yikes! i swear a fair bit in class. why would anyone be bothered by that?
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 15:24 (eight years ago) link
although it sounds like the off-color joke rather than the f-word got her fired. still. jeez!
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 15:25 (eight years ago) link
The reports suggest that the decision came directly from chancellor and there isn't any obvious evidence any of the students complained.
― who epitomises beta better than (ShariVari), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 15:33 (eight years ago) link
yes apparently the termination letter cites the classroom language, but there's talk about her function in public education having more to do with it?
― j., Wednesday, 1 July 2015 15:49 (eight years ago) link
sounds like the chancellor found a convenient excuse to fire someone they'd wanted to fire for ages
― Aimless, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 15:58 (eight years ago) link
Tbh calling someone a "pussy" in class is unacceptable imo--not grounds for FIRING, necessarily, but way more offensive than "swearing" as such.
― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:00 (eight years ago) link
that probably took 5 or 6 of the hours in the 11-hour hearing to hash out
― j., Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:03 (eight years ago) link
depends on context i'd think. calling a student a pussy? unacceptable pretty much no matter what. male professor calling a public figure/character a pussy? problematic, but not as bad. female professor? kind of weird to get upset about that
― wisdom be leakin out my louche douche truths (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:04 (eight years ago) link
aimless probably otm, sounds like a vendetta
so much for being "down with the kids"
― goole, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:09 (eight years ago) link
an 11-hour hearing is the most offensive part imo
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:11 (eight years ago) link
agree with io there, its not hard to avoid shit like this in work/classroom settings ffs
― irl lol (darraghmac), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:12 (eight years ago) link
There are a bunch of offensive terms for people that we don't even use ON THIS BAORD no matter who we are, ffs, some of which were in frequent rotation up until a few years ago when some posters asked that we stop! It's not impossible, you just have to give a shit. A gendered & gender-patrolling slur like "pussy" has no place in any community that even PRETENDS not to be made up of assholes.
― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:34 (eight years ago) link
i doubt those were the LSU president's concerns
― goole, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:42 (eight years ago) link
xp - the right answer is to ask the person to stop using the term. you don't step in and fire them from their job before you give them a chance to change.
― Aimless, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:44 (eight years ago) link
she had me at "fuck no"
― hunangarage, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:51 (eight years ago) link
can a female professor say the b-word?
― wisdom be leakin out my louche douche truths (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:51 (eight years ago) link
That's the wrong question. The question is, Is an atmosphere where sexist, gendered, racist, homophobic insults are used a desirable environment for your college/business/what have you? And if the answer is No, then What kind of steps do you need to change to constructively change that environment to one in which such words & actions aren't normalized?
Institutional or community-wide culture change isn't really about individuals imo.
― Orson Wellies (in orbit), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 16:58 (eight years ago) link
i think we all agree that her calling someone (anyone; even a fictional personage) a "pussy" was very bad judgement. but a firing offense? if that was a firing offense, there wouldn't be a single football or basketball coach employed at an institution of higher education.*
*ugh, don't get me started on double standards for athletic dept. employees.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:05 (eight years ago) link
but yes this stinks of someone waiting for the professor to step out of line in order to fire them.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:06 (eight years ago) link
this event seems to be very much about an individual!
xps
― goole, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:07 (eight years ago) link
no idea what prof buchanan is "really like;" what we do know is that her firing was based on no student complaint and done over the recommendation of a faculty investigative panel that recommended censure
perhaps she had a long history of this kind of rough talk that came up to the administration outside of official channels. you can imagine anything, if you want
― goole, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:09 (eight years ago) link
the story in the advocate indicates that the president's read of the evidence is pretty tendentious
Buchanan was fired even though a committee of five faculty members that presided over an 11-hour dismissal review hearing held on March 9 recommended that she keep her job.
While the committee found that her adult language and humor violated university policies that protect students and employees from sexual harassment, it found no evidence Buchanan’s comments were “systematically directed at any individual.”
The committee recommended she be censured and agree to quit using “potentially offensive language and jokes” that some found offensive.
The committee also faulted the university for failing to have the chair of Buchanan’s department work to resolve her behavior prior to having the Human Resources Office investigate.
LSU President and Chancellor F. King Alexander rejected the faculty committee’s recommendation that Buchanan be censured and instead urged the LSU Board of Supervisors to dismiss her.
In an April 2 letter to Buchanan, Alexander pointed to the committee’s finding that she had engaged in sexual harassment but didn’t mention that the committee had recommended censure, not termination.
The chancellor also cited an allegation that Buchanan had violated a student’s rights under the federal Americans With Disabilities Act, an allegation the committee had rejected as “not substantiated by testimony.”
― goole, Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:11 (eight years ago) link
oooh
― example (crüt), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:16 (eight years ago) link
btw does merely saying 'fuck no' (not in response to a student but in re. a discussion of a work of literature) create a hostile working environment? in that case the word 'fuck' is so far removed from its sexual meaning that i would argue it doesn't carry any sexual connotation whatsoever. no more than saying 'shit! this projector is broken' is alluding to coprophilia.
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:17 (eight years ago) link
any breach of a norm of propriety may be perceived as hostile for a variety of legitimate or illegitimate reasons
― j., Wednesday, 1 July 2015 17:22 (eight years ago) link
sure
― wisdom be leakin out my louche douche truths (k3vin k.), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 18:08 (eight years ago) link
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/30/zandria-robinson-univ-of-memphis-professor-whitene/
― supreme problematics (D-40), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 18:39 (eight years ago) link
she had already accepted another job a while back
the university reporting that she no longer works for them is not stating that she was fired
when this popped up on twitter yesterday and under the hashtag i saw loads of academic/twitter activists being all 'i am outraged' before they realized any of that, it put online-outrage-mongering in really sharp perspective
― j., Wednesday, 1 July 2015 18:44 (eight years ago) link
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/07/01/twitter-explodes-false-reports-u-memphis-fired-professor-why?utm_content=buffer3f581&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
― j., Wednesday, 1 July 2015 18:47 (eight years ago) link
"we need a more nuanced intersectional reading of the thing," says the professor whose twitter condemnations lack all nuance
― wizzz! (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 July 2015 18:55 (eight years ago) link
http://www.thenation.com/article/211337/professor-was-fired-saying-fuck-no-class#
this article mentions a lot of recent creepy-liberalism-in-academia events, going all the way back to patti adler's 'prostitution lecture', but it also contains different reporting about theresa buchanan
Recently, there’s been much discussion of what some say is a growing intellectual chill and sexual panic on campus. In the latest example, on June 19, Teresa Buchanan, a tenured associate professor of education at Louisiana State University, was fired from the school where she’d taught for twenty years for using off-color language. Her alleged offenses included saying, in class, “fuck no” and making a joke about sex declining in long-term relationships, as well as using the word “pussy” in an off-campus conversation with a teacher. Reached by phone, she says she had no memory of saying “pussy” to anyone, but said that, if she did, it likely would have been in a conversation about how teachers must learn to handle irate parents. “If a parent is very angry and says, ‘You need to do a better job, you little pussy,” you need to know how to react. I wasn’t calling anybody that word.”
― j., Thursday, 2 July 2015 02:39 (eight years ago) link
From the Nation article:
The student, he learned, was threatening to bring him up on sexual harassment charges. “Oh, I felt unsafe,” he whines, imitating her. The director, he says, told him, “I know this is bullshit, you know this is total bullshit, since you’re gay, but you really don’t want to deal with this bullshit. Just give her the grade.”
Bizarre to leave uncriticized the claim that gay dudes are incapable of creating a toxic atmosphere for women.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:15 (eight years ago) link
that guy sounds like an A+ asshole
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:17 (eight years ago) link
Honestly, being the kind of teacher who prides himself on his blunt truth-telling and likes to pull out the "whiny little girl" voice is positively correlated with running a classroom that's crap for women, though obviously I know nothing about this guy in particular.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:17 (eight years ago) link
I also think that "student programmed to hyperachieve will do anything to avoid a B+" has much more to do with this story than "political correctness gone mad."
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:18 (eight years ago) link
yup
so many students seem completely crestfallen when they get anything lower than an A (or sometimes an A-) which is so weird to me
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:22 (eight years ago) link
She also jokingly told some of her female students that that they shouldn’t expect their boyfriends to keep helping them out with their coursework after the sex gets stale.
Seems to me the faculty response to this is totally right: you don't get fired for this, but seriously, cut that shit out, it is unprofessional and gross.
― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:23 (eight years ago) link
A toxic combination of an increasing dependence on financial aid, overachieving, and obsessive parents, in my experience.
xpost
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:24 (eight years ago) link
to be honest in my experience it's not the financial-aid kids who are the worst grade-grubbers
it's the UMC (or rich) kids who really want to make their parents happy (and/or get them off their backs, which is the same thing)
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:27 (eight years ago) link
of course my experience is specific to big midwestern state flagship universities
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:28 (eight years ago) link
people treat colleges like the DMV or frankly the justice system - vaguely wanting harsh 'rigor' for everyone else but a careful and supporting environment for themselves or their kids
i say this as a general observation; i have no sense of whether the charges against levinson are true
― goole, Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:37 (eight years ago) link
The argument I hear most is the student who needs the A- because h/she "might lose" the aid. My usual response: you don't just lose your aid thanks to one class -- are you failing the others AND did badly last semester?
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:40 (eight years ago) link
well, yeah. the whole "I need an A in this class because..." "...because you did poorly in all your other classes? er, try working harder."
― wizzz! (amateurist), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:47 (eight years ago) link
but I seldom hear "...because I'll lose my aid"
instead I hear "...because I can't get into the major I want"
nursing school
― j., Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:51 (eight years ago) link
communication school
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 2 July 2015 19:58 (eight years ago) link
abolish grades imo
― ryan, Thursday, 2 July 2015 20:15 (eight years ago) link
grading school
― j., Thursday, 2 July 2015 20:17 (eight years ago) link
abolish school
― Rouge Trooper (dowd), Thursday, 2 July 2015 21:52 (eight years ago) link
grades are the worst. i love school, though.
― horseshoe, Thursday, 2 July 2015 21:54 (eight years ago) link