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

[DrOswald]

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.

I have not seen or read game of thrones, but I get the impression that would just be a list of the cast.

 

[tangoprime]

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.

Yeah, and even of those 6, 1 was a knife wielding suspect shot by police, 2 were gang related, and one was a suicide. Out of over 50 million students just in K-12, that's crazy low considering how much violence is portrayed in the media.

 

[LetalisK]

To be fair, a harmless little girls are the most threatening thing I can imagine...
When I want to inspire fear in the very heart my enemies I ask my niece to run at them wearing a T-shirt with a picture of the grim reaper. They especially get the point when she goes "RAAWR! I'mma get'cha!"

I can understand being called in maybe, but after the whole thing had been explained that should have been the end of it.
There is being overly cautious and then there is downright paranoia.

You kid, but Alma, the Ring girl, and the Grudge girl(s) are the scariest shit I've ever seen. I couldn't even finish Fear. Fuck threatening statements, just put your niece in a crappy white pajama-dress thingy and get her hair wet and over her eyes. I'll start shitting myself.

 

[UNHchabo]

Schools have a "it didn't happen if I didn't see it" mentality.

One of my favorite quotes from King of the Hill, from a School Board member:
"Carl, I wish I didn't just see what I saw here. But I did see it. And more importantly, I was seen seeing it."

 

[Vareoth]

I'm not surprised in the slightest. This seems like a pretty standard response nowadays.

Society sucks.

 

[Darkcerb]

Maybe...and this is crazy I know but just maybe slightly stricter gun control might be a better response to all the shootings then suspending people for wearing game of thrones T-shirts eh?

 

[tangoprime]

Maybe...and this is crazy I know but just maybe slightly stricter gun control might be a better response to all the shootings then suspending people for wearing game of thrones T-shirts eh?

Pretty sure that the college administrators that suspended him don't have the ability to enact gun control. Also, for fun with statistics, see above posts.

 

[FalloutJack]

Oh, for the love of God, Mike, and Flying Spaghetti Monsters... If there is no corralation between video games and ensuing violence, the same goes for mere television shows. Firing a man for making reference to fire is a stupid, shitty idea.

 

[Darkcerb]

Maybe...and this is crazy I know but just maybe slightly stricter gun control might be a better response to all the shootings then suspending people for wearing game of thrones T-shirts eh?

Pretty sure that the college administrators that suspended him don't have the ability to enact gun control. Also, for fun with statistics, see above posts.

Really, a college admin can't do that?

Mind blown captain obvious.

I also think the most fun statistic is leading in school shootings, that's the best to have as a country.

 

[Kameburger]

Well little known fact, many people who commit these acts of mass violence wear t-shirts describing the crime they want to commit. When ever you see people say in a news report "we never saw any signs that he was a violent person" what they mean is "man we need to get our eyes checked! it was right on the T-shirt!"

I personally think it's because of those darn video games! like Maddan!

 

[Ghaleon640]

The dean is just... what? Checking out his employees Facebook to see if anything at all can be applied to him? "its hot outside." IS THAT A THREAT? DO YOU BLAME ME, THE MIGHTY DEAN FOR THE HEAT? YOU SHALL BURN!

 

[Schadrach]

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

I was talking to one of my nephews after Sandy Hook and put it like this: "You know how you compare your high school to a prison? It wasn't like that before the Columbine shooting. Sandy Hook is why [name redacted, his nephew who was about the age he was when Columbine happened] will be able to compare his eventual high school to a SuperMax."

 

[pandorum]

Well, to be fair, he was reinstated and didn't really suffer any consequences. It might seem like a hilarious overreaction, but if the number of school shootings in the US this year listed in the article is anywhere near correct, I can kinda understand educational institutions being a bit "trigger happy" (pardon the pun) when it comes to potential trouble. What I'd like to know is why the hell are people shooting each other in US schools so much? As far as I know this is pretty much endemic to the US, at least as far as first world countries go...

It's because most other 1st world nations restrict the sale of guns to the public unlike America.
In the UK at least if a child snaps then all they can do usually is lash out physically and punch someone or if it gets really serious they might bring in a knife and it's a lot easier to stop a child with a knife...
Also American society promotes violence

How do you know the society promotes violence? Do you live there? Mental people, be them children or adults should be in special institutes for there bat shit craziness. Not with the general population. If society is to blame. its not pro-actively rooting out crazy people. If its not guns, its video games. If its not games, its media, never the parents or the people in charge, who should of known that they are crazy.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

What? 34 shootings in four months? Can I see a source for that? Either way, this seems blown out of proportion a bit, but I understand that Universities and school settings in general really can't do nothing when potentially not doing nothing means someone dies.

Really 34 shootings is not even alarming or not worthy if you think about it. There are 50 states with most being of comparable size to medium sized countries around the world. Each state has hundreds to thousands of different schools. We are looking.

A rough estimate, from using Google, shows that there are around 98,817 public schools in the US K to 12, 33,366 private schools, 7,021 post secondary/college/universities. That's 139,204 schools, though that's as of only 2011. The number rises every year, so we are getting close to 140,000 schools.

34 out of that is piddle. As others have said. Shootings are going down slowly year by year. Really, it is the reporting of such events that goes up, and the sensationalism people spread about their cause to stop gun violence.

So yeah, 34 in four months, that's nothing. If it started getting in the thousands in that span of time, then, and only then I would tell people to heavily watch out.

What this school did is act insanely paranoid. It wasn't an act of being cautious. I mean come on, they basically emulated the act of "hitting the deck" because of a quote from a book/television series. That is close to psych ward levels of paranoia.

 

[TallanKhan]

"Quick, we need a reason to sack this guy!"

"He's wearing a shirt with the word "fire" on it, let's appeal to memories of high school massacres and get him sacked"

"What could possibly go wrong?"

This is amazingly stupid. Like reallllly stupid.

I... I don't even know how to add to this. It's like firing someone who's wearing a shirt saying, "The time of Men is over, the time of the Orc has come."

At least, I'm fairly sure I remember that being the quote, it's been awhile.

I do believe the exact quote was "The age of Man is over, the time of the Orc has come." but a point well made nonetheless.

 

[Dascylus]

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.

Yes, but a better reaction might be to place more restrictions on firearms and not on social media posts and t-shirt slogans.
It seems like when you look at the supposed reasoning that it would be a better path to the root of the problem.

But the anti-t-shirt league is not restricted to the U.S., check out Mark Thomas' "Serious Organised Criminal" for a U.K. perspective on the pettiness of this.
Because if a police officer can give you a warning about a subversive cake then maybe something is wrong with the system.

 

[Lhianon]

so, a dean stalked one of the teachers, overreacted to a picture the teacher posted, was unable to give a rational justification for his reaction and the teacher is the one that has to see a psychiatrist?
i don't know how this is handled in the US, but if the dean of my school tried to behave that way towards me i'd contact my lawyer.

 

[Byzantinium]

We can't restrict the weapons because MAH GUNNNSSS
We can't have better mental health care because MAH TAXESSSSSS
So people keep dying, and we keep pretending we can't do anything.

 

[pilouuuu]

Oh, it all makes sense! The T-shirt says FIRE and they tried to FIRE him.

Unbelievable. And he posted it in his free time? And his daughter was in the picture? And a T-shirt about a book/TV series is promoting culture, isn't it? Now they're censoring WORDS, in your free time and that you didn't even say? Classy shit...

 

[Avaholic03]

Hmmm, looks like he got that sabbatical he was hoping for after all. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.