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Originally posted by Terraceth
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For those rejecting the report from being from Fox News, a more neutral report of the situation than the original post can be found here.
To me, the question isn't whether the student was right or wrong in his objections on things like biology of genders or wage gap, but whether the manner in which he expressed them was reasonable or not, as that was what got him kicked out. As I said earlier in the topic, most of the information being reported is from the student's personal account of what happened, meaning that our information principally comes from someone with a rather big self-interest in it. This doesn't mean they're wrong, but it does make me pause before immediately accepting everything he says. And apparently, the college is on spring break this week, making alternate accounts slower and less likely to emerge until classes be
hence no one else being around to give any alternate accounts. Actually, I'm left wondering if the fact it broke during spring break, when any confirmations or denials of the student's account would be much harder to get, is a coincidence or not.
In the meantime, the only source about the conflict besides the student is the description of the alleged violation from the teacher, which makes claims of "disrespectful objection to the professor's class discussion structure," "refusal to stop talking out of turn" and "angry outbursts" do seem like, if true, are valid complaints. Although I will note that the requested sanction in that document seems inappropriate. A written apology to the professor is reasonable. Even the requirement that they address all the points is in the realm of plausibility. But "Lake will begin class with an apology to the class for his behavior and then listen in silence as the professor and/or any student who wishes to speak shares how he or she felt during Lake's disrespectful and disruptive outbursts"? It's not clear whether this was a request of the teacher or the provost, but it feels like it serves only as an attempt at shaming rather than serving a constructive purpose.
Nevertheless, the post the student made (and later deleted) shown in the article does contain this:
So by his own admission, other professors have had issues with him. Is this because they were also being close-minded and disliking dissent (possible, they're university professors after all), or because the student was, irrespective of the quality of his arguments, being legitimately disruptive to the class? It's unclear.
I did look up the professor in question on the Rate My Professors site to see what previous students have said; you can find her page here. Notably, the reviews--all of them--are positive. Granted, if you read the comments, they're mostly praising the teacher being an easy grader, but at any rate no one left a negative review. In case you're wondering what's going on with the huge number of votes for each review being "not useful", I should point out that (thanks to Google's cache service letting me see the page as it appeared in February 25 for comparison), it appears that all of those votes occurred after this story broke.
That's really all the information I can find right now that could corroborate or contradict the student's claim as to what happened. Perhaps, once spring break ends, we'll be able to see statements from others, including classmates, that may be able to give us more insight as to exactly what his behavior was like. But at present, I don't think there's enough information available right now to us to make a real judgment on the topic of whether his behavior warranted kicking him out or not.
Though, there is one thing that bothers me, and I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it before. The class in question was called "Self, Sin and Salvation". Now I tried looking at the university's website to see if a more detailed description of the course was available, but was unable to find any, so admittedly I am going solely off the title. But here's the question I have: What in the world do things like the alleged gender wage gap have to do with the apparent topic of the course?
To me, the question isn't whether the student was right or wrong in his objections on things like biology of genders or wage gap, but whether the manner in which he expressed them was reasonable or not, as that was what got him kicked out. As I said earlier in the topic, most of the information being reported is from the student's personal account of what happened, meaning that our information principally comes from someone with a rather big self-interest in it. This doesn't mean they're wrong, but it does make me pause before immediately accepting everything he says. And apparently, the college is on spring break this week, making alternate accounts slower and less likely to emerge until classes be
hence no one else being around to give any alternate accounts. Actually, I'm left wondering if the fact it broke during spring break, when any confirmations or denials of the student's account would be much harder to get, is a coincidence or not.
In the meantime, the only source about the conflict besides the student is the description of the alleged violation from the teacher, which makes claims of "disrespectful objection to the professor's class discussion structure," "refusal to stop talking out of turn" and "angry outbursts" do seem like, if true, are valid complaints. Although I will note that the requested sanction in that document seems inappropriate. A written apology to the professor is reasonable. Even the requirement that they address all the points is in the realm of plausibility. But "Lake will begin class with an apology to the class for his behavior and then listen in silence as the professor and/or any student who wishes to speak shares how he or she felt during Lake's disrespectful and disruptive outbursts"? It's not clear whether this was a request of the teacher or the provost, but it feels like it serves only as an attempt at shaming rather than serving a constructive purpose.
Nevertheless, the post the student made (and later deleted) shown in the article does contain this:
So by his own admission, other professors have had issues with him. Is this because they were also being close-minded and disliking dissent (possible, they're university professors after all), or because the student was, irrespective of the quality of his arguments, being legitimately disruptive to the class? It's unclear.
I did look up the professor in question on the Rate My Professors site to see what previous students have said; you can find her page here. Notably, the reviews--all of them--are positive. Granted, if you read the comments, they're mostly praising the teacher being an easy grader, but at any rate no one left a negative review. In case you're wondering what's going on with the huge number of votes for each review being "not useful", I should point out that (thanks to Google's cache service letting me see the page as it appeared in February 25 for comparison), it appears that all of those votes occurred after this story broke.
That's really all the information I can find right now that could corroborate or contradict the student's claim as to what happened. Perhaps, once spring break ends, we'll be able to see statements from others, including classmates, that may be able to give us more insight as to exactly what his behavior was like. But at present, I don't think there's enough information available right now to us to make a real judgment on the topic of whether his behavior warranted kicking him out or not.
Though, there is one thing that bothers me, and I'm surprised no one else has mentioned it before. The class in question was called "Self, Sin and Salvation". Now I tried looking at the university's website to see if a more detailed description of the course was available, but was unable to find any, so admittedly I am going solely off the title. But here's the question I have: What in the world do things like the alleged gender wage gap have to do with the apparent topic of the course?
And also, yeah what is up with the topic? If it is a religion class about sin and salvation, why are they talking about genders and wages?
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