Mainstream Republican propagandist Pat Powers’s dogged determination to beat down Toby Doeden’s outsider campaign for Governor has led Powers, remarkably, to a mostly correct conclusion about the First Amendment. Powers scorns Doeden for promising to fire USD political science professor Timothy Schorn and professors like him who don’t toe Doeden’s political line:
Doeden:
Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing. I am a constitutional conservative and freedom absolutist. I will not, however, stand by and watch our tax dollars be spent paying exorbitant salaries to people who hate our country, insight violence on our leaders, and promote radicalized ideas to our impressionable young people…. Under my leadership, people like Professor Scorn will have no place in the classroom! [Toby Doeden, campaign FB post, 2025.10.01]
Powers:
Regarding Toby’s attack on Dr. Schorn; I know the professor says many things I disagree with. But demanding that he be purged from employment is dangerous territory, as Representative Jon Hansen recently found out in the case of the art professor being returned to employment after a hearing in Federal Court. You’d think that ‘Dumpster Fire‘ Doeden might have read the news last week before making his declaration? And we have the part where Toby declares himself a “freedom absolutist?” That’s a new one. What exactly has Toby Doeden done for the cause of freedom?
…‘Freedom absolutist’ Toby Doeden wants to fire a military veteran from his job because he doesn’t like what he says on Facebook? As I said, I know the professor holds views that I don’t agree with. But, especially considering his service to our country, I think he’s earned the right to his opinion.
Otherwise, do we really want to venture on to that slippery slope and start actively purging universities?
Because it appears that Toby Doeden thinks so [Pat Powers, “Toby Doeden Declares If He’s Elected Governor, He Will Purge Military Veteran USD Professor from University,” Dakota War College, 2025.09.30].
Powers errs in his own propagandist bent, asserting that we have to do some brave and manly thing like serving in the military to earn the right to express ourselves. Neither Powers nor I (nor Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and some other authors of the Constitution) served in the military, but we enjoy freedom of expression as full as that accorded to soldiers, police, or any of the other classes of patriots whom Powers puts on his posters to advance his propagandistic ends. We don’t have to “earn” the right to hold and express opinions; the First Amendment applies to everyone in America, recognizing every individual’s inherent human dignity.
But Powers is on the right track. I am thrilled to see a Republican respond to a Trumpist attack on free speech and higher education by linking to an article critiquing Nazi Germany’s politicization of universities. Powers also criticized Speaker and gubernatorial candidate Jon Hansen for advocating the firing of USD art professor Michael Hook for exercising his First Amendment rights.
Now when will Powers show some consistency and extend his critique to Governor Larry Rhoden, who joined Speaker Hansen in urging the purging of a professor with whom he disagreed? Does Powers truly believe in the First Amendment, or, like Charlie Kirk, does he only use it as cover for his own political agenda, punching down at his enemies but never up at his patrons?
While [Regents attorney Justin] Bell argued that Hook’s activities disrupted USD, Schorn said it wasn’t Hook’s post, but the “unhinged reaction by people from around the country that disrupted the university,” Schorn said.
“Don’t blame Professor Hook for this,” Schorn said. “This was a result of people deciding that faculty members should not have First Amendment rights, nor should they have academic freedom.”
He said elected leaders gave people “who perhaps were not thinking clearly the green light to engage in a campaign of harassment and disruption of faculty members in the university” [Morgan Matzen, “SD Professor on Turning Point Watchlist Calls Out Leaders’ Handling of Colleague’s Kirk Comments,” Sioux Falls Argus Leader, 2025.09.30].