The margin of sanity here is thinner than ever.
The MU campus is mostly quiet today – lots of classes cancelled, students and faculty staying home. The protesters have packed up their encampment. The guy who made threats on YikYak has been arrested… or so they say.
Move on everyone, nothing to see here.
I would never want people to shut up — I’m a big fan of tenure and believe in the good that it produces — but threatening people by calling for “muscle” to remove a student deserves a reconsideration (not an absolute denial, just a reconsideration) of your employment status at a higher educational institution.
Well, I’m glad she apologized and resigned her courtesy appointment. She sounded sufficiently contrite (unlike so many non-apologies we hear these days) so perhaps no further action is or will need to be considered.
Thanks.
So you’re cool with a professor laying hands on a student and calling for muscle to get rid of someone stringing for a national news organization? Cool.
Hey, it’s not just whites - it’s also Asian freelance reporters.
No, I am not cool with anyone laying hands on anybody. But there is different bad. And as far as I can see no one is in fear of their life because of Professor Click.
Now, the Klan invoking thug is a different category of bad. As various people have pointed out, he has committed a criminal act and the reality that that criminal act had no legal consequences for him is at the root of the entire situation.
He was threatening people’s existence, inciting violence.
In my book these are different kinds of bad.
One is a situation of conflict badly reacted to / managed.
The other the incitement of hatred with the explicit intent to eliminate the presence of an entire group of people from your vicinity, without hesitation or inhibition.
I am a bit puzzled how under the circumstances you can function in such an employment situation where you are convinced that any misjudgement on your part is going to have ruinous consequences.
Is this some kind of higher education version of defensive medicine? Where employees are expected to be seen to be doing the right thing, rather than actually doing the right thing?
Because, I don’t care how good you are at your job, if you are not making some misjudgements, bad calls, you are not really doing it.
As to touching students, while we are all getting exercised about these two women’s transgression, sexual harassment is rife on campuses. Please do read the comments on the downfall of Marcy, who operated with impunity for decades, playing games with women’s careers.
There is touching and there is touching, and context does matter.
Where did I say ANY misjudgement. Specifically asking for a student to be ‘muscled’ is far far far far different than say parking in a reserved spot. Asking for ‘muscle’ is specifically asking for harm to come to a student. It would be like a cop telling a crowd to beat the shit out of a criminal while claiming they didn’t harm the criminal, they just asked others to do it for them.
I have a feeling if this were the case, you wouldn’t be trying to invent excuses.
Sorry, are you seriously saying, she was inciting violence in the same way the thug calling for the Klan was?
If that’s the case the matter is easily resolved. Inciting violence, especially against a member of a minority, would be a criminal act. And you can bet your top and bottom $ that if there was anything remotely criminal in her behaviour she will be charged, there are enough people exercised about her behaviour to ensure that she experiences the full force of the law.
Did you actually see the video?
She called for “muscle” to stand in the way, and not to beat anyone up. You seriously can’t think, that she was encouraging students, muscular black students in Missouri, to use their muscle on an Asian photojournalist. That would be on a level of stupid which clearly would disqualify her from pretty much any job.
Way to twist words.
Not sure which one of us is twisting words. I don’t seem to have an agenda other than I don’t think this is a way for a university official to handle themselves.
That’s a pretty good illustration of what I’m talking about: could you have been more polarized?
It’s not cool, but they apologized and so what else should there be?
Oh, well, it can’t possible involve racism then, can it!
Professor Click should be immediately fired.
So she’s gone and so is Basler. Is there anything else? Oh, the other guy who quit today too. Does this satisfy the Politician’s Syllogism adequately? Maybe there’s a discussion about perfection when challenging authorities to be had here.
Well, sure I could have been. But it’s not the fault of people responding to negative behavior that their immediate attention has been removed from larger, more complex societal problems. It’s the fault of the people engaging in, excusing, or dismissing the negative behavior.
Entrenched racism is as pernicious and omnipresent as it is complex and difficult to decrease at a societal level. Whether or not people gathered in public should be allowed to be recorded is, comparatively, rather simple and easy to address.
Again, the demonstrators are responsible for creating the distracting issues by behaving unreasonably.
I’m sorry but you’re conflating two issues. I’m not talking about the Klan lover.
A loss of a job as far as I’m concerned. Welcome to your fuckup, Dr. Click.
May I humbly suggest that perhaps that’s something the student body and her immediate academic peers should decide? Look, I don’t know if you’re right or wrong. But one thing that troubles me about “clicktavism” is the implicit belief that strangers on the internet have enough context to decide if an incident like this merits an effective end to someone’s whole career. Respectfully, you and I see only the instantaneous aspect of this situation. We don’t really know the characters of her or the people around her. We just know one very big mistake in judgement. Do you really think that’s all we need to know to essentially call for an end this person’s whole professional life?
Perhaps you see things as more black-and-white than I, and if so, I respect that. But if so, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I think her behavior was reprehensible, but I don’t think I know enough about her, her peers, her students, or the context of her life and career to say with any finality that the latter should be ended, much as I agree she’s a most unsympathetic character in this story.
