Professor commits suicide

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Ah, no.  The widely-accepted definition of cyberbullying is "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices" -- such as what the professor was doing -- and says nothing about petitioning the government for redress of wrongs.His right to free speech was not removed -- he could still speak and publish as he saw fit.  He was not dismissed, either.  He chose to be a bully, he chose retirement, and then he chose suicide.  Game over.
Petitions are not law.  A petition is a request to do something, typically to a government agency or public official.  The request is made on behalf of a group, with individuals of the group recording their assent in some way, such as signing their name to the request.  The concept and practice go far back into human history, with records of ancient Egyptian workers petitioning for improved working conditions.

Petitioning was so common, and the right to do so was so cherished in eighteenth century America, that the framers included a right to petition among those rights protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Are you implying that the USA is a communist country, or do you just not like it when bullying victims fight back?

Thank you. There are those that think of professors as static like robots, as if we are not human. That could not be further from the truth. I deal with all sorts of politics on the job, most of it coming from other professors. Some of them are blatantly sexiest against men (white men specifically) and agest against older teachers than themselves. They are mostly ten to fifteen years younger than me, so I am on their target list (plus being a white male adds to it). It is not an easy job to do unless you are full tenured and have protections that I do not have. I try to be respectful to others as it is the right thing to do.

The teaching profession is not what it was a decade ago when I started after graduating with my degree. We will be losing some of our best teachers for various reasons in the near future. Unfortunately, most students do not want to go into this profession. That leads to a pretty grim picture later on.

So, you wish to deny their rights regarding free speech and free expression because they used them to condemn a bully?

It sure seems that way.

Why anyone would side with bullies is something I could never fully comprehend.

Who is the bully in this situation? The professor made noxious remarks online, and was then subjected to a years long campaign to smear him and deprive him of his job, it's quite well documented in the articles I linked to and quoted earlier, he won a protracted legal case over it. Now that he's dead, online strangers are dancing on his grave because he said mean things on the internet; who are the good guys here?

The ones who did not abuse their positions of authority.

Think of this perspective: your teacher doesn't think autism is real. They think anyone diagnosed with it doesn't have it and those with it are just snowflakes and pretend to be disabled and are just selfish. Would you want them as your teacher and wouldn't you feel uncomfortable?

This is basically what the teacher did and he was foolish to post it online. Students saw it and didn't feel comfortable with him teaching them. It is not bullying to stand up to him and want him removed from the campus. Boo hoo he couldn't accept the consequences so he ended his life. It's standing up for LGBT people and their human rights.

Who are you referring to? AFAIK the professor was never accused of abusing his position, the conduct in question entirely occurred on his personal blog, personal social media, and the columns he wrote for an unaffiliated outlet. The university administrators lost a court case over abusing their authority to trample on the professor's First Amendment rights, but I doubt you're referring to them.

Unless he was my professor of autism studies and was acting upon those beliefs in class, I could care less what he thinks in his personal life.



So, in your mind teachers are simply not allowed to hold certain opinions, or if they do, they're not allowed to voice them, even outside of the classroom on subjects which have no bearing on their classes?

When it comes to human rights, what people think of you as a human affects how they treat you. So if your teacher thought bad of you and thought you were faking your disability, they will mistreat you and I speak from experience.

My parents could have sued the district but decided not to and gave my school 3 weeks to figure it out.

And teachers have gotten fired for what they post online.

So do I.

You have gotten this all wrong and inside out.

Okay, so, first of all, in any scenario when considering who is bullying who in a situation - the first thing to look at is the numbers of people involved. If there are 100 people petitioning against 1 guy, however intellectually powerful that 1 person may be - that is 100 people directing their hatred at 1 person, 1 person who has emotions that are the sum of 1 person.

100 emotional individuals against 1 emotional individual, with the 100 attacking the 1 - that is called emotional terrorism, on the part of the hypothetical 100 here.

The professor may have been doing that - but the 100 cyber-bullies were doing that also & given the context of the numbers - it was the majority who were the bullies here, not the minority-of-one professor.

Petitioning is fine when the petition is against something unlawful. Free speech & having an opinion, even if it offends others, is not unlawful. Thus, the cyber-bullies are those petitioning, in this scenario.

The USA is not a communist country at all, but the cyber-bullies here, using petitions as a social force are a communist nuisance and are effectively criminals.

It's called being an ally. Minorities need support from us. The issue is so many people ignore it because it doesn't affect them so it's not their problem. This is what makes us an accomplice. Imagine how it felt to be picked on at school and only you had to fend for yourself. No one ever stood up for you. So you feel no one cared about you.

This is why we need allys. Bully victims need others to stand up against their Bully. Minorities need white people to stand up to bigots for them, they are practicing their free speech by standing up to him. He couldn't handle it.

So, teachers who complain online about white people, cis people, straight people, men, etc, all have to go?

They have gotten fired for that too. My mom worked as a nurse. If she had posted something online about her patients in general, she would be canned as well and even she agrees places have the right to fire employees who bad talk people online.

Teacher fired for blogging about students:

https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania ... story.html