This is so disappointing. In the latest installment of CYA politics, an Emmanuel College professor has been fired for pointing a marker at students and saying, "pow." Now, I don't know any details other than what I've just read in this article. Maybe there is more to it than that. But the article does state that most students were not offended by the demonstration.
Why can't people just admit that they don't have a solution? Why not just say, "I've never encountered this situation before, and I'm not sure how to proceed. I'm open to suggestions." Would that be so inexcusable? Instead, administrators and politicians feel they must act decisively, without taking adequate time to consider whether or not they are doing the right thing.
We don't know how to stop school shootings, but we can stop professors from talking about it, so we do that instead. We don't know how to stop terrorist bombings, but we can stop advertisers from putting lite brites on bridges, so we do that instead. We don't know how to find and stop Al-Qaeda, but we know how to bomb the shit out of Iraq, so we do that instead.
I don't know how to solve any of these problems, but I do know that firing a professor for trying to have a free and open discussion about the Virginia Tech massacre doesn't solve anything.
