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The University of Delaware is cutting ties with a part-time professor who provoked a controversial firestorm for saying North Korea detainee Otto Warmbier "deserved" to die.
The Newark school said it will not re-hire Katherine Dettwyler, the adjunct faculty member who blasted the 22-year-old student as "young, white, rich, clueless" in a since-deleted Facebook post Tuesday.
The school's statement (pdf):
The comments of Katherine Dettwyler do not reflect the values or position of the University of Delaware. We condemn any and all messages that endorse hatred and convey insensitivity toward a tragic event such as the one that Otto Warmbier and his family suffered.
The University of Delaware values respect and civility and we are committed to global education and study abroad; therefore, we find these comments particularly distressing and inconsistent with our values. Our sympathies are with the Warmbier family.
Also at; CBS News.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @03:10PM (18 children)
I agree. But the relevant question here is: Did the part-time professor deserve to be fired for posting that statement?
(Score: 1) by Revek on Friday July 28 2017, @03:13PM (2 children)
Sure. People get fired for less.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday July 28 2017, @04:10PM (1 child)
That something happens does not imply that it should happen.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:41AM
Trump! Trump! Trump!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @03:24PM
Or maybe: Should the University of Delaware re-hire a part-time anthropology professor when they generate negative PR that is inconsistent with their values?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @03:36PM (2 children)
She is an anthropologist, so I guess she could be a bit of authority on the subject. Looking at her Wikipedia page on what she had said I think people misinterpreted in the way how she meant to say it (more as a warning); she puts it as a question, instead of a statement.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:40AM (1 child)
That does put it in a different light. OTOH you also need to look at what else she said:
So trying to souvenir some crappy propaganda poster is the same as rape in her eyes?
(Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:46AM
I've yet to figure out what, when somebody assigned to the male gender caste does it, isn't rape to feminism (even merely existing).
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday July 28 2017, @04:19PM (9 children)
Yes.
If I had a company and one of my employees wrote something publicly like that, I'd fire their ass. Especially when their public profile clearly says they're an employee of my company: their public comments reflect publicly on my company. Any smart company will eliminate people who are PR disasters.
Heck, even if she just said that at work, I'd think real hard about firing her. I don't want anyone like that around me. I have some pretty negative opinions of Otto myself (young, stupid, naive...), but I would never stoop to saying "he deserved to die"; that's just inhuman. In fact, while I think he was stupid and naive, I can't say I was sagely and wise at that age either. I'm not sure I would have been dumb enough to go to NK and try to steal a poster, but I did some somewhat reckless and ill-considered things in my teens and early 20s, just like most men I'm sure.
Otto was just a naive kid. He didn't deserve to die. This horrible excuse for a woman deserves to be fired though.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @05:14PM (5 children)
1) You don't have a company so this is a pointless hypothetical. You start off with the statement that you have no clue what you're talking about.
2) You have an inflated sense of self-importance. If you really think that people care what an employee says about you on their own dime/profile and that this is somehow interpreted as "it's the company saying it" or that it carries more weight than when someone else says so, you are even more clueless than you appear at first.
I have a company with an HR department and a policy, I know what I am talking about.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @05:37PM
Universities are run differently than normal companies. For one reason or another, the University of Delaware decided it cared enough about the PR fallout to not re-hire the professor.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday July 28 2017, @06:43PM (3 children)
You're an AC, and you claim to own a company with an HR department? I think you're a troll, but here goes anyway:
Would you keep one of your top executives around if they were spouting horrible crap on Facebook or Twitter, with their affiliation with your company prominently displayed? If so, you obviously have no clue how to run a company.
This is a professor, not some janitor or something. Their personal lives do reflect on the university.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @10:16PM (2 children)
I'm an AC, and I own my own company with a HR department, you insensitive clod!! (Different AC, BTW.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:50AM (1 child)
Wow! Me three! (Also different AC.) That's amazing! I'll bet all of us ACs own companies with HR departments!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:43AM
I identify as a company with an HR department.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 28 2017, @06:23PM (1 child)
Especially considering that the University's product IS this person.
I'm much less likely to want a professor who's publishing stupid crap on the internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @12:20AM
Are you sure about this? Second paper drafts are due next week, and there will be an exam on chapters 5-9.
(Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Friday July 28 2017, @11:02PM
Just up and fire them? No consideration for the value that this specific individual provides to your company? No consideration for the experience and hard work they put forth? If you are the higher up, no consideration that that this person might be, in a some part, the reason YOU have a job? All over some mindless spew on some retarded innernet web shite. (Hell, the freaking president spews crap on twatter and hasn't gotten fired... yet :P )
Right. Employees are interchangeable like light bulbs. Sure just up and fire them. Bring in some new kid that can't actually deliver the product or service like the they could. Quietly hurt the entire moral of the department. And when your company has to close up shop you will probably take your golden parachute and be completely oblivious to the damage that you did.
A smart company would mitigate the situation. The exact action? Depends on the situation. Warnings, marks on their record, take away their tweeter and facefook privileges, or just telling facebook readers that they just need to get over it? Firing? Hopefully only if it was the last straw in a larger situation.
Sadly there aren't that many smart companies.
The entire story boils down to some trite farce that sounds like "whaaaaa, someone said something on the Internet that I don't agree with!" :D
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @04:25PM
Absolutely. What bit of academic freedom was being expressed in this egregious display of boorishness?