I want to claim credit for it. So I will and I will never admit that it was an accident!
Well, if he makes public comments that disparage his students, isnāt he letting his views affect how he treats his students? I mean, thatās the part I donāt get. Do we pretend that his students are ignorant of the things he says, even though they clearly know?
JoshL
5705
They donāt have to give him classes, either. Instead of building a Rube Goldberg machine to try to keep him from discriminating against his students, just donāt give him any students. Youāre on research now, bring in some grants.
There was a discussion about that in the comments. Taking away classes might be seen as a change in job description and requirements, and that too might lead to a lawsuite.
Which makes some sense. Say you have a government employment that hate Donald Trump. If you couldnāt fire them, you might work around that by placing them in a basement office without any duties.
The end result is practically the same as firing him. Although, they do keep the pay check.
CraigM
5707
I mean weāve seen this play out in recent weeks with the army officer who testified in the impeachment hearings.
Exactly. I understanding why firing him is compelling, but not for this reason. I strongly suspect that racist people arenāt able to keep their racism in check at work though, so I wouldnāt be surprised if a deep dive into his career wonāt find something.
Here is an odd mental exercise. What if he isnāt racist at work (which I highly doubt). What if he is only racist at home or off the clock. What is the moral thing to do?
Nesrie
5709
I donāt believe that officer posted on Social Media that he was somehow working against the country while being active/employed to work for the country.
Weāre talking about people charged with responsibilities and then posting about things that are actually illegal if they did them.
Letās do a hypothetical. You are a college professor and one of your students has their laptop covered in alt-right slogans and memes.
Should you be fired for having posted things antagonistic to one of your students? Or can you treat them fairly, within the bounds of the class, despite what you have written online about the ideas represented on the laptop?
[this is entirely separate from whether or not I think the IU guy has been able to fair or not - that should be up to the school to find out]
Isnāt that a question for you? After all, you wrote:
Whatās the difference between directly disparaging your students in the classroom because of their race, gender or sexual identity, and instead following them out of the classroom, into the street and shouting it to them and everyone else in their hearing? Cuz Iām struggling to grasp it.
Because there is a difference between ones private life and ones professional one.
This is an extreme case of it, but still true.
Yeah, I can see that.
Iām a pretty out-in-the-open Democrat outside of work, often wearing ābrandedā sweatshirts or t-shirts, manning booths, marching in the odd parade or going to a protest and whatnot. Obviously I post fairly left-wing stuff here and if I bothered with Facebook or Twitter, Iād probably post stuff there too.
But at work Iām fairly certain that most people donāt know that. I donāt talk politics with my co-workers or in the officeā¦ heck, based on my haircut Iād wager most folks assume the opposite.
I oversee a fairly large team and there is at least one guy that works for me that is pretty conservative based on the pro-Trump bumper-sticker on his car. Iāve never treated him any differently than the other guys on my team; as much as I wince at his life-choices, it would be unethical to treat them differently based on their non-work lives.
This racist professor COULD be the same way. We here kind of assume that someone overtly racist must also be incredibly dumb and have no boundary between professional and private ethics, but that might not be the case. Unlikely as it might seem.
Iām pretty sure that if he only killed people in his private life, not in his professional one, the university would find a way to fire him.
Yeah, that is a stupid comparison. Murder, last I checked, is a crime. If he commits a crime, I am pretty sure he can be fired (provided he is found guilty).
Stupid is a nice word. Of course, the question Iām asking is, how far does his professional life extend, where does it become his personal life? If he shouts his bigotry from the steps in front of the classroom, is that professional or personal? If he writes a blog post in which he says his professional experience proves the validity of his prejudices, is that personal or professional conduct? If he writes a blog post in which he claims to discriminate against his students, or implies it, is that personal or professional?
I think you will agree that there are some things he can say in his personal life which would cause him to be fired. Once youāre there, itās just a question of where you draw the line. Since I donāt think bigots can ignore their bias ā even if they think they can ā then I think his personal statements demonstrate his unfitness for his professional role.
Okay, letās move on that inane remark.
If you truly believe that his personal beliefs will impact his work, wouldnāt it mean that he will be fired for that? The provost already gave a list of reasons that he can be fired for, so I doubt heāll be on campus that long.
The point remains, you dont have to stripe people of their minimum work protections to get justice. Either his work is impacted by his racism, in which case he will be fired or his work wonāt be, in which case this guy is a real professional, one in a million able to some how do his work despite being a raging racist. Not likely, but then again, Donald Trump is president, so I am not willing to rule anything out anymore.
In either case, take this away, and you pretty much opened the door to Donald Trump and his Iāll firing everyone that wont turn a blind eye to their corruption. You already see his cronies doing it in the private workplace, I would rather not see it in the public workplace as well.
To be clear: You think there is nothing he can say in his personal life for which he ought to be fired?
You seem to have something in mind, so Iām curious what youāre thinking. What private-life statement that isnāt ALSO already criminal (e.g., incitement to violence, making personal threats) do you think would warrant the firing of a state employee with tenure?
āI voted for Trumpā would work for me, but perhaps itās for the best I donāt have hiring/firing power :-)
gruntled
5721
That people tend to be like you is why we have the First Amendment, @ArmandoPenblade.
Nesrie
5722
Yes. If people were like Armando in general I am sure we wouldāve had hundreds of years of slavery, business individuals raping the planet for every last drop of resources and leaving scorched earth behind them, women raped and married at the ripe age of 12ā¦ or younger, and the penniless starving in the street, dying of preventable diseases or the element just so the people who sat back or made sure all that happen could smugly say, well without Freedom of Speech society sure would be awful.
