Missouri professor makes mask joke, gets suspended

[gam197]

Documenting it, requesting that he apologize to the student, and warning him to watch it in the future seems just. Firing him seems extreme.

The professor immediately apologized to the student once it realized it was offensive and the student told other students that he took it as a joke and was not offended.

It was a third party who made the complaint.

 

[gam197]

A business school professor was relieved of his teaching duties after he made a joke about putting on a mask to a Chinese student—a joke that the student did not find offensive.

University of Missouri (Mizzou) professor Joel Poor was placed on a leave of absence following a complaint to the school’s Office of Civil Rights and Title IX by another student, Lourdes Torrey, who called Poor’s comments xenophobic and racist.

He was placed on leave of absence but I will continue to follow. Usually in other stories and there have been many, where jobs are lost, they do not gain them back.

 

[JanR]

RolandThompsonGunner:

Documenting it, requesting that he apologize to the student, and warning him to watch it in the future seems just. Firing him seems extreme.

The professor immediately apologized to the student once it realized it was offensive and the student told other students that he took it as a joke and was not offended.

It was a third party who made the complaint.

Third parties need to mind their own business.

 

[FrankFletcher]

More evidence that every word spoken aloud must now be internally vetted before utterance. I wonder when this brand of insanity will end.

 

[blackforest]

I initially argued the same thing. I did link upthread, however, an article referencing some extremely inappropriate sexual comments and behavior from this professor. If I had a daughter at Steubenville or Wyoming Catholic, I wouldn’t put up with it there, either, and would expect some administrative intervention.

I’m wondering if this incident with the Chinese student just tipped things over the edge. It’s hard to know the full story with only snippets of coverage.

 

[gam197]

This gets back to my question on why this is being referred to as “cancelled.” Taking the time to look into what happened and investigate before making any type of employment decision is much contrary to how I’ve seen “cancelled” used in news stories. Usually “cancelled” refers to the knee-jerk termination of someone and the following inability to find employment after a lot of people call for the punishment of an individual for an alleged infraction.

I think the use of the word “cancelled” in the OP is likely to cause misunderstandings and misrepresents the reaction.

So why change my Title? Start you own thread but don’t go around changing others - The title of the news article was - Missouri professor makes mask joke, get canceled.