Professor fired over Va. Tech discussion (thanks, Bob!)
BOSTON - An adjunct professor was fired after leading a classroom discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings in which he pointed a marker at some students and said “pow.” The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, included a discussion of gun control, whether to respond to violence with violence, and the public’s “celebration of victimhood,” said the professor, Nicholas Winset. During the demonstration, Winset pretended to shoot some students. Then one student pretended to shoot Winset to illustrate his point that the gunman might have been stopped had another student or faculty member been armed…. “A classroom is supposed to be a place for academic exploration,” Winset, who taught financial accounting, told the Boston Herald. He said administrators had asked the faculty to engage students on the issue. But on Friday, he got a letter saying he was fired and ordering him to stay off campus.
I detest it when Conservatives use “political correctness” as a club to bludgeon those who don’t think or behave as they do. In this case, though, I’d have to agree that this is an example of the worst sort of “political correctness imaginable. Why tell your instructors to engage their students in free and open discussion about the Virginia tech massacre, and then fire one when he does exactly that? What does this say about your commitment to free and open discussion? And how is anyone supposed to know when they’ve “crossed the line”…and who’s making those decisions??
By all indications, no one seemed particularly offended by the discussion that Nicholas Winset. If anyone was, they’re being awfully quiet about it. So what was Winset’s crime? Well, no one within the Emmanuel College administration seems to be saying. Of course, there’s no doubt a whole lot more to this story than what’s come to light thus far, but if the school’s administration thinks they have a legitimate beef with Winset, you’d think they’d at least be finding ways to defend (or at least explain) their actions.
The college issued a statement saying: “Emmanuel College has clear standards of classroom and campus conduct, and does not in any way condone the use of discriminatory or obscene language.”
Left unsaid, of course, was what constituted “discriminatory or obscene language.” I understand that this is a personnel issue, which involves the attendant privacy concerns, but Jeebus…y’all look like a collection of pointy-headed morons afraid of your own shadow.
Emmanuel College might have felt they have a legitimate beef with Winset, but by maintaining radio silence, all they’re doing is cementing the impression that their request for free and open discussion came with some serious and ill-defined strings attached.
