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 MeetingFor 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 JusticeThis 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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