Unreal

From the shake your head in disbelief file: Arizona Professor Faces Termination for E-Mailing George Washington's Thanksgiving Address

Today’s press release discusses one of the most egregious cases of viewpoint discrimination I’ve come across during my time at FIRE.

The case involves Walter Kehowski, a math professor at Glendale Community College—part of the Maricopa County Community College District (MCCCD) system—who e-mailed a single Thanksgiving message to the entire MCCCD community. On the day before Thanksgiving, Kehowski sent an e-mail containing the text of George Washington’s “Thanksgiving Day Proclamation of 1789” over the district’s “announcements” listserv. Kehowski had found the Proclamation on Pat Buchanan’s blog, and included a link to that webpage in his e-mail. That citation would have dire consequences.

Within weeks, five MCCCD employees complained that Kehowski’s e-mail was “derogatory” and “hostile” because the link he’d included—if you decided to open it—led to a page where Buchanan also posted his opinions of immigration. MCCCD soon held an Initial Assessment of the complaints, and decided that since Kehowski’s e-mail was not work-related but rather expressed a “social comment,” he had violated MCCCD’s e-mail policies, which limit e-mails to work-related information. MCCCD reacted on March 9 by forcing Kehowski to cease teaching, placing him on immediate administrative leave, and recommending that he be terminated.

But Kehowski had used the same “announcements” listserv that many employees use to send general-interest e-mails. Other non-work-related e-mails sent recently include an announcement about Arizona’s 20th Annual “Sisters in Crime” mystery novel celebration, quotes about Women’s History Month, ads for how to purchase goats for orphans in Uganda, and reminders about the health benefits of bananas. While the e-mail about bananas is admittedly neutral, the other e-mails could indeed be said to constitute “social comments.” Yet FIRE is not aware of one single other MCCCD community member who has been placed on forced administrative leave or faces possible termination for sending such e-mails.

Obviously, they are attempting to remove the professor because he has shown "conservative tendencies." At some point this fanatical enforcement of viewpoint discrimination becomes virtually identical to implementing test oaths.

Were I to subscribe to substantive due process I'd start to think there was an additional constitutional violation here beyond the ones outlined by the folks at F.I.R.E.

Here Is A Headline To Love

David Bauder of the AP attempts to..shall we say, pleasure, Keith Olbermann with this one:

MSNBC's Olbermann seeks delicate balance

You are right David. It is a fine line between "self-serving demagogue" and "pompous self-serving demagogue."

"What? I Don't See An Elephant In The Room."

From the AP: Soccer game for priests, imams canceled

A soccer game between Muslim imams and Christian priests at the end of a conference to promote interfaith dialogue was canceled Saturday because the teams could not agree on whether women priests should take part.

Church of Norway spokesman Olav Fykse Tveit said the imams refused to play against a mixed-gender team of priests because it would have gone against their beliefs in avoiding close physical contact with strange women.

The church decided to drop its female players and the priests' team captain walked out in protest.

Hours before the game was to end the daylong "Shoulder to Shoulder" conference in Oslo, the church released a statement saying it had called off the match because it was sending the wrong signal.

"Because we thought it would be a nice conclusion of the conference we didn't want to call it off, so we decided to stage an all-mens team game instead," Tveit said. "We realize now that it will be wrong to have a priest team without women."

Funny thing they could have an entire conference without ever noticing the medieval approach to women's rights.

Simply Monstrous

Tales of the barbaric and inhuman, all the more soul crushing for being real and contemporary.

Art For Arts Sake (The "Oh! The Humanity!" Edition)

I saw this and I just had to share.



Well, I don't know much about art, but I know what is really, really weird and a little funny.

This painting is actually up for auction and the house claims it represents the "German-American School."

More like the "Germans Blowing Up In America School."

Then again, maybe there is someone somewhere who looks at this and says, "Finally! Something to put up in the nursery."

(I can't stop adding lines to this.)

"With God as my witness, I thought zeppelins could fly."

Freedom Of Religion?

More illiberalism from the "good" folks over at the DK: Marring a Beautiful Day for a Mother and Daughter

Claire McCaskill was asked to speak at her daughter's commencement. What a proud day that would be for both mother and daughter. But Archbishop Raymond Burke objected, and McCaskill was disinvited.

"I was thrilled that the great, young women at St. Joseph's Academy invited me to speak at their graduation,'' McCaskill said in a statement. "It was a special opportunity because my daughter is one of the graduates. I'm disappointed that the archbishop has made this decision."

Why? Because McCaskill's support of stem cell research and abortion rights "are contradictory to church teaching." Let's see, who else would be ruled out as commencement speakers by Raymond Burke for views that are contradictory to church teaching? The Dahli Lama, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Nelson Mandela, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, George W. Bush.

Burke is not new to controversy or to politicizing his religious views. He was behind the effort to deny John Kerry and other progressive Catholic politicians eucharist. Last week he tried to derail a benefit concert by Sheryl Crow for a local Catholic hospital because of her support for stem cell research. Apparently he put politics over critical funding for the hospital. He resigned his position on the board of directors for the hospital when they refused to cancel the concert.

Yes, a Catholic institution is discouraged from giving an honor to someone the church teaches is in grave moral error. From the Catholic point of view it would be the same if they asked an unapologetic advocate of rape to give the address. To the DK, however, no one is allowed to hold a different position to the "progressive" dogma. Or, if you must hold the position, you can in no way allow it to govern the way you interact with the world. Catholics who actually believe in the tenets of the Church are to be treated like 19th century children: Seen but not heard.

I really wonder where folks like this get off thinking they should have some sort of veto over what religious beliefs other people should be allowed to have. No one is making Claire McCaskill pretend to be a Catholic. If she values her political ideology over everything else she should be adult enough to own up to it.

The Culture Of Fear?

From the Des Moines Register: Missing Iowa City girl found in her own bed

A 6-year-old Iowa City girl reported missing Wednesday evening was found safely in her bed following a search by dozens of police and community members.

Krystal Halter was reported missing by her mother around 7:45 p.m. Wednesday. The girl had been playing outside with other children until about 7:15 p.m. and was supposed to go home, but her mother had not seen her return 30 minutes later, Iowa City Police Sgt. Troy Kelsay said.

About 16 police officers and other community members searched the southeast Iowa City neighborhood and a nearby swamp through the evening, Kelsay said.

“As people became aware of the search, they came out on their own to help,” he said.
Krystal was located around 12:15 a.m. today, asleep in her bed, Kelsay said. The girl had apparently come home at some point and gone directly to her bedroom without checking in with her mother, Kelsay said.

It seems that the very first assumption drawn when the child wasn't exactly where the mother expected her to be was that the girl had something horrible befall her. So there was almost 5 hours worth of panic caused by the fact that a little girl got sleepy and went to bed.

Let's hope she never gets out of bed for a drink of water in the middle of the night. The National Guard might get called in for that.

Exposed!

You just knew it had to be something like this, didn't you? Israel's Summer Wars

The Winograd Commission, the Israeli body established to investigate the political and military management of the war in Lebanon, released its interim report today. The material includes the minutes of a crucial Israeli General Staff meeting in the lead-up to the war. They shed new and damaging light on its conduct, and they confirm the obvious: Professor Cole is supremely well-informed about Israel's inner workings. It's uncanny.

...

GOC Southern Command: I thought sustained blogging by a professor was pretty much tantamount to a suicide bombing.

Director of Military Intelligence: There's ample evidence for that. But we're talking about a group of highly ideological and thoroughly indoctrinated fanatics. They're quite willing to sacrifice career prospects in order to advance the cause. The tenured ones, of course, think they've already died and gone to heaven. They spend most of the year in classrooms full of near-virgins. It's almost impossible to deter a tenured professor.

We think the ideal time for an operation is the very first month of the fall semester, in September. This is crunch-time for professors, who've got to get all their courses up and running, make sure textbooks are in the stores, solve scheduling conflicts, and suck up to new deans and chairpersons. About the only thing professors manage to put on paper in September is their signatures on drop/add forms, and maybe the occasional petition.

GOC Home Front Command (with alarm): September? We're not going to launch a war of choice right in the middle of the Jewish holidays, are we?

Gentleman C: With all due respect, I think my friend from Military Intelligence underestimates the travel factor in summer. Middle East 101 tracks the movements of professors throughout the world. The highest-caliber ones are the most likely to disappear in summer for weeks on end, on "research" trips to London or Provence. We know from intercepts, and satellite surveillence shared with us by the Americans, that a lot of them aren't even near a library or archive. Their spouses have real jobs and need real vacations. We've seen major blogs shut down entirely for the better part of the summer.

The whole thing is hysterical. It is rare to see megalomania punctured so expertly.

Opening Stateroom Windows On The Titanic

I suppose the theory here is, "If you are going down anyway what does it matter?"

Gay ex-governor to attend Episcopalian seminary

The nation's first openly gay governor has become an Episcopalian and been accepted into a seminary, according to a published report.

Former Gov. James E. McGreevey, who was raised as a Roman Catholic, was officially received into the Episcopal religion on Sunday at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York, said the Rev. Kevin Bean, vicar at the church.

This is just what the schism needed...a little "star" power.

I sure do feel for traditional Episcopalians tonight.

Vindication

The only thing that could have been better would have been if he was referring directly to my work....oh well. I just have a little blog after all.

Hurricane-global warming link challenged

The invitation went to 50 top hurricane scientists: Please attend a seminar to discuss erroneous connections between global warming and hurricanes. And please don't attack the presenter.

''No rotten tomatoes,'' read the invitation, sent to South Florida colleagues in February by prominent hurricane scientist Chris Landsea.

On Tuesday, Landsea published a study that he believes seals his case and should end one of the hottest debates in all of science: There is no connection, he said, between global warming and increased hurricane activity.

Other researchers who reported such a link made a fundamental mistake, he concluded. They underestimated the number of storms before the age of satellite monitoring -- and before global warming became a concern. An average of three storms each year were not counted during the late 1800s and the first half of the 1900s, he said, because they didn't hit land, weren't reported by ships, and they formed, flared and disappeared with no one noticing.

''When you add those storms back into the record, we don't see any new trend,'' said Landsea, a scientist at the National Hurricane Center whose peer-reviewed study appeared in the journal EOS, published by the American Geophysical Union.

"There's no link to global warming that you can see at all.''

Those who read this blog might remember that back in February I published a piece in which I claimed that North Atlantic tropical storms as listed in the Best Track data were undercounted by between 1.28 to 2.46 per year. Chris Landsea is now putting that number at 3 per year, which is an even more dramatic change than I had postulated. I'm not sure how Landsea arrived at his number. It might average higher because he is starting further back in the 1800's, while I looked at the years 1907-1966 only.

After last February's seminar at the hurricane center, Hugh Willoughby, a professor at Florida International University and a former director of the Virginia Key research center, called the scientific climate ``hateful.''

After reviewing Landsea's paper, Willoughby said he is maintaining neutrality but is ''sort of persuaded'' by the report and similar studies he has reviewed for publication in coming months.

Emanuel declined to comment, referring questions to Tom Knutson of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who has worked with both warring camps.

Knutson said Landsea ''makes a very good case,'' but ``I consider the science still unsettled.''

This issue is settled, however, for Landsea.

As part of Landsea's supporting evidence, he points to charts showing all tropical storms or hurricanes in 1933 and 2005, the two busiest seasons on record. In 1933, all storms appear fairly close to land, and none were in the central or eastern Atlantic; but in 2005, those remote areas were filled with crisscrossing hurricane tracks.

''It seems obvious that there's a big gap in how we monitored things in the presatellite era,'' Landsea said. ``Sometimes, you just have to state the obvious.''

Landsea used the exact same criteria and methodology that I used to arrive at my conclusions. This isn't surprising as the homogeneity of data is always an important factor to examine in such longitudinal studies. Too bad Emanuel isn't all that interested in the subject.

(Gleaned from a Justin Levine post on Patterico.)

Eleven Inch Tall Hero

Tiny terrier saved kids from pit bulls

A plucky Jack Russell terrier named George saved five children from two marauding pit bulls, but was so severely mauled in the fight that it had to be put down, its owner said Wednesday.

George was playing with the group of children as they returned home from buying sweets at a neighborhood shop in the small North Island town of Manaia last Sunday when the two pit bulls appeared and lunged toward them, Allan Gay said.

"George was brave -- he took them on and he's not even a foot high," Gay told The Associated Press. "He jumped in on them, he tried to keep them off.

"If it wasn't for George, those kids would have copped it."

One of the children, Richard Rosewarne, 11, was quoted in the Taranaki Daily News on Wednesday as saying George fought with the pit bulls to keep them off his 4-year-old brother, Darryl.

"George tried to protect us by barking and rushing at them, but they started to bite him -- one on the head and the other on the back," Rosewarne said. "We ran off crying and some people saw what was happening and rescued George."

But George was so badly mauled that a veterinarian had to put him down, Gay said.

South Taranaki District Council official Graham Young said the two pit bulls had been impounded, and likely would be put down because of the attack.

I often do not care for small dogs as they can be a little "yippy", but it sounds like George had the heart of a wolf.

Barack Obama's Eminent Domain At MySpace

This speaks to an view of everyday folks that is troubling to say the least.

This seems like it was bound to happen with Obama's top-down campaign structure as it grows by leaps and bounds. With much of that energy coming from a bottom up movement that's responsible for that growth, the campaign moves in to take control of the decentralized action.

The case in point is the myspace/barackobama homepage. The Battle to Control Obama's Myspace has been unfolding behind the scenes, and it reads like it ended pretty ugly. Write's Sifry:

How all this happened is a complicated tale that is still unfolding, and none of the parties involved--Anthony, the Obama online team, and the MySpace political operation--emerge from this story unscathed. Speaking on background, Obama campaign staffers are spreading word that Anthony just wanted a "big payday." Anthony in turn has posted a missive on his blog (that was originally sent to me as an email) accusing the Obama team of "bullying...[and] rotten and dishonest" behavior. However one parses those accusations (more below), the Obama campaign's reputation as the most net-savvy of 2008 has taken a big hit.

I can totally understand that the campaign would want to take control of the domain. The easiest solution would have been to hire Joe Anthony, a paralegal living in Los Angeles, to move to the campaign HQ's and start working on it there. The second easiest solution would have been to buy it from the volunteer. When that got onto the table, says Anthony:

I considered the time I had put into it from January 1st of this year, not counting the previous two years. It was about $39,000. Plus I asked that if any fees were to be paid to MySpace by the campaign up to that point in time, those should be shared with me, up to $10,000. There was no counter-offer. They said they didn't have any money.

The Obama campaign should have faxed him the contract immediately. Instead, write's Sifry:

[I]t appears the Obama internet team was shocked by the size of Anthony's proposal and argued to themselves that it was proof that he was just in it for the money, even though campaigns like theirs regularly give tens of thousands of dollars to highpriced media consultants who would give their eye-teeth to deliver 160,000 rabid activists to a campaign. Instead to them, Anthony's bid was all the more reason to get control of the site. Obama's staffers are now spreading the word that Anthony wanted a big payday, including a huge percentage of any ad buys on MySpace. I have a copy of Anthony's email proposal, however, and it contradicts that claim.

Yea, $49K to deliver 160,000 supporters; that's .32 cents each for opted in and engaged activsts. A bargain. [The amount was actually up to $44K] $50,000 is what it takes to advertise on the Liberal Ad Network for two weeks. It's a minor expenditure in the grand scheme of things. But instead:

Whatever the case, at this point it appears the Obama people simply decided that they would get control of the myspace.com/barackobama url by going around Anthony and getting MySpace to lock down his access to it. In their view, Anthony was violating MySpace's terms of service by falsely representing himself as Obama, and thus they didn't have to pay him anything. The worst that would happen, they reasoned, is that they would have to rebuild the candidate's network of friends.

I simply love the attitude. "How dare this person who has put in countless unpaid hours to make a site favorable to our candidate, expect to get compensation for it when we...um...shall we say,appropriate it."

What a dumb move. There is no way the Obama campaign can come across as anything other than petty, vindictive, high-handed and arrogant.

You just can't buy publicity like this, but you sure as hell want to pay to avoid it.

Tireless Watchdogs For The Public Good?

The more I see about this issue in the right blogosphere the more I'm amazed that no one in the MSM thinks it is a story. (See here and here.)

Anyone who knows much about real power in Congress knows that almost every member of the House and Senate lusts after a seat on the Appropriations Committee and hopes one day to achieve the status of Cardinal. The Cardinals, of course, are the folks who chair the various Appropriations Committee subcommittees and literally control the billions of dollars that pass through their hands.

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband.

If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption.

The problems stem from her subcommittee activities from 2001 to late 2005, when she quit. During that period the public record suggests she knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket — the classic conflict of interest that exploited her position and power to channel money to her husband’s companies.

In other words, it appears Sen. Feinstein was up to her ears in the same sort of shenanigans that landed California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R) in the slammer. Indeed, it may be that the primary difference between the two is basically that Cunningham was a minor leaguer and a lot dumber than his state’s senior senator.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, or CREW, usually focuses on the ethical lapses of Republicans and conservatives, but even she is appalled at the way Sen. Feinstein has abused her position. Sloan told a California reporter earlier this month that while”there are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest … because of the amount of money involved, Feinstein’s conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts.”

I have to wonder, given Feinstein's prominence and the sheer amount of money involved here, why there isn't a media frenzy. Could the media silence be accounted for by the fact that she is known as "Diane Feinstein - D(California)" instead of "Diane Feinstein - R(California)"?

Or maybe the media thinks she should be held to different standards because of her gender.

Either way it is...interesting.

A Real War Against The Poor And Middle Class

Here is a not quite fair and balanced look at a campaigner against the abuse of eminent domain in the St. Louis area: Jim Roos fights against eminent domain

Jim Roos has a briefcase covered in bumper stickers and a box full of buttons featuring his signature issue — fighting eminent domain.

He's a nonstop activist: organizing protests at City Hall, testifying in Jefferson City and commissioning a two-story mural condemning the seizure of private property.

But Roos is also a property owner and real estate manager, and his own buildings — some cited for broken windows and crumbling porches — have been a target for the very thing he crusades against.

Critics say landlords such as Roos are part of the problem, the reason eminent domain is needed to revive struggling sections of the city. Yet those who have been threatened by eminent domain call him a relentless advocate for property rights. Advertisement

Either way, Roos, 63, a seminary graduate, fights eminent domain with religious zeal, becoming a visible figure in one of the state's most contentious issues.

Questions have been raised over whether Roos' stance is for the greater good or to protect his own self-interests. It could be a little of both, he suggests.

"I don't like to get pummeled myself," he said, "but I hate to see someone else get pummeled."

Roos grew up on a farm in southwestern Minnesota and came to St. Louis to attend Concordia Seminary. Instead of becoming a minister, Roos formed a "housing ministry" — Neighborhood Enterprises Inc. — which today manages or owns about 200 moderately priced apartments in the city, most of them on the near south side.

He can be found on most days in his office in the Gate District — it's the building with the anti-eminent domain signs in the window — or in his pickup with his dog, Indy, in the back.

Roos represents something of a gray area in the heated fight over eminent domain.

Although the battle lines have been drawn along high-profile cases — such as the proposed condemnation of prime land in downtown Clayton that last week was sent to the state Supreme Court — eminent domain is often used to help urban areas on the verge of a comeback. Those are the kinds of areas in which Roos operates, where a handful of properties potentially stand in the way of larger development.

For Roos, using eminent domain for any private development is an "injustice." Let the free market do its job, he says.

"What eminent domain is is absolute power," Roos said. "You have the powerful joining the powerful — the developers and the politicians."

But St. Louis officials, working to restore a city with old housing stock and vast amounts of abandoned properties, think limited eminent domain is a key tool for redevelopment.

That's why Mayor Francis Slay's office has campaigned to keep eminent domain, telling a state task force in 2005 that "we can't let one owner stop a project that is wanted and needed by the rest of the city."

This is complete and utter BS from the Mayor. It isn't as if they are putting in huge industrial complexes that require hundreds of acres of unadulterated land in order to build anything. No, the point is to remove poor (or poorer) people from residential areas period. The problem with poorer folks, in the city's view, is they don't pay the same amount of taxes that wealthier people pay. Also, we are not talking about "abandoned" properties, we are talking about removing affordable housing stock that people are living in today.

Roos had been battling eminent domain long before it reached the national stage, making it an issue in his unsuccessful run for alderman in 1987.

It wasn't until about 15 years later that Roos was the subject of eminent domain himself. A city-backed commission, led by the Missouri Botanical Garden, used eminent domain to acquire nearly two dozen buildings Roos owned or managed in the McRee Town neighborhood.

That's when Roos said he first became a "victim." To hear him tell it, McRee Town, left alone, would have been the next Soulard.

Not so, says veteran Alderman Joe Roddy.

"It was a neighborhood in a free fall," said Roddy, who cited the area's high crime rate.

Today, the neighborhood is home to a suburban-style subdivision — Botanical Heights, with homes listing for more than $300,000 — which Roddy points to as evidence that eminent domain can work.

Roddy is full of shit, and is simply proving that he is in the pocket of the big money developers. Areas that have "anchors" such as the Botanical Gardens are prime places for traditional gentrification. It is an area adjacent to one of the most beautiful parks in the nation and there was no way it could have been brought back?? That is simply garbage. The problem, from Roddy's perspective, was that the area had a lot of apartments and duplexes, the sorts of things that would be the homes to people on the lower end of the pay scales. (For those who don't know, $300,000 is a lot of money for a home in St. Louis compared to most other urban areas.) Once again you have an effort to move people away from prime real estate (i.e. next to a landmark park) and give it to wealthy people.

The real problem, Roddy claims, is property owners such as Roos, who, Roddy says, "manages property so poorly that it becomes detrimental to the neighborhood."

"He is probably one of the best cases you can have for using eminent domain on occupied housing," Roddy said.

Indeed, Roos' properties have drawn complaints for graffiti and trash buildup. This year alone, city inspectors cited Roos' properties for several infractions, including broken or missing window panes, a collapsed fence, a collapsed porch, a partly collapsed wall and improper display of address numbers.

Even the "End Eminent Domain Abuse" mural, which can be seen heading north where Gravois Avenue becomes Tucker Boulevard, has been cited. Last month, the Department of Public Safety issued Roos a notice for having an "illegal sign" and ordered it removed.

Gee, hundred year old housing having trouble with window panes, that is a shocker. And improper display of address numbers !!! Call the cops!!!

If anything this looks like an illegal use of city offices to harass Roos in an attempt to intimidate and silence him.

Walk around Dogtown and you will see all of these "violations." Go and ask the owners if they have been cited by the city once.

What is so frustrating about this article is that the PD takes everything the city says at face value, and questions everything that the other side says. So much for standing up for the little guy.

One wonders if the Post-Dispatch is in the pockets of the big developers themselves, who have advertising dollars to spend at a big city daily.

A perfect example of the PD's lack of balance was allowing statements like these to go unchallenged.

"That's what's been so frustrating with people like Jim Roos," said Chris Goodson, who is bringing a grocery and a Walgreens to six vacant acres in the area. Goodson, president of the city Police Board, was also on the governor's Eminent Domain Task Force.

"I find it curious," Goodson added, "that where you find blighted areas in the city, you usually find Jim Roos' properties."

When the real answer to that question came earlier in the same article.

Roos says his rental units are "decent," though not glamorous.

"It's ordinary housing," Roos said. "But durable, safe."

Yes. He rents to poor and lower middle class people, so that is why his buildings are in the areas targeted by private eminent domain. That is where the war against poor people is being fought.

They are being blamed for existing where wealthy people do want them to exist.

Idiocy Beyond Words

I've never wanted to serve on a jury more in my life. Student Denied Degree Due to MySpace Picture

The battle between students and university administrators over online privacy has reached a new—though sadly predictable—level of ludicrousness.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that Stacy Snyder, a 27-year-old student at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, was denied her education degree (and the accompanying teaching certificate) after student-teacher advisors and university officials discovered an “unprofessional” picture of the degree candidate on her MySpace page. The picture, which portrays Snyder drinking from a plastic “Mr. Goodbar” cup and wearing a pirate hat at a 2005 Halloween party, is accompanied by the caption “Drunken Pirate.” Despite the fact that (a) Snyder was of legal drinking age at the time of the picture; (b) the picture was posted on an outside, non-university website; and (c) the drinking captured in the picture happened in a private, non-university setting, Millersville officials decided that the picture alone was enough to cost Snyder her degree and teaching certificate, despite the fact that Snyder was on the dean’s list and received positive evaluations for her final student/teacher evaluation in every area except for “professionalism.” The school instead awarded Snyder a degree in English.


In response, Snyder has sued, requesting relief in the form of her education degree and $75,000 dollars in compensatory damages.

The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal’s coverage of the incident sheds yet more light on the disturbing denial. According to her lawsuit, Snyder's student-teacher advisors at Conestoga Valley High School (where Snyder was fulfilling her student-teaching requirements) were the first to discover the photo, and confronted Snyder about it, accusing her of “incompetence” and telling her that “she should have been removed from her student-teaching position months ago.” In turn, the dean of Millersville’s School of Education, Jane S. Bray, had a meeting with Snyder, accusing her of “promoting underage drinking” and stripping Snyder of her education degree. Instead of pursuing a career in teaching, Snyder, a mother of two, now works as a nanny.

Barring any as-of-yet unknown revelations about her student-teaching conduct and her coursework, the conduct of Snyder’s student-teacher advisors and the Millersville administrators is outrageous. Snyder should be awarded her degree immediately. Online glimpses of her private life, insofar as they did not portray any illegal activity whatsoever, should in no way bar her from receiving her duly-earned degree. Since when are teachers required to forego any semblance of an adult social life? Since when did a student’s normal, non-criminal private life outside of the classroom become suitable grounds for evaluation, and even the denial of a degree?

This just reinforces my belief that we would all be better off if all of the Schools of Education were shuttered. The behavior of the school administrators at the college and at the high school is so heinous it beggars description. Now, it may turn out that this woman was having other troubles, but to attempt to use this picture as grounds to deny her the degree she earned through her academic work is asinine, and I can't imagine a jury wouldn't find the college civilly liable.

However, it is the sheer stupidity of the administrators that scares the hell out of me. I wouldn't want people like this anywhere near my children.