SHARE

By of the

Fans of the cult TV show "Firefly," which features characters who battled an authoritarian government, are targeting the University of Wisconsin-Stout after administrators pulled down a professor's poster quoting a rebellious character from the show.

UW-Stout received hundreds of emails from "Firefly" fans after the show's star and a nonprofit self-described individual rights group took up theater professor James Miller's cause.

"Firefly" - a program that was part space odyssey, part throwback Western - was canceled after part of one season in 2002, but developed a fan base that prompted a movie and strong sales of DVDs of the show. Miller said Tuesday that he saw the show over the summer after hearing from friends who liked it.

Miller did, too, and decided to put a poster on a bulletin board on the door to his office. It featured the response of the lead character, Malcolm "Mal" Reynolds, when another character asks how Mal could be trusted to not kill him in his sleep.

"You don't know me, son, so let me explain this to you once," the poster reads. "If I ever kill you, you'll be awake. You'll be facing me. And you'll be armed."

The poster went on Miller's door Sept. 12. Four days later, UW-Stout Police Chief Lisa Walter emailed Miller, writing that the poster had been removed and that "it is unacceptable to have postings such as this that refer to killing."

University officials say they believe in free speech but can't allow posters in public that imply threats of violence. "He thinks we acted improperly, and we didn't," UW-Stout spokesman Doug Mell said of the professor. "The posters are down and they're going to stay down."

Miller, some of the show's fans and the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which is backing the professor, argue no one would take the message from the John Wayne-inspired character as an actual threat.

"It's absurd to say that a reference to violence is some kind of threat," Miller said, arguing that news clippings posted on his door could contain a reference to violence. "It was a real overreach."

According to an email exchange supplied by Miller, he shot back with an email arguing that the university was squelching his free speech. Miller said he also sent a clip of a scene from the show to administrators that which contained context that was not in the poster.

Miller said he then decided to tweak administrators with another poster. "Warning: Fascism," it reads. It also contains a pictogram of a police officer hitting a person with a baton.

"Fascism can cause blunt head trauma and/or violent death," the poster reads. "Keep fascism away from children and pets."

That posting also was removed.

Walter emailed Miller again, writing that the poster "depicts violence and mentions violence and death" and that the campus' threat assessment team agreed the poster could be "constituted as a threat."

Miller was ordered to attend a meeting with the interim dean of his department and with the police chief. That meeting was later postponed and then canceled.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, wrote a letter to UW-Stout Chancellor Charles Sorenson and crafted a news release that prompted the actor who played Mal, Nathan Fillion, to send a message to his more than 900,000 fans on the social media website Twitter. The organization said more than 400 people had emailed the university by Tuesday morning.

FIRE also asked the university for an apology. Miller said he would like an apology, but he's "enough of a realist to realize that's probably not going to happen."

Mell, the university spokesman, said other posters would have to be interpreted based on context - the specific message, where it's displayed and other factors. But the messages from Miller's posters were clearly over the line.

"We have a responsibility as a university to provide an atmosphere for our students, faculty and staff that is safe," Mell said, arguing such incidents need to be examined in the light of mass shootings that have happened at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois universities in recent years. "Something like that had better change your perception."