At 7:04 PM -0600 3/1/08, William Scott wrote:
I have been told by the College of Wooster that my reinstatement now
depends on passing a mental exam that the College has set up for me
on Wednesday. I will therefore not be able to teach until I meet
with a psychiatrist and convince him that I am not violent on
Wednesday. The students will have to wait another while to get back
to business with me. A real question here: should I give all of the
students in my classes a grade of A or should I punish them for any
lack of performance based on their failure to understand the
material that I have not taught them?
I don't think I need any more letters to the president for this
although you should know about it. Message is, don't ever do
anything provacative. Free speech is a fiction.
Unfortunately, 'free speech' in the constitutional sense is very limited.
It simply says that the Federal (and usually state) government cannot
penalize you for stating your opinions unless it can show that those
statements constitute a clear and present danger to others.
It says nothing about civil actions taken by private (or corporate)
individuals taken by colleges.
The real problem is the woeful ignorance of basic risk analysis, not
only in the general population, but by administrators in responsible
positions who are either ignorant of real risks, or choose to pander
to the popular (mis)conception of risk.
I suspect that more college students are killed by food poisoning in
college cafeterias than by on campus shootings.
I also suspect that (like murders in general) most shootings are done
in the course of an argument between friends, not by a demented
stranger.
--
The best argument against intelligent design is that people believe in it.
* PAUL K. BRANDON [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* Psychology Department 507-389-6217 *
* 23 Armstrong Hall Minnesota State University, Mankato *
* http://krypton.mnsu.edu/~pkbrando/ *
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