DAVIS — A University of California, Davis professor is under fire for his comments and tweets advocating for the death of police officers recently resurfaced.
There were 10,000 signatures delivered Wednesday all in the hope that UC Davis dismisses Joshua Clover.
“We’re talking about someone who is calling for the death, the explicit death of a group of people,” said Assemblyman James Gallagher, R-Yuba City.
Gallagher led the effort and along with a group of law enforcement supporters, demanded the university take action against professor Clover.
In 2016, he said, “People think that cops need to be reformed. They need to be killed.” Two years prior, Clover tweeted, “I’m thankful that every living cop will one day be dead, some by their own hand, some by others, too many of old age,” as well as, “I mean, it’s easier to shoot cops when their backs are turned, no?”
“There is no place for it,” Gallagher said. “The way that you show that there is no place is by terminating this professor for those statements that he made.”
“There’s so many victims families that are quiet and they don’t speak out often,” said Linda Mobilio. “And they are wanting some kind of consequence or action taken.”
Mobilio’s husband, Officer David Mobilio, was shot in the back and killed in the line of duty in 2002. With her husband in mind, Mobilio too was calling for professor Clover to be let go.
But that won’t be easy. He’s a tenured professor. For the university to dismiss him, it’s a lengthy process.
That would require the UC president, UC Davis chancellor and UC Academic Senate to all agree to remove professor Clover. Then the UC president must make a formal “removal” recommendation to the UC Board of Regents, who would have to vote to dismiss the professor.
“They sort of brush them off like they’re just words and for me, for my family, those words resulted in someone taking action,” Mobilio said.
FOX40 reached out to professor Clover. He refused an interview request and copied a statement previously sent to FOX40:
“On the day that police have as much to fear from literature professors as black kids do from police, I will definitely have a statement. Until then I have nothing further to add.”
The university has said tenured professors have broad protection for comments they make and that this may be a free speech issue. Assemblyman Gallagher pointed out, however, language that incites violence is not protected speech under the First Amendment.
