Professor Claims He Was Threatened by Congressman's Chief of Staff for 'Liking' Vandalized 'Fartenberry' Sign on Facebook

A Republican Congressman's top aide threatened a professor for allegedly liking a Facebook post that mocked him and said he would get him fired for "liking" the post.

Ari Kohen, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln told the Lincoln Journal Star that he was scrolling through his Facebook and came across a picture of a photo of GOP Representative Jeff Fortenberry's with a pair of oversized googly eyes and a strip of tape that turned Fortenberry's name into "Fartenberry."

Kohen told the publication he thought the photo was a Photoshop prank and not an actual defacement of Fortenberry's sign.

"I know this is not high comedy," Kohen told the Lincoln Journal Star. "It was Sunday, I was bored and got a laugh out of it. I clicked like because I found it amusing."

As the Lincoln Police were investigating the photo, a campaign staffer who worked for Fortenberry sent a screenshot showing Kohen's like to the congressman's office in Washington D.C., according to the Lincoln Journal Star. Fortenberry's chief of staff, Dr. William "Reyn" Archer III, called Kohen to talk about him liking the Facebook post.

"It's against the law and uses the resources of the city, and (Kohen) thinks it's OK to like it," Archer told the Lincoln Journal Star.

Archer told the publication he did not hear from Kohen immediately and emailed the University of Nebraska Lincoln's political science department chair Kevin Smith, and copied the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Chancellor Ronnie Green onto the email, according to the publication.

"As Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska, I would like to find a time to speak to you about the support one of your faculty has shown for political vandalism," Archer wrote on October 24, according to email records obtained by the publication. "The question is what the position of the department and university is regarding vandalism or worse violence, which we have seen in this political season," he continued, concluding with a request to speak by phone."

Kohen told the Lincoln Journal Star that he returned Archer's call last week and the two spoke for almost an hour. Kohen said he tried to say that his liking of the defaced photo does not mean he was supporting vandalism, but Archer said he was.

"It wasn't clear at all what he wanted from me, if he wanted me to unlike it or retract it," Kohen told the publication. "He told me they could put this out publicly that I liked vandalism, and essentially, that that would be bad for me."

Kohen said took Archer's words as a threat, and filed a complaint against Archer with the House of Ethics Committee on Monday, the Lincoln Journal Star reported.

"To have people in this position who are ready and willing to abuse their authority like this, to bully people and push people around and threaten to call down retribution over something that maybe hurt somebody's feelings," he told the publication, "We're all poorer if that's what's happening in this country."

Archer denied to the publication that he was threatening Kohen and said the two had an "amicable" conversation. Archer also said that Kohen invited Fortenberry to speak at his class at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, despite not reaching an agreement on the issue.

"If you leave this idea that vandalism doesn't matter and you condone that, you create the problem of escalating these problems that need to be downgraded," he told the publication.

Newsweek has reached out to a spokesperson representing Fortenberry for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.

A Georgetown University professor had their Twitter account suspended for writing that Republican senators who voted to support then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh into the Supreme Court "deserve miserable deaths while feminists laugh as they take their last gasps." Carol Christine Fair, a professor in a security studies program at the university, wrote several controversial tweets in the wake of sexual assault allegations made against Kavanaugh by Christine Blasey Ford and three other women.