Official to Face Hearing Over Blog Attacks

Official to Face Hearing Over Blog Attacks
By EMMA GRAVES FITZSIMMONS
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: October 1, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/02/us/politics/02michigan.html?th&emc=th


An assistant attorney general in Michigan has taken a personal leave of absence and may be disciplined for his online attacks on a gay campus leader at the University of Michigan.

The official, Andrew Shirvell, has drawn national attention — and calls for his ouster — because of his attacks through his personal blog on the student, Chris Armstrong, who is believed to be the first openly gay president of the university’s student assembly. Mr. Shirvell has called Mr. Armstrong a racist with a “radical homosexual agenda.”

Mr. Shirvell, will face a disciplinary hearing when he returns to work, a spokesman for the attorney general said Friday. Mr. Armstrong, 21, has filed for a personal protection order against Mr. Shirvell.

University officials and students have come together to support Mr. Armstrong. The university has banned Mr. Shirvell from campus, and its president, Mary Sue Coleman, called his behavior reprehensible. “As a community, we must not and will not accept displays of intolerance,” Ms. Coleman said in a statement.

A Facebook group called We Support Chris Armstrong had more than 10,600 supporters on Friday.

The state’s attorney general, Mike Cox, said earlier this week that Mr. Shirvell had a right to express his opinions when he was not at work even though his actions were “offensive.” But on Friday, Mr. Cox’s office said that he decided to call a disciplinary hearing because more issues regarding Mr. Shirvell’s conduct had come to light in recent days.

The blog, which is called Chris Armstrong Watch, has been made private. In Mr. Armstrong’s request for an order of protection, he said that Mr. Shirvell took pictures outside his house at 1:30 a.m.

Efforts to reach Mr. Shirvell were unsuccessful, but in an interview on CNN, he said he had “protested” outside Mr. Armstrong’s home. Mr. Shirvell, who made the point many times during the interview that he was a University of Michigan alum, said that one of his major issues with Mr. Armstrong was his campaign to create “gender-neutral housing” on campus where students could live with someone of the same or opposite sex.

“I have no problem with the fact that Chris is a homosexual,” Mr. Shirvell said in the interview. “I have a problem with the fact that he is advancing a very radical agenda.”

Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, a Democrat, weighed in via Twitter, saying, “If I was still attorney general and Andrew Shirvell worked for me, he would have already been fired.” David Leyton, the Democratic candidate for attorney general, demanded that Mr. Shirvell be fired.

Mr. Armstrong, who did not respond to a request for an interview, was an intern this summer with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and in the past with the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund.

Denis Dison, communications director at the fund, said that a public official should not be bullying students.

“We are advocating that nobody engage in the type of harassment that he was engaging in,” Mr. Dison said.