No one reported that Mr. Gerard used profanity or raised his voice with them. No one reported that he threatened violence against any specific person, or that he committed any acts of violence. Mr. Gerard has no history of misconduct at KSU or, to our knowledge, elsewhere.
[…] The next question is whether Mr. Gerard’s conduct “is severe or pervasive enough to create a work environment that a reasonable person would consider intimidating, hostile or abusive.” We find that it is not.
[…] we find no words or actions by Mr. Gerard that rise to the level of a hostile work environment under the law.
— Andrew Newton, Assoc. Legal Counsel
KSU Division of Legal Affairs
These two documents open and close the case as far as KSU Legal was concerned, but that does not mean the conflict is over:
- A threat from Flora Devine in KSU Legal. Since receiving this letter, Sage is prohibited from entering the Interdisciplinary Studies Department (ISD) offices and from contacting all actual or perceived complainants.
- A report by Andrew Newton, also from KSU Legal, which states that Sage is not to contact ANY ISD member about allegations, although he phrases it as a “continuation” of the previous no-contact in spite of the change in parameters.
These two documents contain some facts and some errors framed such that the errors look as true as the facts. If you open the PDFs in Adobe Reader (I really mean use Adobe Reader. Do not view them online because the formatting will break, and you will not be able to read comment boxes), you should see highlighting and comments Sage used to state his side. I won’t bother reiterating everything he already wrote. The main take-away I want to put out there is that Sage is innocent regarding allegations that he is Satan.
I’m not talking about innocent until proven guilty innocent. I am talking about didn’t do jack shit innocent, except that he expressed ideas to which the fascist swine at KSU took umbrage – which is now clear they do with anything with which they disagree. .
Before continuing The Interdisciplinary Shaming Department series, I need to take a moment to discuss one of the events that caused ISD to go anal explosive.
In March of 2013, Sage put up stickers promoting AVfM. I will call this #KSUStickerGate due to fact that some of the women in the ISD reacted as if Sage had tracked them down and said, “Go fetch me some coffee, and try not to get an abortion on your way back, sweetcheeks.”
Apparently for these idiots, “Men’s Rights are Human Rights,” is codespeak for oppressive patriarchy, with cream and sugar.
I should note that no one here at AVfM asked Sage to put up the stickers, and that this was before Sage held any position at AVfM, and before Sage founded Zen Men. Everything here was entirely Sage’s decision, and he said as much in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Euv3GBSfMdQ
I will also note how much I appreciate the fact that I have never asked or directed Sage about much of anything. He like, does crap that needs to be done. It’s called being an activist.
If you watch the video, you will notice two behaviors that made KSU attorneys scoff, and made the ISD faculty go rogue:
- (8:07) Sage remarks about how funny it would be to slap a sticker over the mouth of a feminist screaming at him. I will be damned to hell if that is not indeed some funny shit. I laugh every time I imagine it.
- (15:20) Sage walks into a women’s restroom after checking if it was empty by saying “Hello? Need to clean out the bathroom!”
There are a few dumb positions on #KSUStickerGate floating around KSU. Some of the big ones are as follows:
- (KSU Division of Legal Affairs) Sage is inappropriately expressive and has violated the student code of conduct. While he is legally innocent and faces no charges, he will face charges if he contacts the people who believe #2 or #3 about their allegations. Translation: Sage will take whatever abuse and lies are doled out by our factulty and he will keep his fucking mouth shut — or we will get revenge.
- (ISD) Sage posed as a university employee with the intention of posting materials to intimidate women. Translation: We assert that the women at KSU are so fucking weak and retarded that they are intimidated by the idea that men are human beings. We also issue binkies at orientation for girls.
- (Stacy Keltner of ISD) Sage demonstrates a desire to kill women. Translation: I am a lying ideological piece of human filth that secretly desires A Voice for Men to put me into the public spotlight.
Entering a women’s restroom and posting stickers of outside organizations are considered violations of the KSU Student Code of Conduct, but given several mitigating circumstances, like the fact that was much ado about nothing, Sage was not charged.
First and foremost, Sage owned up to everything. He wisely stated that AVfM does not necessarily endorse everything he does, and I should take this opportunity to state that we do not encourage students to break the code of conduct in their respective universities. I’m sure Sage will not break another rule.
Just as I am sure that my actions do not fall under the same mandates that govern Sage’s as a student of KSU.
I’m not sweating over this because Sage caused no damage, and told admins in person that he understood that he risked disciplinary action. This is the best possible way Sage could have handled this, because he has the personal accountability that an activist should have. That, and his academic history is too developed to throw away.
Second, Sage avoided private property. Not all public property is fair game either, but Sage chose only durable surfaces that would not be damaged when the stickers were removed. Unauthorized stickers are routinely posted by students and subsequently removed by custodians, which Sage indicates in the video.
It also stands to reason students are not regularly disciplined for posting stickers since they do not publicly identify themselves as Sage did. I imagine KSU really does not need to deal with a full disciplinary proceeding when a warning will suffice.
Next comes the intention of the video. Some of you might be wondering why Sage is wearing gloves and wiping off fingerprints if he was only going to out himself later. The reason is that Sage never actually cared about being caught.
Sage was addressing concerns of activists who want to make a statement boldly, yet carefully. Men’s Rights Edmonton faced a lot of direct and productive confrontations over Don’t Be That Girl, but not all MHRAs are prepared for that heat. This is why Sage demonstrated clandestine posting practices on public property while making no secrets about the fact he was solely responsible for posting the AVfM stickers he pictured.
And given the way the ISD responded to Sage over this video, they ended up confirming that MHRAs have a reason to watch their asses. In the end, this video has a damned good reason to exist.
Sage is an unconventional, rebellious young man. While people either love him or hate him, Sage has no history of criminal activity or misconduct. Even in this minor act (compared to panty raids, drunken sex raves and other things that would probably make the ISD fall into anarchy), KSU basically shrugged at the time Sage published his video. More stickers that will just get removed, whatever.
But now let’s look at some of the most obvious examples of idiocy and corruption at work around the ISD’s response.
The most glaring mistake the ISD made was in their timing. Sage only got smacked around by KSU Legal and ISD after contacting ISD faculty about their messing with Zen Men’s faculty sponsorships (which I will cover in later articles). When ISD learned that Sage knew what they were doing, ISD turned Sage into a scapegoat by seeking out this video and filing a report nearly a year after the filmed event happened. The way ISD handled this made it painfully obvious that they were politically motivated.
The claim that Sage was posing as a custodian is bullshit. Looking at the video, he was wearing a thick black jacket, was holding a smartphone in front of his body, and had no cleaning supplies on him. Sage was obviously saying what came to mind to check if the women’s restroom was empty. If a woman saw him, do you all at ISD really think women are so retarded that they would believe Sage is a custodian?
Don’t answer that. It is already established that KSU regards its school as special ed where women are concerned. And it must be said that judging by the actions of some of their faculty we can see where they might have gone in that direction.
We certainly can’t expect a KSU girl to have the brains to see that Sage saying he needed to “clean out the bathroom” is a good way for a man to announce his presence in a women’s bathroom without scaring anyone. ISD faculty stated that Sage was trying to intimidate women, but the video itself indicates the opposite. If the ISD wishes to assume that the mere imagery of AVfM intimidates women, then they are welcome to talk to the women who actually volunteer their incredible talents for AVfM. Women around the world support this organization, so I really don’t know how ISD justifies this presumption of female fear.
Well, actually I do. It’s the lying scumbag thing. It is not justification, it is just something to mouth in order to make simple minded people think that Sage Gerard poses a threat to an entire campus of women because he put up a sticker they disagree with.
I am sure that if Sage heard a response from inside the restroom, he would not have entered. And honestly, it doesn’t matter what he said, since our fine scholars in the ISD would have reported him anyway. And if students (who weren’t there) were really so intimidated, I’d like to see the report from the woman who witnessed Sage march right in on her pinching out the remains of that Monday’s bean burrito to commit sticker rape.
I cannot imagine that report existing, because KSU Legal never cited such a report in their concluding document, and the only people who ever reported feeling intimidated were ISD faculty at a time when they didn’t even know Sage, and Sage didn’t know them.
The KSU Legal Department has all the credibility of the University of Toronto Student Union and Danielle D’entremont. And they share remarkable similarities with those referenced in that there is an agenda to create a false threat narrative behind which they are committing malfeasance, deception and raw bigotry in the name of their ideology.
As for slapping a sticker over the mouth of a feminist (hehe!), people who know Sage understand he is not violent, but he does have an intense, polarizing personality. He is kind to his friends, and he extends olive branches to people who try to hurt him, but he is unapologetically harsh to idiots. Three good reasons to like him in my book.
I’ve seen him do everything from compliment people to calling them cunts, and he tends to be fair about it across that spectrum. The evidence available to me shows that Sage, while on one occasion clearly upset and defensive when he learned for the first time what ISD faculty were doing, was never unfair or aggressive.
Again, remember the timing. ISD reported #KSUStickerGate approximately eight months after it happened, and Andrew Newton wrote that ISD deliberately sought out content Sage posted. The ISD faculty were trying to pin something to Sage to convince cops and lawyers that he was a ticking time bomb that had to be defused.
Let’s recap: Sage avoided surfaces that the stickers could damage, stuck only to durable public property, and made sure not to invade the privacy of others. For an activist out to “intimidate women,” he’s oddly courteous. I say this not to assert one subjective interpretation over another, but to introduce an interpretation that KSU Legal and ISD clearly refused to entertain.
#KSUStickerGate has accomplished nothing but telegraph the political and personal biases of state-funded staff that have ganged up on one student. Even though Sage did not face charges, he was still punished by being silenced under threat of charges. #KSUStickerGate was one of the reasons that a select few ideologues in the ISD decided to engage in a smear campaign.
With that, you now have more context behind The Interdisciplinary Shaming Department.
Stacy Keltner, I hope you are looking forward to our date. I certainly am. Oh, and for a faculity member of a university who has published a book, it is clear that you have gone to great lengths to keep your image off the internet.
Nice try.
Is that a threat? No, it is a promise. Big difference.
As we have been saying here for years, the time for collegial, polite discussion and negotiation with these piles of refuse is over. Stacy Keltner has conducted an ideologically driven smear campaign against a peaceful activist, painting him as a threat and making him vulnerable as a target.
She has done this to him as a student at the school where she is on faculty, and she has been enabled and abetted by that school’s legal department.
So we have a choice. Follow the rules that they want us to follow, which means providing her further cover to conduct her campaign of lies and hatred. Or, to say fuck their “rules” and do business with them in the only way cowards and bullies understand.
2015 will be a year where we shine a light on many corrupt acadamicians. Stacy Keltner is just the first.
We have people working on securing her image. Meantime, $100.00 to the first person who gets us a clear image of her which we can verify. Something large and clear enough to be used as a feature image is preferred.
