WNMU MAIS program. Caveat emptor!

I still don't know what the professor did wrong in the first place. BTW - What academic field did the professor teach?

 

None of us know. He's not disclosing that information, which makes all of this seem a bit suspect to me. If you are innocent and the other party is guilty, why hide the information?

 

Gist teaches in the Writing Dept. I think this class was "Writing the Philosophical Reflection". The OP's complaint states Gist allegedly "denied him his 1st amendment rights". Then goes after WNMU for not properly handling the matter (again allegedly).

 

The amendment prohibits the making of any law respecting an establishment of religion, impeding the free exercise of religion, abridging the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

So, does that mean that perhaps the op was talking religion in class and was asked not to? Was he pushing a certain belief or viewpoint and feels his rights were violated when asked to stop? One can only speculate since he's not saying anything....

 

I believe this is it.

Document 8 :: Chase v. Gist et al :: 4:2012cv40020 :: Massachusetts District Court :: US Federal District Courts Cases :: Justia You have to click "download pdf" to bring it up.

Doesn't really cut to the heart of the matter either.

 

"Chase requests monetary damages and injunctive relief reinstating him in the writing course from which he was dropped." Seems this goes against this part of his original post "I wasn’t demanding for his head, money, or anything else."

Also says his freedom of speech was violated. So in essence, he said stuff the professor felt was inappropriate, he was told to stop, he refused, he was dropped from the class, he had a hissy and filed a lawsuit which was subsequently dismissed.

 

OMG - This is looking like this is going to be a lot like the case of Mr. Capella Stinks a few years back.

 

Well, if by First Amendment rights he means freedom of speech rights, First Amendment rights apply as against the government. In other words, there are no free speech rights as against one's professor.

 

Well, the dismissal was solely based on jurisdictional grounds. We can speculate about the merits, but we don't have enough information to accurately assess his claim. I'm interested to know what the substance of this disagreement was all about, but if the OP won't tell us we're stuck wondering.

 

While not the government per se, we're dealing with a state institution here, and the professor is employed by this state school. Thus we probably have the required "state action" to support a 1st Amendment claim.

 

Just when things were starting to get slow around here..... opcorn:

 

If we are to only base our opinions on the very limited information we were presented with, then my opinion is this:

He should put on his big boy undies, take his ball, and go home. He doesnt have a dog in this fight anymore.

 

Rebel,

Nope and nope. I don't wish to heap condemnation on the school. Just giving folks a fair warning with details about one person's crappy experience. Also I never alleged that Gist did anything 'horrendous'. I was very specific on this. What I said was he was 'unprofessional'. I don't think it was one of his finer moments, and as I've said before, I have no interest in "having his head" or anything like that. All I wanted from Gist was an apology. He refused, and he is 100% within his rights not to. Likewise I was 100% in my rights to file a grievance and let the appropriate process sort out if my claim had any merit. But before that could happen, Gist retaliated against me and introduced a whole new level of problem.

The issue is not Gist. The issue is Constitutional rights and the obligation of a public university to defend them. If you don't think a student should have a right to bring a faculty member to a grievance hearing, and you don't think a student should have a right to what a university says it will provide, then move on. I've said before that it appears to be fine for folks who don't rock the boat, and have no expectations. However history is littered with company after company who fall on their faces for not responding to customer concerns.

What you seek is in the docs I released. I just haven't released the actual screed from Gist. I see no utility in it.

 

Writing dept.

Please see the docs I relased on Scribd/daniel_chase-9

 

I read it :damnit:, and still could not figure it out what the fuzz is all about. :banghead:

 

Basically, this ^. And apparently he wanted money, too.

 

+1 on this one. This case reminds me of an undergrad professor that I had. The first day of class he told us that there is no "free-speech" per se in his class, he used a phrase, borrowed from Rush Limbaugh I believe, that he was a benevolent dictator:drillsergeant:. We had to write subjects that interested him only, he warned us the first day. However, there is always one person in class who seems to challenge such warning. We had this girl who decided to write what she wanted, needless to say, he (the professor) was not pleased at all. she got an F.

This seems like a huge :soapbox:

 

It seems the only fault is that the professor dropped him rather than referring the student to the regular formal student disciplinary process. In some schools, though, you should be thankful not to be referred for discipline, because if it was bad enough to require a referral you'd get drop-kicked out of the program completely-- and quickly.

A failure to follow stated regulations/process is enough to send a nasty-gram to their accreditors, but that's all I can see here. Time to take another writing class elsewhere, transfer it in, finish the program and move on.

 

After reading it, I think the professor probably should have "taken the high road" and maybe not embarrassed you in class, but I don't really see any 1st Amendment issue here. There was no instance of banning speech or any sort of unreasonable restriction placed upon you. It looks like you simply had a difference of opinion that led to this. If anything, there might be a tort issue, but since a) you consented to the publication of the letter, and b) the professor's conduct, which perhaps objectionable, was not objectively "extreme and outrageous" to support an action against him, I don't think you've got much here. Anyway, this is just one man's opinion. I would probably not pursue this further if I were you. It's obviously made you upset, but you're gonna have to try to move past it.

 

That is actually quite opposite of what happened, ironically! While unrelated to any core 'triggers', one of Gist's repeated complaints is that I wouldn't engage in a discussion of religion!