UConn student rant: Being expelled for serious offenses may not preclude attending another college

Gatti is still enrolled.

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/10/no_uconn_mac_and_cheese_fan_lu.html?ath=a4e076089f2f76c612031d5ffda41f01#cmpid=nsltr_strybutton

@3puppies

I am not admitted to practice in Connecticut, but I seriously doubt that the university could be held liable if the kid left, got into a car and ran over someone. That’s ridiculous, IMO. The food court didn’t serve him the booze. It’s unlikely that he had a car parked anywhere nearby. The manager wasn’t negligent. You can hear the manager suggesting he go elsewhere, without the open container, and buy food. (His actual words are “Try Subway.”) From the video, it looks as if the restaurant or cafeteria is part of a mall-type food court.

Are you seriously suggesting that every time a campus employee sees a drunk kid (s)he has a legal obligation to call the police and have the kid arrested? Additionally, I kind of doubt the manager was a UConn employee. He’s probably employed by a restaurant/food service company that has a contract with UConn.

Generally speaking, there’s no obligation to report a crime. (There are exceptions, of course, e.g., certain professions are mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse. )

In other words, I don’t think the manager acted negligently. I think he tried hard to keep it from escalating and is to be commended for that.

@CrewDad, There’s some time for him to officially withdraw. UConn requires a specific process and the family may not have done it yet, but plan to do it.

Different schools have different policies. From my (admittedly incomplete) survey of policies on this sort of thing, though, what you describe is most likely the case. I don’t know what UConn’s policies are, however.

Agree with @jonri. I watched the whole 9 minute youtube video while eating breakfast and was very impressed with how the manager kept his cool. IMHO he deserves a raise.

^ well until the end when the other employee was on top of the kid and at one point the manager has his hand around the kids neck holding him down. While he probably wasn’t choking him that part of the video made me nervous. he shouldn’t have done that.

He was defending himself. In some states he could have killed the kid is he was in fear of his own safety and gotten away with it. I don’t blame him at all for what he did. In fact, I agree with others that he displayed immense restraint and should be rewarded for his behavior. I don’t know how he held back from taking the kid down the first time he shoved him. And did u notice how he spit at the manager as the cop took him away at the end? This “kid” has some very serious and deep rooted issues. And he will have no problem getting a gun at 19. Especially if his dad has a few laying around like many do…ps in Connecticut you can buy a long gun at 18.

Actually, the student in question did exhibit racist tendencies as shown in court documents when he was cited as yelling a racial slur against a police officer while being arrested for similarly violent rowdy behavior while at UMass. An incident which included assaulting and injuring one of the officers.

And in the blocked out link, two UConn classmates recounted him belligerently arguing that racist/off-color jokes are funny and “Who cares” about offending racial minorities along with “Who cares” about preventing sexual assaults during the UConn orientation. His continuing insistence on loudly proclaiming those statements prompted one orientation leader to eventually escort him out of the orientation session to the applause of other orientation attendees.

I find this interesting as all freshman/transfer applications I’ve viewed had a section where they do ask if one is a student in good academic and disciplinary standing at one’s current institution and if not, that would preclude one from applying. There was also a stipulation that not disclosing one’s suspension/expulsion status would be considered lying and grounds for them to reject the applicant or if admitted, to summarily expel the student in question. Granted, things may have greatly changed since the early '00s when I last viewed such applications to look over applications for tutoring clients/younger friends.

Yes, but what if the student is not currently enrolled (i.e. not at any current institution), or has enrolled in and stayed clean at an open admission community college (i.e. now the current institution) after academic or disciplinary problems at a previous school?

The section is often phrased to ask whether one was subjected to academic or judicial discipline including suspensions/expulsions at ANY previous institution. If this took place at a previous institution, that precludes enrollment unless the student in question is able to get back into good standing at said institution…or the student and his/her family are able to negotiate a deal where if certain conditions/amount of time elapses, the notation of one’s suspension/expulsion is taken off one’s official transcript.

If he/she enrolled at an open admission community college, he/she would still need to disclose the previous academic/judicial sanctions and provide an addendum explanation. Especially considering suspensions/expulsions are noted on one’s transcript.

This is an issue still haunting some college classmates who were subjected to academic/disciplinary suspensions or sometimes even expulsions when applying for grad schools or employment as grad applications and many job applications do ask whether one was subjected to academic/judicial discipline while enrolled in any higher ed institutions. It’s still a sore point with one older classmate as it’s a question which comes up in every grad application and grad school/job interview and in his case…the suspension and type/reason is clearly noted on his transcript.

So maybe there is a question of whether he lied on his application to UConn?

Did the store manager have prior knowledge of the student’s socioeconomic status? When I see someone acting like that, I certainly don’t assume they are upper anything.

@JustOneDad

By cutting off the quote, you omitted the fact that the above was speculation in the side-topic comments under the video/news articles. Brought that up as it did become a common sub-topic of discussion there.

As for the store-manager having prior knowledge, while he cannot be 100% certain…as someone who worked at UConn and extrapolating from what I’ve heard from friends and colleagues who went there, there’s a sizable contingent of well-off upper/upper-middle class students with entitlement complexes from well-off suburban areas like Bayville, Long Island.

In fact, some of the UConn alums with whom I’ve asked about this story have said the actions displayed by this kid in the video fits the very stereotype of the entitled upper/upper-middle class kid from well-off suburban tri-state areas like the well-off parts of Long Island.

Re:#48 - I have to say that almost every aspect of Mr. Gatti’s demeanor indicate that he is from a middle-class background, at the very least. I would make that immediate assumption, myself, and I don’t see this group of students every day, as the food-service workers do.

I know a lot of “UMC kid’s” and cannot say that I have ever come across one acting in the manner depicted in the video. So from my own experience I would not say that this behavior is “stereotypical” of UMC kids.

Which middle class - the CC middle class that goes from $50k to $250k income?

@cobrat Ah, sorry; I just clipped it there in the interest of brevity.

Someone with a $50k to $100+k annual income is going to have a very hard time buying into or maintaining the ability to live in well-off tri-state suburbs like Bayville, NY unless they really lucked out on a real-estate deal AND have family/other forms of financial assistance* to defray expenses such as the real-estate taxes.

  • I.e. Trust fund.

That kid has serious problems. He behaved abominably, shoving the cafeteria manager multiple times, but I kind of pity him. His name is mud forever in the internet age, where nothing goes down the rabbit hole. I wonder why his parents simply shopped him to another big state school instead of trying to deal with his obvious problems (mental illness is likely, exacerbated by substance abuse). The stubbornness and fixation suggest something beyond mere undergraduate hijinks and drunkenness.

Tolstoy was only half right. All families are happy and unhappy in their own unique ways.