The Idiocy Meter Climbs

In Boston, once upon a time the cradle of free thought, a professor was fired for pointing a marker at some students and saying "pow, pow".

An adjunct professor was fired after leading a classroom discussion about the Virginia Tech shootings in which he pointed a marker at some students and said "pow."

The five-minute demonstration at Emmanuel College on Wednesday, two days after a student killed 32 people on the Virginia Tech campus, included a discussion of gun control, whether to respond to violence with violence, and the public's "celebration of victimhood," said the professor, Nicholas Winset.

During the demonstration, Winset pretended to shoot some students. Then one student pretended to shoot Winset to illustrate his point that the gunman might have been stopped had another student or faculty member been armed.

"A classroom is supposed to be a place for academic exploration," Winset, who taught financial accounting, told the Boston Herald.

This professor wasn't threatening anyone. It was clear that his marker wasn't a real gun. He didn't even use the phrase "nappy headed".

I don't think that it was the pointing and saying "pow, pow" that the college objected to. Not so long as the professor was pointing at students, playing the part of Cho the Coward.

No, I think what got the professor fired was continuing the discussion to the point where a student pointed and "pow"ed right back. The professor allowed the students to think about what might have happened if some of the deliberately disarmed victims of Cho the Coward had been armed.

Allowing students to think isn't what liberal arts colleges are for. They exist to TELL students what to think.

The college issued a statement saying: "Emmanuel College has clear standards of classroom and campus conduct, and does not in any way condone the use of discriminatory or obscene language."

Do you see any discrimatory or obscene language mentioned in the news article?

No, there is none mentioned. Unless you consider the concept of fighting back as obscene.

I think that's exactly what the college meant with their statement.