Myers is the “director of strategic communications,” which I assume means he is the college’s spokesperson. If it’s true that True was constantly bringing up issues about sexual assault in modern-day USA, in a course about ancient Greece and Rome, even after being repeatedly told to shut up about it, then he was being disruptive. And IMO students who are being pointlessly disruptive in discussion sections, even after being repeatedly warned, ought to be booted from the discussion section because they are wasting everyone else’s time.
There’s a legitimate discussion to be had about how colleges handle sexual assault claims. We’ve been having it here on CC. But that discussion does not belong in a course about classical Greece and Rome.
Having googled him out of curiosity, I doubt it. He was a good student in high school, but not at the top of his class. He went to a school that gives out IB diplomas, but didn’t receive one. He went to a school with many AP scholars + but was not one. One of his classmates was a National Achievement Scholar, an award for African-American students, but he was not. (His high school is mostly white.) He did graduate with distinction. I’m not sure what that means at that particular school.
Cynic that I am…if the kid’s not mentally ill, he’s struggling academically and has figured out a way to justify failing out. Hey, I can believe that a young idealistic person would react angrily to getting kicked out of seminar if he thinks it’s an attempt to silence him. However, refusing to go to any of his other classes…but not leaving campus? That doesn’t compute. If he doesn’t go to class for 5 weeks, he’ll probably fail his classes. Then he’s going to claim that he flunked them because he was defending free speech. He may hope enough Reed faculty will support him or Reed will be so worried about adverse publicity that he’ll be allowed to stay. He may think he’s also setting Reed up for a law suit in which he’ll ask to be reinstated. I suspect he also thinks if he that if he isn’t allowed to stay at Reed he’ll have a better chance of getting into another college and starting over than he would have if he’d just flunked out.
I suspect…pure speculation…that the prof tried to sit him down and explain that as a prof he has a duty to make sure that his classroom is not a hostile environment for women. I’m guessing that True’s reaction to that was to demand angrily that the women in the class apologize for creating a hostile environment for him. Again, I’m guessing. If that’s what happened, I can understand the prof’s feeling that “enough is enough”–this guy just isn’t going to change.
In any event…I won’t condemn the prof without a lot more information.
If he were my kid, I’d already be at Reed checking up to see what the heck is going on with him.
Can we not discuss this guy’s high-school grades? Sleuthing around for every detail of his life strikes me as incredibly invasive. It’s also a little distasteful to speculate about his mental health in this manner. As I said earlier, I do believe he seems to be going through some personal issues right now, but I think that’s only worth bringing up as an argument in favor of treating him with kindness, or at least without malice, not out of morbid fascination.
Not to mention that, regardless of Jeremiah’s high-school record, he seems to have pretty good writing skills–his reasoning and analysis are a different matter–so I doubt he’s already failing freshman year.
^^^^If he is refusing to go to any of his other classes, it takes zero sleuthing to conclude that he is in danger of failing freshman year, at least spring semester.
I agree that boycotting all classes is an odd way to approach his problem with one professor.
Being a self-described devil’s advocate, deliberate bating of class room discussion to the point that a professor doesn’t want to entertain further discussion? This jerk wants the confrontation to sue on this platform. His agenda is his own aggrandizement. Get blog time, internet time. 15 minutes of fame.
His point is not anything societal, it’s all about him. Period. And he’s hoping for some money too.
I don’t think one can necessarily infer he’s struggling academically because he didn’t get an IB diploma, wasn’t an AP scholar, and didn’t receive academic awards.
I wasn’t an AP scholar and yes, even my own parents thought I was going in way over my head academically when I went off to my respectable LAC. I not only did well, but also did well enough to make some extra cash tutoring academically struggling classmates who were topflight AP scholars or those with HS academic awards. One thing many students and even some parents forget…HS GPAs, AP/IB status, and awards no longer matter the moment one steps onto a college campus to start one’s college career.
Whether he’s academically struggling, the jury’s still out on that…until he goes through with the counterproductive plan to boycott classes…but that’s more an indication of misplaced priorities…not academic ability/preparation.
Not really any new perspectives in the Willamette Weekly article, although the reader comments are provocative. It’s also interesting that Mr. True left comments on the site. He clearly likes to stir things up, but doesn’t know when to stop gunning the engine.
“I believe that I am an emotionally capable, intellectually gifted, cutting wit, hell of a person. I believe I have experienced more trauma and suffering and pain in my life than many of these, well frankly, middle class white girls at Reed could ever know in their lives.”
Well, doesn’t that sound narcissistic? Belief one is special and immune; people should be happy to hear what he has to say. And, that no one else’s pain can equal his, so he has license.
His change.org petition is a long rant. He’s commenting on the newspaper articles mentioning him. He wants to tell us the issue is free speech, but it’s clear he doesn’t know when he has made his point and needs to shut up.
Only read OP, but if the only thing he did was have an opinion that most did not agree with, he definitely should not have been removed from class. College should be a place where all ideas are shared and discussed, the “majority” is not always right and is often proven wrong over time
As long as the opinion was rational and WO malice I should have said, ie debated in a scholarly manor, if not ejection would be ok, but the reason being pack of civility, not the opinion itself
@Consolation Some schools characterize rape as sexual assault to protect their image. Grinnell characterizes “Non consensual penetration” and “rape” as two separate things-- as if one is somehow different that the other.