SCSU Scholars welcome your comments. Offensive material will be deleted.
The student's name should be exposed. I get the impression sometimes that student=juvenile in the sense that student over 18 does not equate to adult. This adult lied (made unsupportable allegations) was furthered in his cause by a clueless prof who, to his credit came clean immediately. Why should the student be protected?
Lincoln, usually when students have fabricated stories they take months to get to the bottom of. (So too with faculty who fabricate -- see Kerry Dunn.) The story here at SCSU of the student who claimed she was attacked for being lesbian and outspoken in the Matthew Shepard protest took months to come out, and didn't get nearly the coverage her false claim did. Here, we had a student recant in a week, and the faculty member who offered the story to the press come clean almost immediately upon knowing the fakery. I admit, it's not a very high standard, but it's an improvement over where we were. I prefer to err on the side of leniency, and if it's an error, I am guilty of it.
The reporter, perhaps, deserves less thanks because it was his job to check the story and his check on one faculty member was another check. It doesn't appear he checked the library before publication.
I invite you, Lincoln, to Rudy Rummel's site on democide. We agree wholeheartedly there is forgetfulness of the public of government-sponsored mass murder.
Some of you(perhaps determinedly) are missing my point.The peopele I've cited claimed they were threatened /attacked by "bad guys"aka people who had differnt political leanings.
That is a quantum leap from saying ,"there was a lawsuit",etc.
And kb,why thank someone who did a sloppy job in the first place (the reporter),or someone who's critical thinking seems under developed (the teacher).If I have a student who tells me eating ear wax cures basal cell cancer or some nonsense,I certainly wouldn't rush to print.It's called professional judgement.For one thing,it keeps one from being embarassed.
Finally,it's very well to say"No wars."Sometimes it's worse than useless.During The great Genocides of the last century at least had the luxury of not knowing.While the American public could plead ignorance of the Armenian and Jewish holocausts,pleas remember Sudan and call your Congressperson.
I agree entirely with Lincoln, its past time to start naming names. Most of the lefties I know wouldn't think twice about pulling such stunts, and are only remorseful over the fact that they were caught. Society has been slipping in its obligations to accountability for some time, so lets bring it back.
Regards,
JB
I don't think the students motivations are as simple as "wanting attention".This also makes the Dept of Homeland Securiy look like thought police.The student would
have to be clueless to not understand that.
Certainly there have been several acts of left leaning lemmings trying to auto-inoculate themselves with victimhood(and smear their intellectual foes) recently.Some of the ones I remember:the girl at Bradley(?)-in Ill.-claiming to have had racial threats/slurs against her,the religion prof at Colo.,who claimed to have been beaten by the Ku Klux Rednecks,the juco teacher who claimed her car was vandalized(I think she's doing time),some students at U-Michigan who cited the word "nigger" written on campus everal times the night before David Horowitz spoke had obviously been written to intimidate them.What these issues have in common is the bad guys weren't ever identified.Except in the cases where it seems the victim and perpertrator were the same.
I hope this student's name becomes exposed>He's 22,not 16,and it seems calculated,not naiive.
And let us not forget the "War on Christmas."
Or for that matter the "War on Excellence."
Maybe there should be no wars at all.
Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah to all.
Also - this tactic is done by both sides. Michele Bachmann still claims that the Declaration of Independence was banned at the Cupertino School District in California. This came an Alliance Defense fund press release about a lawsuit by a teacher in that school district. The teacher even said this wasn't true when on Hannity and Combes.
When the strib wrote a story about Bachmann's introduction of the so-called "American Heritage Act", they mentioned that Bachmann used this urban legend to promote her bill. I wrote the Readers Rep and the reporter, Norman Draper to request a correction to the story. That didn't go anywhere.
Thank the reporter, and Prof. Williams, and in fact the UM-D administration.
The student has problems. I think what happens is students at this age sometimes want attention - and they see telling these types of stories as a way to get attention.
I hope this student gets help - and I'm glad that you kept the student's name out of your report.
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