, all because they acted upon hysteria they had themselves bred in the public and the media. 

Incredibly, now that the mostly verifiable facts of the lawsuit are available, some of these same officials and media outlets are claiming that even the non-edited post provided all the rationale for all of what happened with Matthew Schultz.  These people are morons. 

All I can say at this point is "I am incredibly sorry that I had some part in this whole affair, and I will try even harder in the future to fact-check the police and the media if at all possible when gathering information.  This was fake news on steroids, and any media that still believes that MTU, the local police, and the local media acted appropriately throughout this affair needs to suffer the same grist mill you put this young man through.  I will amend my earlier story regarding Schultz for posterity's sake, and make him the poster boy for an oppressive system keen on destroying our freedom of speech and our next generation, rather than the poster boy for racism."

[Willy]

X, was your article used as evidence in a court proceeding? I think you did a good job of reporting the facts that were known at the time and you relied on information that should have been factual.

First of all who would joke about this type of statement. He's got to be the most naive person in the UP. I had a neighbor who when he feuded with a particular neighbor would say "I'm going to take care of this situation. I'm going to kill him.................long pause...........with kindness." Well, I knew this neighbor very well and understood how he explains himself but many others wouldn't look at his comments the way I did. I told him to consider what he says and how he worded his comments, especially to others who lived in the area. I'm sorry for the student but using poor judgement on the internet especially when joking about violence will only get you in trouble. Now about the authorities. What a bunch of numbskulls. I hope the student gets enough money from his lawsuit to retire because he is certainly going to need it.

[XLFD]

My article was Exhibit R in the original lawsuit, one of several examples where the incomplete words of Schultz were used in order to depict him as somebody who wrote an inexcusable threat to black people.  The full lawsuit plus exhibits are in a great Upper Peninsula website called U.P. Breaking News.

I would agree that it was poor judgment in this day and age to mention another discrimination-class group, jokingly or not, in any way that could be construed to be threatening.  Here. as you noticed, the authorities screwed up big time, and if you read and believe the lawsuit (and it is quite believable and heavily documented) their blatant mistakes throughout the process should mean a good settlement for Schultz, and hopefully, a reinstatement and apology from those who wronged him. 

In the couple of months that this lawsuit has been out there, particularly in the news of the U.P., I was very surprised (yet, I really guess I shouldn't be) that other news agencies that reported the erroneous 'threat' he made, have not both apologized to Schultz for the misinformation they helped spread or attacked the MTU and police officials that misled them into publishing falsehoods.