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Simmons cancels professor's contract, then escorts him out of his class

The Simmons Voice reports Simmons officials say they didn't know about statistics professor David Kane's racist, sexist and homophobic writings, which led to him getting canned at Harvard before they hired him.

Once they found out, and students protesting hiring filled his lecture hall, a university dean walked in and told Kane he was now history at Simmons, too.

Only they were clever about it - they first set up an alternate statistics class for Kane's students to transfer into and once enough students transferred to drop Kane's student numbers below a university minimum, the dean walked in and delivered the news in front of protessters.

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Comments

It's Cancel Culture the consequences of my actions!

Anyway...

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So basically Simmons refused to address the questions regarding if non-class, external speech by faculty should be held to the same standards as official or class communications.
Instead got rid of him only on an unrelated technicality of enrollment being below a certain threshold.

It's good that he's gone but they should directly address the larger question.

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I'm more worried about why Simmons hired him in the first place, given that his racist blog had already been reported in the Harvard Crimson.

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It sounds like he was an adjunct teaching one class. Those don't get the level of vetting that someone applying for a tenure track position gets.

Without that kind of vetting, why would you expect Simmons department admins hiring an adjunct to have read a Harvard Crimson article? I work for Hahvahd and I don't read the Crimson; I certainly don't expect people from other schools to do so.

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One of the first things I do when considering someone for a job is a quick Google search just to see if there's any obvious red flags. The Crimson article is the 3rd result for this person.

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I can’t believe anyone would ever think of hiring anyone without at least a cursory web search, on top of the rest of the background check.

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If they just canned him for being a racist asshat, then he might be able to sue for wrongful termination if they didn't have a "we can fire you if it turns out you are a racist asshat" clause in his contract.

But if instead his course is too empty to honor his contract, boom. BYEEE.

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Or if he'll still get paid for the semester since he had already taught a few classes before the enrollment dropped.

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It’s hard to distinguish from the reporting whether his past comments were distasteful, course articulations of valid arguments, valid arguments that run counter to opposing ideological beliefs, or irredeemably racist. Maybe some fall into each category. But it seems to me that at least some fall into categories that absolutely should not result in termination or end his career.

There’s not a single mention of any incident or conflict while teaching other than inviting a controversial statistician to speak (not an endorsement of the views, critically).

Unclear to me what the benefit is.

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That strikes me as the heart of the issue here.

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distasteful, course articulations of valid arguments, valid arguments that run counter to opposing ideological beliefs, or irredeemably racist.

Yes, it certainly is hard to interpret something like “over 90% of students at Williams College would not have been admitted if it were not for their “Black’ness” [sic]”. How is it possible that we could ever know what he really meant?

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Some of the most damning of the posts made by ‘Field’ [Kane's sockpuppet] discuss “Black Supremacy” in the NBA, the assertion that “over 90% of students at Williams College would not have been admitted if it were not for their “Black’ness” [sic]”, and “question Williams’ condemnation of white supremacist group Identity Evropa without similar condemnation of Black Lives Matter.”

Also,

On the blog, ‘Field’ claimed that there is no need for Williams to have a Women’s Center, noted that, during the author’s time at Williams, he was “widely known as the campus homophobe,” wrote that “‘Sexism in the elite workplace’ is 95% fantasy” and about his distaste for what he calls “crackpot feminist quackery,” made a defense for Williams students who used homophobic slurs, proposed Willams professors should come together to discuss racial differences in IQ, claimed that the reason Williams has had fewer female students as commencement day speakers was because of the biological differences between men and women, challenges the notion that Japanese internment was immoral while linking articles in defense of racial profiling, and says that xenophobia isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

I sure wouldn't want him teaching my kids.

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Reasons. A lot of college professors say questionable shit, particularly those focused on DEI subjects. He could easily turn around and sue for wrongful termination based on something a coworker said.

Also, HR is very limited in what they say now a days.

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sue for lost wages and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

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not a wrongful termination & at any rate MA is a hire and fire at will state.

Simmons decided not to offer the racist, sexist, homophobic and bigoted xenophobe continued employment. You’re welcome to cry if it makes you feel better.

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Simmons is surely not in the Roxbury neighborhood?

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Technically, probably is (or was historically).
In common, practical perception, LMA would be the description I'd use.

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Their official address is 300 The Fenway, they are across the street from the Fens, and they are a member of the Colleges of the Fenway.

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Their first building was on St Botolph: https://www.simmons.edu/library/archives/history-exhibits/brief-history-...

Considering that BC started in the South End and BU started on Beacon Hill, had they not all moved, we might never have had Allston Christmas

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He should've known there was a high probability of this happening, especially at Simmons.

Lets hope he finds employment at Liberty University or any of the other "Christian" colleges.

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Plenty of people from Catholic/Christian universities. ZERO from small liberal art schools.

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In Catholic or other mainstream religious schools versus evangelical "hate everyone that isn't cis het white"

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Plenty of anons make claims. Most never back up the claims with facts.

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And I and plenty of my coworkers went to small liberal arts schools. Of course, since we didn't go to the kind of school where you're going to be flying the colors on College Gameday, I would imagine most people have no idea unless they ask. Have you asked everyone at your company where they went to college, anon?

(also, I'd be curious if your list of "Catholic/Christian universities" includes schools like BC or Notre Dame, which are technically Catholic but cater to a wide variety of students, many (most?) of whom are non-religious.)

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I've worked with so many young queer people from fundie backgrounds and/or poor backgrounds without a lot of options who had studied at places like this. While of course the bible colleges just existing does so much harm, let's at least hope for young people's sake that some less-awful folks take positions at them.

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Ah, a teachable moment for their ethics classes.

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