Word: venkatesan
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...Although the case as a whole is absurd, the most bizarre aspect is the pure unprofessionalism with which Venkatesan handled the situation. By e-mailing students directly, without going through a lawyer or the university, she produced unnecessary stress and confusion for students. The content of her pre-litigious messages is also dubious: She accused them of violating “anti-federal discrimination laws” under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, gender, religion, or national origin. Putting aside the bad grammar of her e-mail, it is unclear...
...mails also say that she “is writing a book detailing my experiences as your instructor, which will ‘name names’ so to speak. I have all of your evaluations and these will be reproduced in the book.” For Venkatesan to point fingers at individuals using supposedly confidential student feedback is not only morally reprehensible, it also hurts her own cause by creating the perception that she is simply capitalizing on her fifteen minutes of fame...
...Venkatesan has shown signs of irrational behavior in the past, once cancelling class for a week after her class applauded a student who voiced views on postmodernism opposing her own. Venkatesan defended the move by saying that, “My responsibility is not to stifle them, but when they clapped at his comment, I thought that crossed the line … I was facing intolerance of ideas and intolerance of freedom of expression.” But cancelling class does in fact mean stifling her students’ views and depriving them of an environment for productive classroom...
...Whether or not Venkatesan has grounds for her case, the situation has troubling implications. The litigious threats are among a recent spate of well-publicized incidents in which conflicts that have failed to find mediation in the classroom have spilled into other realms, like the Internet or the courthouse. Like the Horace Mann case, featuring vicious Facebook groups aimed at high school teachers, Venkatesan’s move to a lawsuit and book deal represent a failure of reconciliation within the classroom. Student-teacher arguments are nothing new, of course, but these escalated clashes still suggest a lack of mutual...
...It’s possible, of course, that we don’t have the full story. Perhaps more happened in that classroom than the news stories report; the whole affair is clouded by confusion and eccentricity. But as things stand now, it’s no surprise that Venkatesan has had trouble finding a lawyer: Her arguments seem groundless. Venkatesan has flip-flopped a number of times about whether or not she will drop the case, but as this issue goes to press, she still plans to sue and to write her autobiography. To do so would be unfair...