Professor Takes Heat for Calling Cops on Student Who Discussed Guns in Class

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That is kind of funny. In my criminal law class a student used as an example a person with a concealed pistol license at school in their scenario. Before adressing his scenario she made it a point to tell the whole class "let me tell you, there is nothing so scary that you need to bring a gun to school". That had me laughing(after class or course, I want a good grade). It all depends where you are at though. The majority of colleges in my area are going to be anti. Thank god there are a few holdouts though.
 
Just curious...

Calling the police because some students were talking about guns (as part of a class assignment!)

Wouldn't this be under the category of filing a false police report? Probably not, as the prof apparently thought something dangerous was going on, BUT if it does, want to bet the prof doesn't get the same treatment as any other "false report" case?

I'm not going to bemoan the overall quality of our system, based on this one individual example (I have plenty of others for that:(), but it is a sad thing that someone who apparently has such a fragile grip on reality is in a position of teaching.
 
Calling the police because some students were talking about guns (as part of a class assignment!)

Wouldn't this be under the category of filing a false police report? Probably not, as the prof apparently thought something dangerous was going on, BUT if it does, want to bet the prof doesn't get the same treatment as any other "false report" case?
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More than likely, the prof reported to the police about a potentially troubled student, accurate or not, but that may actually have been the prof's view of the situation.

The report was to the university police. Given that the call was from a faculty member and the fact that the university police probably have plenty of free time, they followed through much more thoroughly than would happen outside of the university environment.

I am not defending the prof or the police in any way. I don't know what was actually said in the student's talk. It is possible that the student said things in the context of a RKBA talk that went well beyond RKBAs. It is also possible the prof is a loon. I dunno.
 
I'd be leery of punishing somebody for calling the cops if they truly thought something was wrong. I do think that this prof needs a bit of re-education herself though (or perhaps she never read the bill of rights).
 
Ah, I misunderstood.

I doubt seriously that university police will charge a professor, for anything less than a blatant crime. Nothing against them, but that is the way the world works.

Some of you college folks, refresh my memory, please. In the event of an actual crime, wouldn't campus police just hold the suspect for the local police to arrest and charge? Or do they have the authority to do that on their own?

In a situation such as this one, if the university police don't press any charges, I would imagine the local police wouldn't have much interest in it?
 
Some of you college folks, refresh my memory, please. In the event of an actual crime, wouldn't campus police just hold the suspect for the local police to arrest and charge? Or do they have the authority to do that on their own?

In a situation such as this one, if the university police don't press any charges, I would imagine the local police wouldn't have much interest in it?
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I can't speak for other universities, but here's a quote from the UW police's website:
Our police officers are authorized to enforce all State laws and Rules of the Board of Regents. They are also deputized by the Dane County Sheriff.
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However, for the most part the UW police just do traffic violations, underage drinking violations, stolen bikes, and other petty stuff. When something really big happens the regular police are usually called in. Comparatively speaking the UW police are pretty small when you take into account the size of the regular police department.

Also, CCW permits are not issued to retired LEOs by the the UW police department even though they can legally do so (and several other departments throughout the state.) Some do it quietly, but there are plenty that won't do it at all.
 
Its hard to generalize.

I have to agree in principle with Double Naught, though he is wrong to generalize about biology. Molecular biologists, microbiologists, et cetera tend to be more conservative but departments with more funding for the ecology geeks lean more to the left. There is a major rift within the ranks of sociologists, depending on their area of expertise within the field. (It is really hard for me to generalize about sociologists as it seems some of the most personally conservative ones I know also hold some of the wackiest political ideas. I'm not sure why?)

And so it is with psychologists. Glenn, I cheated and looked up your minivita before replying. I recognize your background to be that of hard core neuroscience. I'm afraid your experiences aren't universal. You don't speak the sort of psychobabble that one sees in 'interdisciplinary educational experience' programs, 'psychoeducation' programs and teacher certification mills. (Maybe a little confirmation bias here?):o

I think its a process of evolution. You're naturally going to hire and retain more conservative people to teach in real research oriented programs like yours than you will in schools where the 'psychologists' are all EdD trained or borrowed from the social work department. Same with psychiatrists. You see pure communists through the usual American political spectrum and on to white supremacists and neonazis, dependent on their backgrounds.
 
Chemgirlie--
Great job. I am going to cut and copy to a word doc, and may use this in the future, if you have no objections.

Glenn--
I appreciate the fact that you are on the right side, but you are taking this way too personally. In point of fact, you are in the minority. I don't believe there is any disputing this.

Academia, at every level from kindergarten to graduate school, is deeply entrenched with antis. The same is true of medicine. Of course, there are exceptions in both fields, and there are degrees of dominance, but that does not alter the truth of the statement.

Keep up the good work, but please keep your eyes and your mind open.
 
I am going to cut and copy to a word doc, and may use this in the future, if you have no objections.
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Sure thing, it's on the internet for the world to see and use as they see fit. It might need a bit of cleaning up as it is the rough draft though.
 
Our university department (and many others in TX) have officers who are TX peace officers with full LEO capacities for arrest.

Yep - I'm a scientist type for a psychologist. My minivita is old - I got bored with web sites. Should fix it up. However - I do have clinician colleagues who want to shoot with me and some social psychologist types who are shooters. But they tend to be vigorous. I grant you that many soft types exist.

Are folks like me typical - no - but that's why we have to speak up. I went to the American Psychological Association conference in Boston and attended a Virginia Tech session. After the presentations about the aftermath - legit stress stuff - some dude piped up on whether the carry on campus movement would traumatize more folks and it would be useless anyway. So, I had to correct him. The panel agreed with me.

I just get annoyed, as I said before, when folks overgeneralize. Like RevNate - there are preachers that oppose church carry but it doesn't mean it is the end of the world.

I do have fun with being called 'refined'.
 
In my college department (a biological science) we have 10 faculty. Four of us own guns. One of those 4 has a CCW, one of those 4 is an avid squirrel hunter (don't ask me why) and one of us belongs to a range. These are 3 different individuals. The 4th guy owns one .22. One of the other 6 who does not have a gun would like to have a gun but can't get it past his wife. Another one of the 6 was in Vietnam and saw some awful things done by M16 and is therefore not terribly interested in guns. Of the last 4, one is a bow hunter, 2 have no interest in guns and the last one is an enigma. He might have a gun but the rest of us ignore him because he's a traitorous backstabber and we don't really care what he does.

Of those 10 faculty, 8 are diehard liberals. Two are diehard conservatives (the enigma and the CCW).

Go figure.
 
I guess I'm refined.

Have to share this. Today - I was requested to work in the garden. Thus, I said I will go off to store and buy various potions and powders to distribute over the landscape.

I decided to go to the Thai restaurant across the street for some lunch. As I was munching my basil catfish, I hear a voice - say - Hello, Professor Meyer.

There is a student from days past. He is now a lawyer, he tells me. He introduces me to his wife and tells her that I'm the only professor he knows that enjoys fine wine, exotic cheese and guns - like him.

So, I guess I am the refined gun owning professor - haha!

I invite him to the range.
 
It's an interesting mixed bag with my wife's collegues. She's a PhD clinical psychologist working within the VA system. I've seen some that go in all directions, some really interesting and eye opening examples. I can say for certain that most don't have the information that we have, and absent a good bit of background information it's easy for even the smartest people to fall for almost anything.
 
The instructor, lecturer or "professor" should be drop kicked out the university gates, and forever barred from any sort of teaching position, as she obviously lacks or seemingly lacks minimal underdstanding of basic concepts.

Of course, I could be off base here, however that is the way it appears to me.
 
And what is the legal agency that bars folks from seeking employment forever based on some silly action?

Since this is a civil rights forum - is such a suggestion congruent with civil rights?

For example, Alberto Gonzales is not able to find employment based on his performance as A.G. for the Bush administration. However, should some governmental agency bar him from ever being employed or should the free market of employers be able to decide whether to hire him?

Whether the university should sanction her action is a reasonable topic for debate. However, banned forever - I know we get excited about things - but that's silly and antithetical to our system.
 
Glenn E. Meyer said:
And what is the legal agency that bars folks from seeking employment forever based on some silly action?

Since this is a civil rights forum - is such a suggestion congruent with civil rights?

For example, Alberto Gonzales is not able to find employment based on his performance as A.G. for the Bush administration. However, should some governmental agency bar him from ever being employed or should the free market of employers be able to decide whether to hire him?
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Excellent point, Glenn.

However, lawyers are a bit of a special case: for Mr. Gonzales and his cohorts, such as John Yoo), the answer to the question, "Could some agency bar him from ever being employed?" is -- yes. Mr. Yoo, and others, have been under investigation by the Justice Department ethics office for some time (IIRC their report is done, but the DOJ is sitting on it), and one possible outcome of this investigation involves referrals to state bar associations, which do have the power to apply sanctions for ethics violations, up to and including disbarment, which won't keep them from working at McDonald's, but as lawyers, they'd be toast. And it has been suggested that in Mr. Yoo's case, this would probably also lead to his losing his tenured faculty job, as well.

As far as I know, there's no equivalent oversight agency for academics.. at least there wasn't when I was one... just as well, probably. :p

Double Naught Spy said:
More than likely, the prof reported to the police about a potentially troubled student, accurate or not, but that may actually have been the prof's view of the situation.
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Agreed. And given the Virginia Tech case, and other school/college shootings in which no one noticed that the perpetrators may have been behaving strangely before the fact, perhaps a professor's erring on the side of caution shouldn't provoke too much outrage on our part.
 
If Alberto violated the law and professional canons of ethics - you are right. He can get disbarred. It's hard put to claim that this professor's actions are in the same class, although seemingly stupid for the actions reported.

Given the current climate and the history of schools ignoring clear warnings, we probably will get some over-reactions as we had under-reactions. It's simply a shift in the criterion level as in signal detection theory (get the "." - inside moderator joke).

Take the prof to the range and try to make sense of the issue to this person. I find rationale argument works in quite a few cases.
 
It's hard put to claim that this professor's actions are in the same class
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Agreed... especially as compared to, oh, subverting the Constitution and suchlike... :D

And I like your point about signal detection. Yes, some false positives may not be the worst thing, if they prevent any recurrences at all.

And your proposed solution might even be fun. :)
 
I think people are taking the wrong approach to this.

What if a student talked about smoking and how everyone should have the right to choose even if it was bad for you and the teacher called the EMS and reported someone in her class was dying of lung cancer or congestive heart failure due to tobacco.

We would all just laugh about it. What an idiot. Maybe the University need to look into how balanced this woman is.
Maybe she was trying to make an example of the student and push her agenda. I doubt this woman really thought this was the correct course of action to take.
 
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