Steven Taylor, posting at OTB [1], links a story today [2] regarding the firing of a VT professor:
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.
Says Taylor, in response….
Back to the summary dismissal: such are the circumstances for adjuncts, but still it is odd that he was so summarily dismissed. One wonders if there was some kind of backstory that would explain the situation.
Clearly, discussion wasn’t wanted , despite what they said about it. The interesting part here is that the students were not offended ; the campus administration was. What could have possibly offended the administration so ?
The idea that someone might have defended himself, had they been armed. That is an idea that needs to be kept under the strictest of control.
So much for college Campi being a place for free exchange of ideas as a part of a learning process.