February 26, 2010

A sociology professor is suspended for making the wrong kind of wisecracks on her Facebook page.

Gloria Y. Gadsden, an associate professor of sociology at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, wrote:
"Had a good day today, didn't want to kill even one student.:-) Now Friday was a different story ..."

"Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman, it's been that kind of day."
I guess the smiley face isn't enough to calm nerves in post-Amy Bishop academia.

104 comments:

Triangle Man said...

It pays to learn Facebook's privacy settings. Especially for a campus trouble maker.

rhhardin said...

Hitperson.

Fred4Pres said...

Facebook is evil.

Skyler said...

touchy touchy

But I'll bet sociologists were the ones most responsible for the flurry of "hate speech" rules on a lot of campuses. I wonder if this is just chickens coming home to roost.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

She a sociology professor?

Dr Weevil said...

At least she's not an English professor. That would have made her ignorance of the difference between 'discreet' and 'discrete' even more embarrassing.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Gloria Y. Gadsden, an associate professor of sociology at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, was escorted off the campus on Wednesday because of jokes she had made on her Facebook page about wanting to kill students.

She was only an associate.. no biggie ;)

Uncle Pinky said...

Damnit Weevil. I had it all typed out.

SBVOR said...

H.L. Menken is quoted to have said:

“Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.”

Normal people do not allow their every emotion to translate directly into action.

But, so-called “Progressives” -- being exclusively and entirely driven by their emotions -- cannot comprehend normalcy. For them, there is no filter between their emotions and their actions.

Hence, they assume that everybody else will -- just like them -- translate every emotion into action.

And, that is just one many reasons why so-called “Progressivism” is A MENTAL DISORDER!

That said…
How stupid must one professor be not to understand the so-called “Progressive” mad house she lives in -- especially post Amy Bishop? That goes triple for a Sociology professor. Geez!

chickelit said...

When the Digital Brownshirts came for Twitter,
I remained silent;
I was not a tweeter.

When they locked up Facebook,
I remained silent;
I had my face in real books.

When they came for MySpace,
I did not speak out;
I was not in that space.

When they came for Blogger,
there was no one left to speak out.

Anonymous said...

Ironically, one the "Area of Interest" listed on her biography is "Deviance and Social Control."

I feel sort of bad that someone's career could be seriously impacted by this type of black humor. But not every thought you have needs to be published. Just tell a friend in person or in a phone call.

AllenS said...

If you go throught her personal notes, you'll probably find that she drew a picture of a gun somewhere.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Lets not forget there was also that incident at Virginia Tech a few years ago.

...a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007 on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States.
In two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, the perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people and wounded many others before committing suicide.
The massacre is the deadliest peacetime shooting incident by a single gunman in United States history, on or off a school campus.

SBVOR said...

Lem commented on the Virginia Tech massacre.

Isn’t it “interesting” that the worst mass murders are concentrated in areas which so-called “Progressives” have declared to be so-called “gun free zones”?

Even the freaking PC military prohibited SOLDIERS from carrying hand guns at Ft. Hood!

Concealed carry laws save lives! The Luby’s massacre was the impetuous for Texas to pass concealed carry legislation.

jimbino said...

This episode serves to remind us that our teachers are not free and that if we want an education, we have to get it the old hard way: read and travel. Too bad students pay so much for so little freedom.

Anonymous said...

This is precisely what should happen to leftist professors with Mass Murder Fantasy Syndrome.

Zero tolerance policy on these liberal killers and their wanna-be copycats.

knox said...

Hitman? I don't care about that. She violates my "Do Not Use Facebook To Whine" rule.

I have put many people on "hide" because their facebook updates consist of things like "Ugh. Awful headache this morning." or "Not Monday Again..." Even their "cheery" posts are passive-aggressively whiny like this woman's Had a good day today, didn't want to kill even one student. Suck it up, people.

Anonymous said...

As a law professor, Ann, why not post some information about the legal dilemma now facing the University if they put her back in the classroom and she actually does kill some students down the road.

You know, just like Amy Bishop.

She's made plain in a public forum that she claims to want to kill her students on some days, and the only thing the University has done thusfar is to suspend her.

What happens if they put her back in the classroom and the personality that is the killer resurfaces? On a bad day?

And kids die?

What legal problems would then beset such a stupid University?

traditionalguy said...

IMO this is another example of the Administration acting like they are indespensible because only they can save students from lowly professors in this Education Mega-business. That is not their job. The faculty should discipline the faculty. The administrators who are not in the business office doing enrollment, etc. can and should be fired before they bankrupt the College.

Mark O said...

We are continually restricting speech. If this is a state school I would like to think that such action is illegal. I would also like to see some legal academics take on this attack on speech. I'll be resting over here. I'm certain the academics are lining up and drafting the paper.

X said...

live by the sword and all that. she had filed racial harassment claims against the university. they didn't waste a crisis.

Anonymous said...

This moron's dissertation: "Femininity and Traditionality: A Textual Analysis of Gender Roles and Sexuality in Women's Magazines, 1986-1995."

Oh noooo ... what will become of women's studies without Ms. KillAllMales

"Traditionality" is that even a fucking word?

Under. The. Jail.

Big Mike said...

I wouldn't worry about a professor who posted a request for a hitman on Facebook. It's the one who posts it on Craig's List that you need to worry about.

traditionalguy said...

NewHam...The word is really Traditional-ity whichmeans a very small traditional item, such as an ity bity yellow polka dot traditional bikini. The power to create words names for things is a very old power delegated to our first ancestor, believed to have had tenure, for all that was worth.

Henry said...

"Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman, it's been that kind of day."

Was that after she was suspended?

kathleen said...

I LOVE IT when academics make grammatical errors.

it's DISCREET honey

then again, it's sociology.

Anonymous said...

You just can't make this shit up.

Here we have yet another liberal whose major contribution to the academe3 is yet another dissertation on how men shouldn't be allowed to write for Vogue and who is so stupid she can't figure out Facebook is public (wink, wink) and uses it to advertise for a fucking hit man.

This is an example of the sort of people who find succor working in our colleges and Universities.

Fire this dumb ass before she kills someone already.

Skyler said...

I can't believe the number of people who seem to think that the university should have acted in this case. This is the most obvious instance of frivolous hyperbole you could imagine. It is entirely innocent absent any other overt violent action.

I can't believe anyone except an academic would even notice it, let alone make a big deal of it.

garage mahal said...

New Ham = Florida?

Jason (the commenter) said...

It's weird that she got suspended for this. Why didn't her boss simply tell her to take those posts down? I can put up with rules like this, it is the overreaction of the people who write the rules which I find troubling.

Gabriel Hanna said...

I think all hitmen are discrete; unless there are some who are conjoined twins.

X said...

skyler I felt the same way until I saw she had filed a grievance over someone else's speech

knox said...

garage, probably. Or might as well be.

X said...

rock throwing geese living in glass houses shouldn't be surprised when they die by the gander's sword

knox said...

I think all hitmen are discrete; unless there are some who are conjoined twins.

LOL.

Anonymous said...

"This is the most obvious instance of frivolous hyperbole you could imagine. It is entirely innocent absent any other overt violent action."

That's kind of the problem, isn't it.

Once there's a bunch of dead bodies lying on teh ground that's a piss-poor time to go searching for the hitman advert on Facebook, isn't it?

Don't you want the police to act before the dead children are spurting blood?

Or do you want to wait until after this crazy bitch carries out her well-publicized plan?

Wouldn't we have been better off to get Amy Bishop some help once she killed her own brother? Or was it better for her mother to lie and cover it up because after all it was just a momentary lapse of judgment?

Facebook is carefully designed to be an early warning system for crazy dumb liberals. We should heed the warning.

Under. The. Jail.

garage mahal said...

**BOO***

KCFleming said...

Hoist by her own retard.

She sued them for 'racism', they suspended her for 'making threats'.

The university is most illiberal institution on earth. Islamic theocrats should take notes.

kathleen said...

of course, she should be suspended for her grammatical error. But that's assuming that universities are run by people smarter than academics.

traditionalguy said...

Gabriel Hannah...Would you say posing as a Major in the Army Medical "corpse" is discreet. You could say that assassins are nondescript, and that they seldom stay around for the awards ceremony. The Mossad's band of merry men sure performed an award winning hit last week.

Anonymous said...

"New Ham = Florida?"

No, but I sure do like the cut of that man's jib.

Ken Pidcock said...

The provost at East Stroudsburg declined to comment but referred The Chronicle to the director of university relations, who was out of the office and did not respond to an e-mail message seeking comment.

If this was the provost's action, it is cowardly to divert inquiries to the PR office.

If this was not the provost's action, that place has some serious problems.

William said...

It's well known that flakes seek out psychology courses and crooks are drawn to the study of law. Perhaps something similar happens with sociology. Hoping to get a clue, people with low social IQ's and diminished capacity to understand how society works spend their lives studying Veblen and Weber. Several days after the Bishop massacre she jokes about killing students and then she characterizes the overreaction as racially motivated. This is not a woman who understands how the gears of society mesh. She's in the wrong field. Microbiology is where it's at for people like her.

KCFleming said...

I find some enjoyment in how the rest of the world is learning to live by the rules previously applied only to <sotto voce>white males</sotto voce>.

The rule is simple:
Watch which way the wind is blowing, and falsify your preferences accordingly.

X said...

amen pogo. to paraphrase the great C Thomas Howell in Red Dawn, her tears keep me warm

lucid said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ah Pooh said...

Each person teaches his/her own struggle.

lucid said...

This is really getting ridiculous. What kind of legal redress does she have? Can she sue the hell out of the school? Can I support her, or will that make me part of an illegal conspiracy to voice an opinion?

Palladian said...

"New Ham = Florida?"

Just what I thought. Is anyone else tired of the fact that at least 50% of the comments here are seemingly written by the same two or three people using a dozen different usernames?

You'd think they'd have finished that experiment at UCLA/Santa Monica Community College by now.

Signal < Noise

Palladian said...

"Can I support her, or will that make me part of an illegal conspiracy to voice an opinion?"

In the immortal words of Ari Fleischer: Watch what you say.

Words are dangerous weapons and should be regulated, just like guns. Call it word control. All the previous victims of word assaults will line up to sponsor the legislation.

Palladian said...

I mean this woman deployed dangerous words on a campus! We all know that words are forbidden on college campuses! Someone could get hurt!

garage mahal said...

The :-) gives it away.

Penny said...

"I can't believe the number of people who seem to think that the university should have acted in this case."

This kind of thinking is precisely why we have so many rules and laws already. Most are a reflex action.

Rule of thumb would be that 80 percent of the rules and laws are made to cover the actions of 20 percent of the people. Give or take...but you get my point.

Alex said...

Essentially the "liberal arts" majors attract flakes and psychos. Science and engineering don't because it requires such a mental discipline to study math, physics, descriptive geometry, dynamics, etc...

Penny said...

Does anyone have paid access to the Chronicle site? I would love to read the op ed Gadsden says got her into this mess in the first place.

As it is right now, we only know she is a minority professor who filed a discrimination suit against her employer, and that she has had 7 jobs in 15 years in academia. The latter, perhaps because she was being courted by various colleges and universities BECAUSE of her minority status.

I also wonder if the university has some rules on the record that they can point to as covering this type of situation?

In any case, East Stroudsburg can expect yet another discrimination suit from the lady they "courted".

Paddy O said...

Essentially the "liberal arts" majors attract flakes and psychos. Science and engineering don't because it requires such a mental...

"I'm Dr. Amy Bishop!!"

Paddy O said...

Scientists and engineers don't put smiley faces to such comments. They mean it!

That's why popular movies and literature are not filled with mad English professors or maniacal sociologists.

It's the scientists we have to be afraid of! When they're mad they're going to do something about it!

Paddy O said...

My hope is that an Italian court will convict a few Facebook executives because of this.

That'll teach them profs not to cross the line.

Unknown said...

What part of, "it's public", do they not understand? This is the stuff you used to put in your diary, not tacked to the town bulletin board. In the Age of Alinsky, it's fascinating that it's the people more to the left that are getting caught by such things,

BTW We are all discrete, but some are more discreet than others.
(Apologies to George Orwell)

WV "cliali" The stuff you need two bathtubs to use.

Scott said...

The internet creates a false sense of intimacy. It's unfortunate that some of us get smacked in the face with the reality of its falseness.

Anonymous said...

"Just what I thought. Is anyone else tired of the fact that at least 50% of the comments here are seemingly written by the same two or three people using a dozen different usernames?"

We're government employees ... so we have a lot of free time.

Ken Pidcock said...

This is not a woman who understands how the gears of society mesh. She's in the wrong field. Microbiology is where it's at for people like her.

@William: Have you given any thought to whether you really want to fuck around with microbiologists?

Anonymous said...

"... she has had 7 jobs in 15 years in academia. The latter, perhaps because she was being courted by various colleges and universities BECAUSE of her minority status."

Gotta keep the numbers right.

I bet she gets glowing reviews when the next school calls the previous one for a job recommendation.

Amy Bishop got rave reviews as she was leaving each University for the next one, right up until was escorted away from the last one in a police car leaving a trail of dead bodies behind her.

Anonymous said...

"Have you given any thought to whether you really want to fuck around with microbiologists?"

Yeah, no shit.

Them badass microbiologists'll pop a cap in 'yo ass.

Word.

Anonymous said...

"This is the stuff you used to put in your diary, not tacked to the town bulletin board."

And Garage wonders why smart people use a lot of confusing usernames and go to great lengths to not have their comments be trackable.

Anonymity is required for internet use in these Days of Alinsky because the academic and governmental left will absolutely dig up everything they can to use against you if you say anything that endangers their plans.

Just ask Joe The Plumber, who had his life plumbed by the government fishing for whatever they could find the moment he said something.

As long as these Nazi's are in charge, I'm a member of the French Resistance.

Anon.

raf said...

I took her to mean that she didn't want a continuous hitman.

the gold digger said...

I took her to mean that she didn't want a continuous hitman.

I changed my major from EE to English 29 years ago, but isn't that something you do with a Fourier transform?

Kirby Olson said...

This is a hard case to call. If she's an Associate, doesn't it mean she's already got tenure? How long did they suspend her for?

If I were them, I would err on the side of caution.

It's very unusual to want to hurt another person, I should think.

John henry said...

The article is for subscribers only but anyone who has a chance to read her article in Chronicle of Higher Education should do so. It is titled "Minority report" and appears in the The Chronicle of Higher Education v. 55 no. 9 (October 24 2008) p. B24

What a whiner. I suspect that the U realized that they had made a mistake about 1 week after they hired her. If I were the U, I would certainly use this as an excuse to get rid of her.

Good Riddance!

Here is the abstract of her article:

"The writer, an African-American academic who has been affiliated with seven predominantly white institutions, recounts her experiences of how the efforts of such institutions to diversify their campus populations fail to take into consideration the lives of faculty members from underrepresented groups beyond the classroom and the office. She urges predominantly white institutions to make greater efforts to address the needs, concerns, and problems of minority faculty members."

Poor Gloria.

Suck it up and get a life.

John Henry

Henry said...

Jason (the commenter) 4:37 -- Exactly. Well said. This is like the suspensions for kids with nail files in public school.

Gabriel Hanna - I think all hitmen are discrete; unless there are some who are conjoined twins.

LOL. Though I'm sure the latter is a script already floated in Hollywood. It's called "Twin Fall Guys, Idaho".

Anonymous said...

"If I were them, I would err on the side of caution."

Imagine the ginormous lawsuit that awaits this podunk university should they reinstate this moron and one of her mad personalities decides to get even with for them suspending her and she takes out four or five kids.

What then?

They have no legal choice except to fire the dumb broad.

Under. The. Jail.

amba said...

O tempora, o mores when a professor doesn't know the difference between "discreet" and "discrete."

Ken Pidcock said...

this podunk university

I'm sure that's appreciated.

Mark O said...

File this under CS. Chicken shit.

ricpic said...

In a confident country in a confident time like mid-twentieth century America people made all kinds of cracks and what about it. Now, with the fragiles on top, it's careful careful careful all the time lest someone's carefully constructed false identity be - God forbid - mocked.

Anonymous said...

"this podunk university ... I'm sure that's appreciated."

Oh come on, the most notable alumni is a punter for the Philadelphia Eagles.

A punter for chrissakes. They don't even hardly count.

And the school only has 2,200 targets ... er, I mean students.

This Facebook kerfuffle is probably the best publicity this school is ever going to get.

Po.

Dunk.

David said...

Here's the abstract of her dissertation:

While many theorists highlight issues relating to gender and race, popular women's magazines appear to maintain notions of gender traditionality and continually bleach color from their pages. This dissertation examines two women's magazines in an attempt to delineate the ways in which they perpetuate gendered traditions and de-racialize images of women. I explore contemporary images magazines generate, and the advice they offer, with respect to female gender roles and sexuality. Findings reveal that white and black readers encounter similar messages with respect to the promotion of heterosexuality, traditional gender roles, and female sexuality. The maintenance of traditionality and the similarity of images across race are potentially related to the influence of empowered members of society and mechanisms of self-policing.

Not exactly my cup of tea, but hardly the pinnacle of academic foolishness these days.

David said...

New Ham, I've been to East Stroudsburg, knew people who went to school there. Good people, smart, unpretentious.

Very nice town, great outdoor opportunities, pretty neighborhoods, nice campus.

They have also had a kick ass wrestling team for years. It's a Pennsylvania thing.

So keep that profile private--some wrestler from Podunk might like to pay you a visit.

David said...

For the record:

The comment was injudicious, but what a classic overreaction. I can think of ten ways this could have been handled without suspending her.

Maybe they tried and she would not give them any reassurances. But that seems pretty unlikely.

I wonder if some administrator has just put his dick in the chopper while covering his ass. Or her tit in a wringer while defending her derriere. Or something.

Anonymous said...

The more laughable news story out of The Chronicle of Higher Education today is that the University of Alabama still hasn't fired Amy Bishop, who shot six of the Universities employees, killing three of them.

They suspended her yesterday.

They plan to maybe fire her (one presumes).

But they haven't fired her yet. She's still an employee.

It took two weeks before they decided to even suspend her.

The moral of the story is that in the University of Alabama system, you can shoot six people at a University meeting - and kill three dead in cold blood - and you will not be immediately suspended.

That could take as long as two weeks.

And it would take even longer than that for you to be fired - assuming the trustees ever do fire her, which is still an open question.

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2010/02/uah_shooting_suspect_amy_bisho_1.html

Leland said...

I agree with Kirby. Recent history has shown school killers have put up warnings in the past. This is what has prompted zero tolerance laws.

Now I'm not a fan of zero tolerance laws, and even less of gun-free school zones. But once you have them, then the school is responsible for the security of the students. If they are made aware of a person that has made violent threats, then yes, they should act.

The real question is what that action should be? Should she be fired? Probably not. But being suspended pending an investigation seems reasonable. It's a precaution.

On Professor Althouse's blog, she puts both facebook post back to back and in the wrong order. Go back to the original article. On January 21st, she propositioned for a discrete (sic) hitman. A month later, she's still talking about wanting to kill somebody.

The smiley? She was happier today because she didnt' want to kill a student. Yet she's acknowledging she almost snapped on Friday. You can say the smiley makes it just a joke, but there was no smiley in January.

Big Mike said...

@NewHam, they should be able to fire her immediately -- she didn't have tenure.

Or is the administration afraid that she might get out on bail, even though it's a multiple homicide.

Anonymous said...

"Or is the administration afraid that she might get out on bail, even though it's a multiple homicide."

I have no idea what their reasoning could possibly be.

Amy Bishop is certainly entitled to a presumption of innocence by our legal system; but such a presumption is not required of her worker-victims.

The University of Alabama should have fired her that day.

I cannot imagine why they haven't done so yet, except that they are liberal scum more interested in preserving some stupid rule somewhere they've written up than protecting their employees and students.

Ken Pidcock said...

They have also had a kick ass wrestling team for years. It's a Pennsylvania thing.

I know that it's a Pennsylvania thing, but... Is it possible that you're confusing them with Lock Haven?

Penny said...

John, thanks at least for that abstract of Gadsden's op ed.

I'm familiar with this school which is located in a county that is 88 percent white, with an African American population of 6 percent. The adjacent counties are more like 95+ percent white.

So this university goes out of its way to entice minority professors, since it isn't so likely that they will be drawing that many from the surrounding locale.

One of those professors feels that it is not enough that the university considers their lives in the classroom and the office, but wants them to consider their lives "beyond". She just happens to be a sociology professor. Go figure! lol

I wonder if Ms. Gadsden, as a sociology professor, considered the demographics of her new assignment before she hired on? I am also curious as to what she might expect the university to do in order to shape the demographics of its surrounding area?

Remember, this is mid Pennsylvania, where they cling to their religion and their guns.

Penny said...

Hm? I am just reading David's abstract, which has a different slant. Two different op eds, perhaps?

Anonymous said...

"I'm familiar with this school which is located in a county that is 88 percent white ... I wonder if Ms. Gadsden, as a sociology professor, considered the demographics of her new assignment before she hired on?"

Huh?

Blacks make up about 12.8% of the population in the United States. And in Monroe County, Pennsylvania they make up 11.6% of the population. Which is a higher percentage of blacks than in Pennsylvania as a whole.

There appears to be nothing remarkable about this town from the standpoint of its racial makeup, and nothing to indicate that it's hostile in any way to black people, except to the one who writes publicly that she'd like to kill her students.

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/42/42089.html

lucid said...

People are confusing the issues here.

She may be a fairly typical and uninteresting affirmative-action, morally entitled, whitey-is-responsible-for-everything-that-happens-to-me-including-my-social-life-outside-of-work, slave-mentality numbskull; but she should be able to make meaningless and hackneyed cliche comments wthout having the thought police getting up in arms about the thought-crime-of-the-moment.

Synova said...

Heh.

What lucid said. :-)

MadisonMan said...

People who do stupid things -- like rant in a public place -- deserve what they get.

Anonymous said...

" ... she should be able to make meaningless and hackneyed cliche comments wthout having the thought police getting up in arms about the thought-crime-of-the-moment."

I disagree.

Not cliche's about killing the citizenry.

Every other cliche is hers to plumb the depths of. But not that one. That cliche is threatening.

This isn't thought policing. It's prudent supervision of a piss poor state employee with a major chip on her shoulder treating the paying customers as if they're the enemy.

She is the government (this is a state school). And we have a right as citizens to hold our government accountable.

Fire. Her. Ass.

Synova said...

And all of us parents who have ever invented elaborate hyperbolic threats about just how much duct tape will be involved or where the bodies will be buried should... what?

Oh, sure, facebook might not be the place to wail, "Tape on the ceiling, I swear, on the ceiling!" but the quoted posts are normal BSing made by normal people every single day.

In concert with other alarming behavior? That's a different story. But really folks. What planet do you live on where no one says stuff like that, where no one blows off steam with that sort of language?

Tell her to keep it off Facebook or any similar forum, Tweets or blogs... or call her in for an evaluation because she has *also* done a number of other things that suggest she is unstable, or if she just has a temperament unsuited for the job, fire her and make sure you say so when contacted by her next employer...

But get a grip.

Really!

former law student said...

1. Grownups should not have Facebook pages.

2. Professors should take the utmost care when deciding which of their thoughts they want to spread all over the Internet.

Interesting that she wanted a discrete hitman instead of an integrated one.

Lawyer Mom said...

Oh, what's that saying among you professorial types? Discretion is the better part of . . . tenure. Yeah that's it.

Que sera. She better hope Citi doesn't read her blog and pull her account like they did to Mr. "Fabulis."

DaveW said...

Absent anything else this is hardly worthy of suspending this woman. Come on. Internet chat is pretty rowdy and a culture of hyperbole has developed. I can easily imagine a younger person that grows up in that environment thinking it is no big deal to pop off that way.

Our society is getting very strange with this stuff. Who among us hasn't said something in a blog comment that we later regret? I often wonder how much grief our hostess gets from her employers over her blogging. You can bet her Limbaugh blogging infuriates some of her peers and they'd love to run her off over it.

We've had those stupid shoppers cards now for around 10 years. They know so much about my family they actually send me coupon packages for things they know I'm going to buy, and they even know what I'll buy the week before next Thanksgiving.

I was reading that face recognition software is now so sophisticated that soon when you walk in a Best Buy they'll text message your cellphone with things you should go check out (using their knowledge of what you buy).

And schools are sending kids home with computers setup to watch them in our homes.

I mean really, if people are going to be watched so closely and it is going to be this intrusive we need to develop some tolerance for other folks' foibles.

Pete the Streak said...

David 8:36: 'They have also had a kick ass wrestling team for years. It's a Pennsylvania thing."

And Kynefski 9:04:
'I know that it's a Pennsylvania thing, but... Is it possible that you're confusing them with Lock Haven?'

You're both correct, but let's not leave out Edinboro, Clarion, Lehigh, and a multitude of other small school, Pennsylvania ass kickers.

It is indeed a Pennsylvania thing.

Leland said...

Oh, sure, facebook might not be the place to wail, "Tape on the ceiling, I swear, on the ceiling!" but the quoted posts are normal BSing made by normal people every single day.

To me, that's the point. Among friends; it's just a BS line to blow off steam. But that's not what she did. She published it on facebook, where not only her friends could read it, but her students. The same students she is making mild joking reference to kill. It was a student, who brought the matter to the schools attention.

At worst, she's homicidal. At best, she's foolish enough to make threats to students in front of their faces, while she is also threatening the school with other legal matters. Either way, I wouldn't want her working for me or teaching my children.

If you want to throw rocks, don't live in a glass house.

former law student said...

re Synova:

Despite my mother's repeated threats, all of us children made it to adulthood unstrangled.

kentuckyliz said...

Her students could call the police and have her charged with terroristic threatening, then file a grievance with the university that she created a hostile environment that impedes their ability to learn.

heh

RigelDog said...

I don't care what PC crap she herself has pulled, the answer is not to legitimize thought crime by penalizing her harshly for the Facebook comments, standing alone.

Anonymous said...

She probably shouldn't have put that, but she's a really great person. It's a little fishy, though. She doesn't have any students as friends, so which other professor was out to get her? I'm saddened by her suspension. It almost seems as if the college was looking for something to get her on in addition to the article (freedom of speech) that she added to the Chronicle of Higher Education back in 2008.

Alex said...

I don't care what PC crap she herself has pulled, the answer is not to legitimize thought crime by penalizing her harshly for the Facebook comments, standing alone.

But isn't it delicious irony for this to happen to one of the PC-police?

Anonymous said...

"What planet do you live on where no one says stuff like that, where no one blows off steam with that sort of language?"

Keep in mind, the professor is suing the school for discrimination.

So, her comments about killing students and hiring hit men are not happening in a vacuum. They're happening in the midst of an adversarial legal dispute she's having with the employer of those very same students she dislikes so much that she's fantasizing about hurting them.

How mad do you have to be to sue your employer? I'd say you have to be angry to do that. Especially if you feel you are being discriminated against because of your race.

So, these comments aren't just every-day run of the mill hyperbole happening in the everyday vaccuum of life.

The school would be foolish to ever let her back on campus and give her the opportunity to screw them over by hurting students and placing the school in a precarious legal position.

Anonymous said...

"... the answer is not to legitimize thought crime by penalizing her harshly for the Facebook comments, standing alone."

Thought-crime would be penalizing her for thinking she wanted to kill her students.

But she didn't just stop at thinking it did she? Or saying it to her friends in the privacy of a personal conversation?

She wrote it down on Facebook and broadcasted it to the entire community.

That's penalizing her for thought-crime, dude.

Plus, it's not happening "stand alone" as you put it. It's happening in the midst of an angry legal proceeding she initiated against the university the students pay good money and usury interest to attend.

Punishing her will (one hopes) send a really good message to all the other professors to rethink their attitudes about the customers.

You know, now I think about it, punishing her this way might also dissuade some of her fellow travelers from making frivolous discrimination claims. Which certainly isn't a bad thing for the taxpayers being ripped off every time a state university settles one of these bullshit complaints.