Theater Prof Faces Termination Petition for Allegedly Falling Asleep During Online Anti-Racism Meeting
“This action has only capitalized on a pattern of negligence and disrespect that Patricia Simon has exhibited over and over again”
A professor of theater at Marymount College Manhattan is now dealing with a petition demanding her termination. Her crime was appearing to doze off during an online anti-racism event.
Does this strike you as a bit of an overreaction?
Professor Jonathan Turley writes at his blog:
New York Professor Faces Latest Termination Petition Over Allegedly Falling Asleep During Anti-Racism Meeting
For many professors, a story out of New York may seem like an academic sequel to the 1982 horror film “Don’t Go To Sleep.” Students are seeking the termination of Marymount Manhattan Theater Arts Associate Professor Patricia Simon after she appeared to briefly fall asleep during an anti-racist meeting held on Zoom. Simon denies the allegations but Marymount Manhattan student Caitlin Gagnon started a petition which features this picture and also accuses her of “ignoring … racist and sizeist actions and words of the vocal coaches under her jurisdiction.” The petition has roughly 2000 signatories. It is an ironic twist on the woke movement where literally not being awake is now cause to be terminated.Professor Simon insists that the picture was a false image due to her bifocals and how she changed her angle to rest her eyes:
“I was not asleep as is implied at any point during the meeting,” she said, adding, “the photo used was taken without permission when I was looking down or briefly resting my Zoom weary eyes with my head tilted back which I must do in order to see my computer screen through my trifocal progressive lenses. I listened with my ears and heart the entire meeting.”
It is certainly true to have such false light images. We previously discussed how President Barack Obama was unfairly accused of inappropriate conduct through such false light publications. Obama was accused of checking out a female staffer with the use of a single photo. However, the full record showed that Obama was moving his head to speak with another world leader at a photo op and that frame just caught him at a misleading angle as the staffer walked by.
So she claims she wasn’t even asleep, but so what if she was? Hasn’t everyone almost fallen asleep during a meeting? Wouldn’t it be even easier for that to happen during an online meeting?
Here’s part of the petition from Change.org:
MMC Performing Arts for Racial Justice
This is a petition that is demanding the removal a faculty member who does not align with the anti-racist views and actions that were promised to be adopted by the department earlier this week at the Town Hall meetings. It has been brought to the attention of the students that Patricia Simon was sleeping during the Town Hall Meeting that took place on June 29th.
This action has only capitalized on a pattern of negligence and disrespect that Patricia Simon has exhibited over and over again in her time as an Associate Professor, and Coordinator of the BFA Musical Theater Program. Professor Simon has a history of ignoring instances of racism in the form of racial profiling within the program, and enabling the racist and sizeist actions and words of the vocal coaches under her jurisdiction.
This purge is going to go on for as long as it is allowed to go on. Students need to be told that attending a school does not make them owners of the school.
Featured image via Change.org petition.
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Comments
But she’s shared her pronouns for our attention!
from the comments on the change petition she looks (see what I did there…) to be a real left wing bitch.
so i’m just gonna eat some popcorn and watch from afar.
from,
https://mannerofspeaking.org/2010/05/12/some-chilling-public-speaking-history/
Then, after eleven minutes, the director of the paper factory assumed a businesslike expression and sat down in his seat [and stopped applauding Stalin]. And, oh, a miracle took place! Where had the universal, uninhibited, indescribable enthusiasm gone? To a man, everyone else stopped dead and sat down. They had been saved!
The squirrel had been smart enough to jump off his revolving wheel. That, however, was how they discovered who the independent people were. And that was how they went about eliminating them. That same night the factory director was arrested. They easily pasted ten years on him on the pretext of something quite different[*]. But after he had signed Form 206, the final document of the interrogation, his interrogator reminded him:
“Don’t ever be the first to stop applauding.”
*”Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.” Beria, Stalin’s henchman (or more accurately, one of his henchmen).
(applauds) That was the exact story that came to my mind reading this article.
I am required to take some PC continuing education classes on an annual basis. I believe that my physical presence is all that is required. I always grab a seat in the back row and either read unrelated materials or try to nap during the lecture. The idea that I can be condemned for not paying attention, and that such condemnation could have a real-world consequence, is frightening.
In addition to the other PC crap, there is an on-line ethics class I am required to take very year which has tests every ten minutes or so, which do require me to pay close attention and to take notes from the material. Picky stuff, such as the dollar amount of gifts from different classes of people that I can accept without violating guvmint ethics standards. [I receive no gifts from guvmint clients, so I don’t really care, but I still have to pass the quizzes.] So I cannot fall asleep during those.
Poor Professor Simon! The leftists do eat their own.
The leftists eat so many of their own, they are triggered by “sizeists”. Eat less, solve two problems at once.
I’ve developed …..
“Leftist Hamburger Helper” – “For Leftists Eating Their Own!”
It going like barn burners!!!!!
No sin is too small to be punished. No punishment is too great.
They are drunk with self-righteousness and have no awareness of the beam in their own eye.
Our country is feeling more and more like the Soviet Union every passing day.
Stalin’s Soviet Union. Mao’s China. Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Hitler’s Germany. Mussolini’s Italy. Post-apartheid Progressive South Africa lynching deplorable blacks, aborting whites. Hutu/Tutsi recurring cycles of retributive and redistributive change…
The comments on the petition are hilarious but a tad scary to read. The one-dimensional cult-speak vocabulary of this crowd is something else.
It’s not so much about getting her fired, as it is about intimidating, terrorizing everybody else.
The evil that is being done in the name of “righteousness” has to be brought to a screeching halt.
These horrible thugs joined by the morons who go to college these days and think they are part of a justice movement, but really belong with the bowel movement variety, seem to think everyone has to fit their perfect opinions, and seek to destroy people if they are not perfect.
The college idiots have no clue to what they are really part of, at least most of them don’t. They have had their minds taken over by some quazi-Jedi Mind trick, and being the immature and unthinking people they are add force to the Antifa thugs, the BLM Marxist revolutionaries, and those who are trying to bring about a Stalinesque revolution in this country.
We are approaching a point where this revolution of theirs will go hot if they are not woke to reality (instead of this pretend world view of the propagandist media and the left).
This anti-racist crap is over the top. It is harmful to our society as it is making things more racist from BLM. Race relations have gone backwards, and it isn’t because of police brutality. It is because the propagandist media are desperate to keep the black population under the Democrat slavery rule, so they push stories carefully manipulated to look like innocent blacks are being killed for no reason by police. The facts rarely measure up to what they report.
This cancel culture is cover for overthrowing our Constitution. Punishment to these bullies needs to be swift and harsh. The rest of the rats will scurry away once that starts happening.
Hmmmmm….doesn’t RBG regularly sleep thru SC sessions…I mean stuff that ACTUALLY impacts us…petition to remove in …1…2…NEVER.
These BS indoctrination meetings seem to have changed little since I attended them at AT&T in the 90’s.
Except now, apparently, they can fire you for not being sufficiently appreciative.
LOL
My father was at a meeting for some BS organizational political issue. At the end a woman came in to demand that those present give 10% to United Way. When no one was committing, she said she was going to hold them there until everyone committed.
The group rose en masse and walked out on her.
The United Way and its evil twin The Combined Federal campaign, were a scourge in my working days. “We expect 100% participation…” translated to “no promotions unless you give”, or a sudden downturn in your “evals”.
I had such bitter experiences with mandatory “voluntary contributions” that – now that I am retired – I will not give one single solitary cent to charity. Cast-offs to LOCAL charity thrift shops, yes. Getting a utility bill caught up for a suddenly unemployed head of household from the private sector, yes. But, to an organized charity? No.
What exactly is the point of change.org? Every so often someone asks me to sign something there, so to do them a favor I follow the link, see what it is, and if it’s something I can endorse I click to sign. Then they always ask for a donation, which I decline. I ignore all email from the company. But every time I do this I wonder what the people who actively start these things and circulate them think is going to happen if they hit their goal? Suppose they get 10,000 signatures, or 20,000, or 100,000; do they really think this can compel anyone to do something about it? Do they think it will persuade anyone to do anything they didn’t want to to anyway? And why do they think this?
At least the petitions at whitehouse dot gov come with a commitment that if you get some minimum number of signatures, some poohbah will evaluate and respond to them.
She must be tested. Throw her into a lake, if she floats she is a racist, if she sinks underwater for more than an hour she is woke.
Abortion… cancel culture is a progressive condition. Diversity dogma (i.e. denial of individual dignity, denial of individual conscience, affirmative discrimination, color quotas, color blocs) is in principle an intolerant religious outlook.
First, they came for the babies… Fetal-Americans to socially distance when they are unwanted (e.g. selective-child) or profitable (e.g. cannibalized-child). Then the white men. Then all men (e.g. rape-rape culture). Then the white women (e.g. systemic diversity). And, of course, the White Hispanics, the White Asians, the White Blacks, etc. Liberalization has been a significant and progressive condition for more than 1/2 a century.
Mmm. I doubt she has learned anything from this.
Re-watched the Matrix… “until they are one of us, they are one of them.”
Exactly. I finished reading the Gulag Archipelago (all three volumes) as well as numerous other books about survivors of Communism. It never ceased to amaze me how many victims of the most horrifying injustices and torture maintained their steadfast faith in Mao or Stalin and Communism.
It is like Communism is some kind of mind control death cult that is near impossible to leave.
You’re a better man than I; I read the abridged version of the Gulag Archipelago. It was still quite the read.
I would have been bored to tears sooner than that.
I too do wonder if any Leftist being attacked by other Leftists sees the light. I suspect most don’t and just continue to be better Leftists.
Left-wing activists are like convenience-store holdup artists: none of them think they will ever be one of those who gets caught.
College administrators have allowed the students to take on too much power, which has led to their arrogance to think that students run the college. It’s time for the administrators to show some backbone.
Students are temporary residents of the college, and they are there to learn, not to run the place. If they don’t like the way the college is run, they can go elsewhere. But all of these cancel culture activities are done to terrorize non-conformists and bend them to support the Mob.
Like Geologist, I’ve been required to go to several of these political indoctrination sessions, and I’ve fallen asleep at most of them. How many times can you listen to their mantra, “White people are bad, colored people (now changed to people of color) are good; Boys are bad, girls are good; Straights are bad, gays are good; and now Trans are good and are whatever they say they are.”
Schools need to drop student ratings of classes. They should not count for much, if anything at all.
You know how Frankenstein’s monster, in the movies, keeps coming back and coming back played by different actors?
This is just another resurrection of American Puritanism played by a different actor.
Not the Puritans. Under the Puritans, if you fell asleep during the sermon, the beadle would get a pole with a feather on one end and tickle you under the nose. That’s all.
Or a squirrel tail.
And the other end of the pole featured a knob to bonk misbehaving children on the head with.
I sympathize with the teacher they want to fire. Who among us has not fallen asleep during a particularly dull sermon on a warm Sunday morning. That usually merits a sharp elbow from the wife. In this case the lady fell asleep, or was alleged to have fallen asleep, during a particularly dull sermon in the Church of The Woke.
My mother would sit between my dad and I. An elbow for each of us.
This sounds like the petition was started by some self-important, privileged little git who didn’t get a part in a class production she was convinced she was perfect for, or who received a less than perfect grade in a class and just wants self-validation. Administrators should tell Ms. Scoldilocks Tattletale to pound sand and not insist people attend social and political indoctrination sessions. (This is one reason I disable the camera on my laptop when I have to take part in on-line meetings.)
“received a less than perfect grade in a class and just wants self-validation. ”
This sounds like Hillary, the difference being that someone commits suicide.
How many of those who signed the petition have actually been in her class? How many were even students at the school (past, present or future)? How many even know who the heck she is?
It seems to me that ANY petition put out by the Red Guard could easily get thousands of signatures from people who have no idea who she is, have never met her and never will. Lying in order to gain power is encouraged in the present climate of fear created by the Communists, and we have no shortage of eager liars.
If a professor were to give a student a Zero grade for the day if the student fell asleep during class, there would be screams of outrage.
So what is sizeist? Anti-fat, anti-skinny? WTF
You beat me to it. Sizeist? I can’t even…
I guess I can even… To pull one from the past:
Short people got no reason… /s
It means anti-fat. Discrimination by size instead of by race or sex or whatever.
ahhh, the Cultural Revolution…..American Style
Petitions need to be shredded upon receipt.
The End.
Isn’t it enough that her glasses are progressive? /s
You must stay awake, to be truly “woke.”
Most people understand that “free speech” does not imply a right to make anyone listen.
Except we seem to have arrived at a place where many fear to say anything that might produce unpleasant consequences, including (but not limited to) object when people insist things are true which we know full well are not true. Such as, sex=gender, and it’s “assigned” at birth.
Yet with this we have a class of people who not only are free to speak, but apparently feel they have the authority to make others listen. Or, again, there may be unpleasant consequences.
And (of course), we’re told “silence is violence”; thus, just remaining silent is not permitted either. Which is to say, there may be mandated “safe spaces” for some, but for most even the safety of remaining silent is denied.
In this war one may not be an innocent bystander, for there are none: if you’re not “Anti-Racist” (according to their daffyion, of course) then must be a racist. And thus it’s only just that you should be banished from your livelihood, or worse.
How did we ever arrive in such a dystopia?
What the hell “sizeist” means?
This is insane totalitarianism, from the Dhimmi-crats. Acting more and more like the Khmer Rouge, every single day.
How can I be woke, unless I first sleep?
These AH’s think they have the ultimate power to demand whatever they desire? They flip when someone confronts them. What will they do when a large portion of this country gets fed up and really starts confronting them?
I would have snored.
Falling asleep in a struggle session? You do not have the proper attitude, Comrade. To the reeducation camp with you!
Falling asleep while sitting motionless is probably due to a medical condition like sleep apnea, so she can sue under the ADA for discrimination.
I think you mean narcolepsy. Apnea is ceasing to breathe while sleeping.
Never stream your video!
She needs my latest invention, “Virtue Sticks”, to pry open those peepers. They come in neat paper or plastic packages, often found in restaurants for use following meals.
Alternatively, she could buy a pair of joke glasses with wide open “eyes” on the lenses.
I’m here to help.