Student booted from university for using the words "perverse attraction to the same sex"

[The Straight Story]

Political Correctness Run Amok


ALBUQUERQUE (CN) - A student claims the University of New Mexico illegally booted her from a film class for using the words "perverse attraction to the same sex" and "barren womb" in an assigned critique of a lesbian film, which the professor did not even deign to read through.

Monica Pompeo, a part-time student, took "Images of (Wo)men: From Icons to Iconoclasts," taught by adjunct professor Caroline Lawson Hinkley, in the spring 2012 semester.

Pompeo sued the UNM, Hinkley, and UNM Cinematic Arts Director Susan Dever, in Bernalillo County Court.

For a February 2012 assignment, Pompeo critiqued "Desert Hearts," a 1985 lesbian romantic drama. When Hinkley returned the papers to the class in March, she told Pompeo that she wanted to meet with her later to discuss her paper, according to the complaint.

Hinkley then canceled the meeting, and told Pompeo "that she could pick up her paper from the Cinematic Arts office and 'ponder the responses' defendant Hinkley has written on her paper over Spring Break," the complaint states.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/07/18/59466.htm

[KamaAina]

1. Why kick her out?

Just give her a big, fat F.

[enlightenment]

3. The only thing I see in there about being "kicked out"

on edit: ah - missed the bit at the end, where she was "expelled from the class" for being disruptive and disrespectful to the instructor and students. This article is very poorly written.

(redacted sentence because I didn't see the above line when I first posted)


I love this line: The instructor rejected the student's conclusions "solely on the basis of the intellectual content of the paper."

I'm a college instructor and I'm pretty sure that's what I'm supposed to be doing - judging the quality and merit of student work based on the intellectual content they produce . . .

[sharp_stick]

2. I'll wait for the response

from the school but if what the student said is correct I'd say she has a case to bitch to the school based on the syllabus of the class.

Personally though I think suing is nothing more than an idiotic attention grab by a student who's pissed at a professor and wants to make prove her fundie or other RW credentials to like minded idiots.

[tularetom]

4. I hope that they can prove the student was really being disruptive and disrespectful

Because otherwise I can see no reason to kick her out of the class.

The syllabus made it quite clear that the class would be dealing with controversial material and that they wanted and even encouraged debate over the films they viewed.

It isn't clear if she was a religious wack job who objected to the film's topic on a religious or moral basis, but even if she was they should have been prepared to rebut her nutty ideas or at least allow the other students to do so.

If she was unable to defend her critique they could have flunked her.

Seems like overreaction on their part.