2008 Woodie Awards
We can learn a few lessons from upsetting events
Issue date: 3/19/08 Section: Voices
April at Central Michigan University is often a month in which significant teaching opportunities are eschewed and surrender to a type of hysteria which takes over. Will that happen this year?
I remember a CMU basketball coach who in November used the "N" word to motivate his basketball team, who was fired in April after significant protest came forth. The man's employment contract would have run out in June of the same year, but that which he had done was so terrible, those insulted would settle for nothing less than firing and hopefully forever ruining his coaching career. The University complied and fired him in April - two months before his contract would have run out. He sued and the University won after expending thousands of dollars in attorney fees plus thousands in employee time to participate in the litigation. What lessons do you think were taught?
The November noose incident was insensitive in my opinion.
A church group from Detroit and now the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus have come to Mount Pleasant to address the November noose incident. They apparently want the name of the student and they want the Isabella County Prosecutor to file charges under the Michigan Ethnic Intimidation Act. Both the church people and the Black Caucus members seem either to know their demands are almost impossible to meet under the law or they do not know. Nevertheless, their repeated, unmet demands make good press and the press willingly complies without analysis. Black Caucus member Senator Hanson Clarke sent out a news release on Nov. 16, 2007, reporting that he had requested a federal investigation of the CMU "noose hanging."
http://www.senate.michigan.gov.dem/PR/Clarke0019.21.pdf
There is an opportunity here for good teaching. The following fields can all add perspective: psychology, sociology, political science, history, law, religion, economics, philosophy, geography, statistics, journalism, broadcasting, art, literature, interpersonal and organizational communication and education. There is nothing like a current matter to perk interest in learning.
I remember a CMU basketball coach who in November used the "N" word to motivate his basketball team, who was fired in April after significant protest came forth. The man's employment contract would have run out in June of the same year, but that which he had done was so terrible, those insulted would settle for nothing less than firing and hopefully forever ruining his coaching career. The University complied and fired him in April - two months before his contract would have run out. He sued and the University won after expending thousands of dollars in attorney fees plus thousands in employee time to participate in the litigation. What lessons do you think were taught?
The November noose incident was insensitive in my opinion.
A church group from Detroit and now the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus have come to Mount Pleasant to address the November noose incident. They apparently want the name of the student and they want the Isabella County Prosecutor to file charges under the Michigan Ethnic Intimidation Act. Both the church people and the Black Caucus members seem either to know their demands are almost impossible to meet under the law or they do not know. Nevertheless, their repeated, unmet demands make good press and the press willingly complies without analysis. Black Caucus member Senator Hanson Clarke sent out a news release on Nov. 16, 2007, reporting that he had requested a federal investigation of the CMU "noose hanging."
http://www.senate.michigan.gov.dem/PR/Clarke0019.21.pdf
There is an opportunity here for good teaching. The following fields can all add perspective: psychology, sociology, political science, history, law, religion, economics, philosophy, geography, statistics, journalism, broadcasting, art, literature, interpersonal and organizational communication and education. There is nothing like a current matter to perk interest in learning.
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