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Teacher Fired for Writing a Book
09-01-2014, 12:40 AM
Okay, so the topic title is a little bit of an eyecatcher worthy of a redtop, but there's something vaguely disturbing about this. A teacher, writing under a pen-name, was discovered to have written a pair of novels dealing with the events surrounding a fictional school-shooting - probably some time before starting work with the school.
And as a result has effectively been fired, banned from government property and otherwise subject to a medical evaluation.
http://www.wboc.com/story/26367051/camb ... tive-leave
This is pretty fucked up, especially considering some of the stories I wrote for Creative Writing class back when I was in school. One of which involved a full blown armed rebellion of the Student body.
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There was a similar story a couple weeks ago about a student who was arrested for writing a story about hunting dinosaurs. This business of officially mandated intolerance enforced by administrators for whom "previously suffered a psychotic break" is apparently a necessary job qualification is fairly recent in the US--when I was in high school in the 1980s, we actually read A Sound of Thunder in English class.
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Lately, it seems that the Dilbert Principal has been taken to heights in American Society that are unheard of anywhere else. That is... idiots are now finding their way into positions of actual power.
Pray for us.
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I can't help but suspect that the fact that he is a 23-year old black man was part of the reason.
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I'm really suspecting that they want to get rid of him, for both race and the fact that he was discovered to be "moonlighting", but the whole "might be disturbed because he wrote this stuff" is the only thing they can make stick because they don't have an explicit "can't have a second source of income" policy in his contract.
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"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor
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It's seems more like it's the local sheriff that's leading the witchhunt to me, either to score political points and secure his re-election (Do they really do that in the US?), or grab some publicity and extra funding for his department by taking down a 'dangerous threat to the community's innocent perfect kids'. Which arguably makes it even more of a dick move.
The thin with mandated intolerance is that it requires no brain. Therefore leaves no room for legal liability in case the worst happens, because hey, that's procedure. It's the absolute extreme of CYA
Worse, it seems to me that it's triggering far more false alarms, than it is preventing actual attacks. And ultimately, all these panic-laden false alarms do is ruin the lives of the innocent. It's also a great way to bully someone good and hard, to the point where with the current craze for swatting I'm surprised we don't hear stories of students making false accusations against classmates and the like.
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Dartz Wrote:It's seems more like it's the local sheriff that's leading the witchhunt to me, either to score political points and secure his re-election (Do they really do that in the US?), ... Apparently so, and it's always puzzled me. How can somebody who's declared him- or herself to be partisan be seen to uphold the law fairly?
Dartz Wrote:The thin with mandated intolerance is that it requires no brain. Therefore leaves no room for legal liability in case the worst happens, because hey, that's procedure. It's the absolute extreme of CYA Unjust rules can be challenged and struck down, though.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Quote:robkelk wrote:
Quote:Dartz wrote:
It's seems more like it's the local sheriff that's leading the witchhunt to me, either to score political points and secure his re-election (Do they really do that in the US?), ...
Apparently so, and it's always puzzled me. How can somebody who's declared him- or herself to be partisan be seen to uphold the law fairly?
The theory is that an elected position is more accountable than an appointed bureaucrat. It doesn't work in practice for sheriffs because sheriffs are cops, and cops are not accountable at all. On the other hand, they're also not any less fair than appointed police chiefs.
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Appointed police chiefs/sherrifs are still appointed -by- Persons Of Political Commitment, so, yeah.
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ECSNorway Wrote:Appointed police chiefs/sherrifs are still appointed -by- Persons Of Political Commitment, so, yeah. Not around here, they aren't - they're hired and promoted like any other officer.
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Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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