This is not a put on:

Elle Mallon, who was the external vice presidential candidate on the Ducks F.I.R.S.T. slate, filed a second grievance against We Are Oregon regarding its response to her original grievance from April 3.

Here’s how it played out:

March 29

We Are Oregon holds its kickoff event in PLC 180.

April 3

Mallon submits grievance against We Are Oregon for holding its kickoff event in a building with no gender-inclusive bathrooms.

April 4

The ASUO Elections Board rules that We Are Oregon broke the rules and as a result, it couldn’t campaign for 36 hours.

April 5:

2:54 – We Are Oregon campaign manager Taylor Allison asks the Constitution Court to overturn the Elections Board’s decision, and We Are Oregon gets to keep campaigning while the Constitution Court makes that decision.

Allison’s appeal says that part of Mallon’s evidence was taken out of context.

6:21 – Mallon files a response accusing Allison of sexual harassment because she referred to Mallon as “Ms.” when Mallon identifies with the use of “Mx.”

7:30 – Allison apologizes in an email, saying:

“In every situation I’ve been in with Elle, Elle has said Elle’s pronouns were “She, Her, Hers,” including on the Ducks F.I.R.S.T website. With that information, I used “Ms.” when addressing Elle.”

April 8:

Mallon submits a second grievance saying Allison chose to misgender her.

She cites the apology email from Allison as evidence saying that:

“Allison found a place where my pronouns were listed and then chose to misgender me anyway (My pronouns also include xe xem hyr and they them their).”

In a later email, Mallon calls for the removal of all We Are Oregon candidates from the ballot.

April 9

The Constitution Court sends an email to its mailing list with the decision addressing the bathroom grievance.

“While this Court is empathetic towards Respondent’s original grievance, and advises all future campaigns to remember their cultural competency trainings in order to promote as inclusive a community as possible, access to a bathroom is not a campaign related purpose.”

The court reversed the Election Board’s decision and removed the sanctions.

The decision did not address the misgendering claim. Associate Justices Chaney and Huegel agreed with the Court’s position on the bathroom grievance, but dissented in part that the decision did not address the additional complaint and makes the accusations part of the court’s public records.

“Sexual harassment is a very great evil, but the record supports the conclusion that only a single unintentional gender-based microagression occurred. To conflate the two may serve to salve the sense of anger Respondent may feel at Petitioner’s mistake. However it may serve Respondent, it is unnecessarily inflammatory and risks damaging the reputation of Petitioner, an ASUO member who the record shows made a mistake, and then took the first opportunity to apologize. At no time was any of this relevant to the matter before the Court, which is a dispute over whether the Elections Rules require campaigns to provide gender-neutral restrooms.”

Assembling a coalition of disgruntled and dispossessed can be a viable short term strategy to gain political power. Lucius Sicinius Vellutus is a good example, since I like to sprinkle in Roman history with my bog posts. The trouble is that many of the disgruntled are nuts. Handing these people even a little power can be disastrous.

We are seeing this all over and increasingly people are getting sick of having nutjobs throw sand in the gears. Otherwise cautious people vent in public at having to navigate around social justice warriors. They are learning that life is trade-offs. A sane and stable society is mildly intolerant of the weirdos. A society that embraces its weirdos grinds to a halt and begins to collapse.