Game of Thrones T-Shirt Leads To Suspension Of College Professor

[maxben]

Statistically to die in the us guns are far down on the list compared to just about any other measure, prescription drugs, alcohol, vehicles, hospital visits.

The whole guns are a danger and evil garbage is just that hype to convince people they are bad and therefore aok to take those rights away.

Nm that most school shootings happen on no gun zone schools, and the utter idiocy of liberals that actually had the gall to say all they needed was better signs to inform people if the no gun status of these places.

Far as this story goes the minute they called him into the office he should have burst out laughing in their faces i would have at their sheer stupidity.

I won't get into that debate, it's for Americans and not for the rest of us, but the fact that gun ownership is considered a right in the same vein as speech and life is incredibly perplexing to non-Americans.

By the way, I'd like to see you laugh in the face of your boss. It's a great way to find yourself on the dole, especially as a professor which by definition has little work opportunities and very specific skills.

 

[elvor0]

Statistically to die in the us guns are far down on the list compared to just about any other measure, prescription drugs, alcohol, vehicles, hospital visits.

The whole guns are a danger and evil garbage is just that hype to convince people they are bad and therefore aok to take those rights away.

Nm that most school shootings happen on no gun zone schools, and the utter idiocy of liberals that actually had the gall to say all they needed was better signs to inform people if the no gun status of these places.

Far as this story goes the minute they called him into the office he should have burst out laughing in their faces i would have at their sheer stupidity.

I'm not going to get into the whole guns argument here. Though saying "guns are a danger is garbage" is itself bollocks, of course they're dangerous, that's why you have gun safety, they're a lethal weapon! Even in the most sensible persons hands, they're dangerous, it'd be a pretty shit gun if it wasn't dangerous.

But you're really comparing those things to guns? With a straight face? Regardless of your stance on whether or not they should be publically available, can you not see the monumental flaw in that argument? Guns are designed to kill or maim living things, they have no other purpose. The others are not.

Furthermore, I don't think the "liberals" were really clammering for signs to inform people it was a no gun zone. If anything that seems counter productive, telling anyone who is intending to use a gun for nefarious means, that there's not going to be any resistance. Of course most school shootings are in no gun zone schools (this being the first I've heard of that, but carrying on), that would make sense, as there's going to be noone capable of standing up to the shooter. No I think what they were really going for is a dissarment of guns in general, not designated areas or special signs.

Lastly; I'll echo the sentiments of the guy above me, good luck laughing in the face of your boss and getting out of there with your job intact.

As an aside, I'm curious as to why "liberals" are still called /liberals/ in modern America. Because anytime I see rebublicans furious at them, it's because they're turning the country into Communist Russia or taking their liberty away by taking away their guns, the former is NO way is liberal, and the latter would be described in the eyes of the Republicans, as dicatorial; the opposite of liberal. I mean fuck me, most republicans abhore the idea of gay marriage, yet is not allowing gay people to wed a massive impact on /their/ liberty? You can't have it both ways.

 

[Vivi22]

Ok I do hate oversensitive nonsense but 34 school shootings? Is that true? Because if it is I'd assume everyone was trying to kill me too if I lived in the US.

Considering there are around 125,000 or more public and private schools in the US and considering the number of guns in the country, 34 is actually a pretty low statistic. It's still awful that it's that many and worse that it's been that many in four months, but as a percentage of the school population it's not that many. I'd have honestly expected there to be more.

 

[Mr C]

wouldn't something like this, y'know, push him to do it even more if that were his intention?

I was thinking that, next headline 'Bergen Community College Professor goes on shooting spree over suspension'

 

[CriminalScum]

Also American society promotes violence[/quote]

...We do?

First time actually quoting someone here, not quite sure how it works.

 

[Megahedron]

A quick browse of the wikipedia article:

7 deaths, no incident with more than 1 death. 3 at colleges, 3 at high schools, one apparently just near a college (and no students were involved.) The college shootings read like regular murders that happened to occur at a school. The highschools were one suicide, one cops shooting someone with a knife, and one gang-style drive up and shoot in a school parking lot. Two incidents were BB guns, 4 incidents only involved police shooting. A pretty good chunk were just shootings that occurred near schools, or gunshots reported causing a lockdown. It's understandable that we hadn't heard of these, none really read like a planned mass shooting, though one or two looked like they could have devolved into them.

Some lowlights include a random car driving up and firing out the window at a school and a bus driving into the crossfire of an unrelated firefight. There are also some altercations in parking lots leading to people being shot to remind us how stupid teenagers really are. Now I'm just sad...

 

[voidraz]

His first day back on the job, he wore a t-shirt that read "Questionable statement." True story.

Well, no. I completely made that up. But how could you resist returning to work as sarcastically as possible after something that ridiculous?

 

[Baresark]

Meh, whatever. The thing that bothers me is how they go from a picture of the guys daughter doing yoga with that shirt on to him threatening the school. They are basically interpreting whatever they want however they want and using fear as the reason behind it. I daresay, they are in the wrong profession if they are gonna invent things that are threats to them. I don't think people like that can possibly govern a school reliably, they are obviously paranoid.

 

[Baresark]

The rampant paranoia in American schools seems to be reaching a bit of a breaking point. I'm fairly certain that none of the shooters in the recent shootings showed up at the schools ahead of time with any sort of indication that they were planning to shoot up the place in future. The only reason these silly precautions exist now to placate the squalling masses that demand safety for the children, even when they have none of their own and nothing better to do.

You are correct. It's the hindsight fallacy at work. In hindsight, they probably had suspicious behavior. But without the resulting event, the behavior is not in and of itself suspicious. People stupidly think that since you can see it after, you should have been able to see it before. That is completely untrue in any given situation. You saw this after 911, you saw it after Pearl Harbor, and it's always the same. Without the event, the warning signs are not warning signs.

 

[Trueflame]

Why is anyone defending this? A man posted a picture of his daughter, on his own time, on his own Facebook page, with a well known and easily understood quote from a popular tv show. Somehow that gets him a trip to the Dean, who for some reason has such an ego complex that he thinks all of this is because of him, and some kind of threat. And the professor gets suspended. Sure he got reinstated later, and got back pay, but that is only because the story is so utterly ridiculous that it made the news. Think about what would have happened if it was something more mundane, yet still utterly frivolous? He would have either lost a few week's worth of pay, or actually been fired. All because it is apparently now unacceptable to use any language that could in any way shape or form be construed, by the average unreasonable person, to signify a threat of violence.

That's bullshit, plain and simple.

 

[CUnk]

When you think about it it seems odd they'd admit that this is just "standard procedure".

"Yes, our standard procedure is a kneejerk reaction that doesn't involve any thinking whatsoever. Then we follow up with some spiteful behavior. It's all in the employee manual...didn't you read it?"

 

[kael013]

Schmidt said one official told him that "when you see the word 'fire,' then someone shows up with an AK-47 here shooting everybody" as a not-terribly-coherent explanation for his suspension, and the college defended it as standard procedure.

5 years ago, they would have just searched your locker and called your parents (personal experience: never talk about how much you like building fires at Boy Scout outings in public). Seems the administrative paranoia (not to mention stupidity) in the school system has gone up a few hundred notches.

Also, AK-47s are very difficult for civilians to get a hold of. They should be more concerned with hunting rifles and shotguns; [i/]those[/i] you can get darn near anywhere. I know by their fear-mongering statements that's not what they care about, but come on; if you're going to try to instill the populace with fear, at least make them afraid of the more likely weapon!

 

[VoidWanderer]

"Live by the sword. Die by the sword."

"Han shot first."

"Whether 'tis Nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them?"

"Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war."

"I'm here to kick ass and chew bubble gum, and I'm all outta gum."

"If someone tries to kill you, you kill them right back."

"Make it so."

All suspendable, sackable offenses.

If you ask me, it sounds less like that school board is twitchy about school shootings and more like they just have it in for literature fans and fantasy/sci-fi fans.

Don't forget the teacher that got suspended for Mal's quote to Simon.

That was even on a poster...

 

[grey_space]

Lets buy this man a shirt. Might I suggest

Spoiler

Captcha: Better with Lunch. Oh the irony!

Where the hell can you get that image. I so want that tshirt.


OT: fear of tshirts being worn by young daughters is ridiculous.

 

[PirateRose]

The rampant paranoia in American schools seems to be reaching a bit of a breaking point.

I just moved to a house that's across the street from an elementary school. There are constantly police officers circleing the grounds and speed trapping people. They had a book fair recently, and I went over to the school to check it out. The school is under permanent lock down and I had to press a button to speak to someone over a speaker in the wall.

The school is like a prison and older generations wonder why younger generations don't trust anyone.

 

[Micalas]

Daughter in yoga pose? Age?

Pics?

When I read the article title I thought the T-Shirt in question was going to be printed with a list of everyone who dies.

That's the first thing I though too. Something that is indeed worthy of suspension. Probably even execution.

 

[Extragorey]

Heh, the "firing a gun" interpretation didn't even occur to me until the article mentioned it. Of course, "fire" in that context ("with fire" - i.e. fire is a noun, not a verb) can only be referring to the "Ouch! Hot!" kind of fire, so it's still a stupid reason for suspending a professor who's just trying support his daughter's interest in Game of Thrones (or his own, perhaps).

 

[tangoprime]

He should be happy the T-Shirt didn't say "God is dead", because otherwise they would have burned him at the stake.

Nah, this was within academia, if he'd have had a "God is dead" t-shirt, they'd have likely absolved him of other controversy and given him tenure.

Also:

"Since Jan 1, 2014, 34 incidents of school shootings have occurred in the United States," spokesman Larry Hlavenka told NorthJersey.com.

I know we're quoting what some other spokesperson said, but with the amount of commenters here misunderstanding that figure. Clarification would've been nice.
There have been, since 1 Jan 2014, 35 incidents reported involving firearms on or near school property (of ~106k public and private campuses in the US), many involving shootings or reported shots being fired nearby a campus putting it on lockdown, or gang related shootings outside of or near school property outside of school hours / during after school events. 2 involved BB guns, and one incident of a "school shooting" was one where the police shot someone armed with a knife, and thus it was considered a "school shooting" in statistics.

Of these 35 incidents, there were 6 deaths, one of which being the incident where the "school shooting" was by police officers, shooting a suspect armed with a knife.

So, of ~106,000 school campuses in the US, there have been 35 incidents of an educational environment being disrupted by a firearm, or reports of a firearm, and out of ~50,100,000 students in the US (2013 numbers, only including K-12, not university/college), there have been 5 firearms related deaths including 1 suicide and 2 gang related shootings.

Just a bit of perspective that was missed.

Ok I do hate oversensitive nonsense but 34 school shootings? Is that true? Because if it is I'd assume everyone was trying to kill me too if I lived in the US.

Hope the above statistics helped clear things up for you a bit. I can assure you, we're not all constantly trying to kill each other over here deathmatch-style.

 

[DrOswald]

Ok I do hate oversensitive nonsense but 34 school shootings? Is that true? Because if it is I'd assume everyone was trying to kill me too if I lived in the US.

No, it is not true. It is a statistical lie that they used to cover up their own stupidity.

Basically, their definition of school shootings is any discharge of a firearm intending to result in harm to a person (or accidentally resulting in harm to a person) near any of the following: a student of any school, a faculty member of any school, the property of any school. In those 34 shootings there have been 6 total deaths. Several of them were bb guns. So, gang violence involving a minor and a gun? School shooting. A kid shoots a school window with a bb gun in the night? School shooting. A police man shoots a kidnapper? School shooting. A depressed teenager commits suicide with his fathers hunting rifle? School shooting. A family is at the shooting range teen shoots himself in the foot? School shooting.

Frankly, the fact that they can only claim 6 deaths under these circumstances is very surprising. Every year there are around 10,000 firearm related deaths in the USA. The fact that only 6 in the first quarter of the year can even be tenuously linked to schools is pretty amazing.