Hark the Avenging Angel Sings

I was reading the NP insert of national news in this morning’s London Freeps and came across a story with this as the first line:

“A Simon Fraser University shuttle bus driver has lost a freedom of speech appeal after he was fired for stopping on the job to tell a construction flagperson she was beautiful.”

My spell-checker doesn’t like that word ‘flagperson’, but that is the quote. Anyway, the rest of the story is that said bus driver did indeed do what is written there, and said flagwoman apparently took offense, and did something about it. She reported him to the university’s security people, who also took a statement from another witness. SFU then informed the driver’s employer, one Luxury Transport, and they in turn fired the fellow two weeks later.

Here is what the article says LT wrote to the driver in the termination letter:

“What is of great concern to us is that you do not believe that there was anything remotely wrong regarding your comments….”

“You continue to hold that view. You do not seem to understand or care that your comments had a negative impact.”

The other details in the story are that SFU did not tell LT to fire the driver, but informed them that he was not allowed to drive on campus any more. LT then offered him another route, which he refused, so they fired him. In response, the driver filed Freedom of Information requests with SFU for the material related to this and got back sheets of paper that were entirely blacked out. The driver also filed numerous complaints against SFU and LT and others, asserting they had violated his right to privacy and to free speech.

Clearly, the driver was a pain in the ass once this got going, and was determined to fight every step of the way.

My interest here is in the original incident, and the flagwoman’s response. The driver’s name is given in the story, but not hers, so I will refer to her as AA – Avenging Angel. Having the driver do what he admits he did, it is well within AA’s rights to be offended. Not all women would be, but if she was, so be it. A perfectly sane and – I will say proportionate – response to the driver’s unwelcome comment would be to yell something along the lines of ‘Fuck off, Asshole’. Crime, meet punishment. He said something to you that pissed you off, or offended you, return the favour. Like I said, proportionate.

But no, not today. AA decides to call in Big Brother to teach this fellow a lesson. She notes the logo on the bus and goes to SFU security and files a complaint. They in turn find another witness, or maybe AA brings one along with her, and there the tale of righteous revenge begins. I would bet $100 that somewhere in AA’s statement is the phrase ‘I felt unsafe’, but we already know that bet can never be resolved. All we will ever be allowed to see of said statement is a blacked-out page.

SFU in turn does not insist the driver be fired, their lawyers would at least know that they have no right to demand that, so they insist he not drive on their ‘safe’ campus. It is probably true that the driver could have kept his job had he apologized – at least to his bosses – and taken another route. Cojones, or just stubborn? You can decide for yourself.

I have to imagine that AA is pleased with herself, and that the SFU bureaucracy feels it has done what it must to keep the campus a safe place, free of comments with a ‘negative impact’, for flagwomen and others.