Virginia Tech Punishes Student for Booing at a Soccer Game
“The Virginia Tech administration was completely out of line”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education has gotten involved in this case.
From the FIRE blog:
Virginia Tech student punished for booing at a soccer game
Virginia Tech is out of bounds.
On penalty of suspension and a ban on attending athletic events, the university punished student Sean Lohr after an athletic administrator took offense to his booing during a soccer game.
Today, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education called on Virginia Tech to stop violating its legal obligations and clear Lohr’s disciplinary record.
“The Virginia Tech administration was completely out of line,” said Lohr. “It is out of line for everyone’s voices to be suppressed because one person was offended by something.”
Lohr is a member of the “Shirtless Boys,” a student group that cheers on Virginia Tech’s women’s soccer team. The group has been praised by the women’s soccer team coach for their “tremendous influence” on the club by “increasing the atmosphere and the passion within the fan base.”
During and after several games throughout the fall semester, Senior Associate Athletics Director Reyna Gilbert-Lowry asked the group to “tone it down” when cheering in the stands—a strange request to fans cheering their home team in a large, outdoor soccer arena.
In response to a foul call at a match on Sept. 26, many fans booed and shouted at the referee. Lohr joined in by yelling “what?!?” several times at the official. In response, Gilbert-Lowry approached the Shirtless Boys and asked them to quiet down. Lohr asked her what she meant, and she then directed campus security to remove the students from the event. Before security arrived, Lohr called her “a glorified PE teacher,” and encouraged the crowd to steer its derision toward her. The crowd jeered Gilbert-Lowry as security removed the boys from the match.
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Comments
What is a “Senior Associate Athletics Director”?
Senior Associate Athletics Director Reyna Gilbert-Lowry? Another pretentious hyphenated name. She sounds like a Karen to me (with apologies to anyone named Karen who isn’t a pretentious, hectoring, officious busybody).
Virginia Tech is a state supported institution. Therefore, it MUST abide by the First Amendment. Sounds as if this kid has a great lawsuit against her and the school. She also violated federal law, to wit: “”Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress . . .” 42 U.S.C. S 1983 (1988).”
And I am not a lawyer, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express once.
Maybe, in the spirit of Brandon, we should choose to rename our meme Qaren.
Then we can do something about all the unearned respect people incidentally named Chad have been accumulating.
“What is a “Senior Associate Athletics Director”?”
Translation: “Diversity hire”
https://hokiesports.com/staff-directory/reyna-gilbert-lowry/6
I’m shocked…
That explains A LOT!!!!!!!
Those who can’t do, teach.
Those who can’t teach, teach gym
Woodie Allen
I wonder just how unqualified the “Junior Associate Athletics Director”is? And does he/she/it have an associate and/or an assistant under them?
Some of these titles just provide constant amusement, IMHO. I was looking through the directory at my local med school and it seems now that everyone is a “director” of something. Used to be a chair and 15 underlings, but now we have a “director of the section of this,” and a “director of the section of that,” …, even though the section most often is just the attending and a nurse assigned to them.
Norm MacDonald summed it up best on SNL when he announced that a survey revealed that the worst job in America was “Crack Whore.” But the following week, he announced that further research discovered that is was really “Assistant Crack Whore.”
When I was a high school building principal I could never quite bring myself to sacrifice what I thought were the needs of my students at the alter of politics. Lots of folks wanted me to do it, a lot. In short, I was a shitty principal. One thing I did do well was recognize and hire high quality teaching talent. Hands down, the finest teacher I ever supervised was a P.E. teacher.
It’s not about how much you know. It’s about how much you can get the kids to want to learn on their own.
Look at yourself in the mirror. Do you wish you were in better shape? If you’d had Mr. J. for PE, I bet you’d look better. That man could teach!
“One of these days they’re going to remove so much of the ‘hooey’ and the thousands of things the schools have become clogged up with, and we will find that we can educate our broods for about one-tenth of the price and learn ’em something that they might accidentally useafter they escape.”
— Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Seems like the next step after punishing a person who boos, is punishing the first person who stops clapping.
“You booed?
That literally threatens the safety and lives of our snowflake community!”
These people are the most joyless scolds.
They aren’t happy unless they’re miserable. I had a grandmother like that.
Punish for booing @ a ‘soccer game?’
Hate to think what they do to them if they booed a basketball coach or football coach who wasn’t living up to expectations of being paid several million dollars for their service.
Better yet, is VT scanning VT fan message blogs for bad things being said abt the team or coaches?
This sounds like a case the Institute for Justice or some other First Amendment group would salivate over.
Reminds me of the time we were at my nephew’s soccer game (he was, maybe, 5). “Game” is a generous description; mostly, the action consisted of two dads yelling, “The ball! Find the ball!” to hapless 5-year-olds.
Anyway, my husband was keeping score out loud. A woman turned around at some point and said, “Excuse me. We don’t keep score.” My husband said, “Then how do you know who won?” She glared and turned back around.