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University of Delaware Fires Part-Time Professor over Facebook Post

posted by martyb on Friday July 28 2017, @02:40PM   Printer-friendly
from the karma-gonna-get-ya dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

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.

source

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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @05:14PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @05:14PM (#545868)

    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.

    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.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @05:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @05:37PM (#545877)

    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)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday July 28 2017, @06:43PM (#545902)

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 28 2017, @10:16PM (#546003)

      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)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @01:50AM (#546099)

        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

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 29 2017, @02:43AM (#546121)

          I identify as a company with an HR department.