Hinds Community College in Mississippi is receiving some unwanted attention due to a controversy involving the discipline of Isaac Rosenbloom, 30, for using a single foul word in the presence of a teacher after a speech class.
Rosenbloom’s transgression occurred after the end of a class when he sought to discuss a bad grade in the speech class. Rosenbloom turned to another student while waiting and said “This is going to going to [expletive] up my entire GPA.” He was punished for “flagrant disrespect on any person on college owned or controlled property.”
“Flagrant disrespect”? That seems a rather fluid and ambiguous standard. In the criminal area, the Supreme Court has struck down more descriptive terms like “loafing,” “strolling,” or “wandering around from place to place” under the void for vagueness doctrine. See Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972). Likewise, a prohibition on “sacrilegious” speech was found unconstitutional. Burstyn, Inc. v. Wilson, 343 U.S. 495 (1952). This is obviously not a criminal case, but schools should have standards that allow for an average person to anticipate and understand the lines of prohibited conduct.
In this case, teacher, Barbara Pyle, was upset by the use of the foul word and allegedly told him that she would send him to “detention.” Rosenbloom claims that he responded by informing her that he was 30-years-old and there was not detention at a community college. He was then told he would not be allowed to continue in the class and would receive 12 demerits—three short of suspension.
I can understand that not all speech is welcome at a speech class. However, this hardly seems to merit such a strict liability approach — particularly for a single incident of a first offender. After all, some of the most famous speeches involved such spicy language, here.
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Makes me proud to be an amereecan
Wayne in Minnesota
Shocking! Who knew that there were schools in Mississippi?
Stupidity seems to exist from the top down in Mississip
government circles
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/05/03/mississippi-congressman-oil-chocolate/
I know this guy personally. I had a class with him the semester that this incident happened. He is a f’ing idiot. I’m sure Mrs. Pyle just didn’t want to have to look at his butt ugly face and listen to his retarded commentary any longer.
I would have went to the dean’s office & got this cleared up pronto.
This is college, people PAY GOOD MONEY for an education, not for someone to play Miss Manners.
If I go to a car lot to buy a car and say that the price is too F”ing high I don’t expect the sales man to take it personally.
My question is how does one display “disrespect on” a person? Is that like “kissing on” a person? And how are people who are unable to write grammatical English qualified to teach anyone how to speak it?
BTW, isn’t Hinds County the location of the high school that disinvited a gay female student from attending her own prom?
Penguinism! What did those poor flightless birds do to deserve such fetid instruction? I ask you what about the svelte silky waterfoul! Penguins deserve a good education too.
Tell the biatch that we (adults!) use expletives to express anger and frustration in order to keep us from picking up a chair and smashing the living daylight out of your airhead…
Have her teach to penguins, so she can’t harm otherwise normal students.
Here’s the guy doing an interview on Fox News.
Welcome to Mississippi!
Blouise, you are correct. It is surprising that they actually have schools in Mississippi.
Wayne in Minnesota
Shocking! Who knew that there were schools in Mississippi?
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That sums it up.
When I worked in Atlanta, there was a norm of not swearing in front of our Baptist secretaries. Atlanta is a place with a progressive rep that’s actually not very progressive. Pyle certainly has delicate sensibilities and the school wouldn’t know free speech if it saw it, but Jackson, is if anything even more conservative than Atlanta.
OTOH, who recorded the conversation? That seems like a bigger problems.
If that offended Pyle, I’m thinking I could make her eyes bleed with a blatant display of disrespect.
Grown man. Outside of class egro outside your realm of authority. A comment not directed directly at you but a remark concerning his GPA. Freedom of speech. He’s free to have said much more offensive things than that.
Get over yourself, Pyle.
End of story.
“Perhaps Ms. Pyle needs to transfer from college teaching to pre-school teaching!”
Gomer, er, Barbara Pyle would probably hear far more “colorful” language coming from the mouth of babes! Have you heard some of these kids today?!
Come on. This is a 30 year-old man for chrissakes!
Shocking! Who knew that there were schools in Mississippi?
Perhaps Ms. Pyle needs to transfer from college teaching to pre-school teaching!
F-U, Barbara! 😉
If I were Issac, I’d hire a private investigator to follow this lady around for a few days, maybe a week. See if there is anything nice and juicy he can make public, destroying her reputation in the community and her career at the university. Apparently, she has no problem in jeopardizing this guy’s education and his life with this non-sense. Don’t take it Issac. Show her you are as serious as she is.
God judges us by the same yardstick (ouch!) that we judge others. I wonder if that teacher says bless it! whenever he hits his thub with a hammer, or if he says dagnabbit or worse. If he doesn’t practice what he preaches,even at home, he should suspend himself!
“Outside of official class time, HCC has no authority to punish a student for cursing in this way or for being ‘disrespectful,’” said Adam Kissel, Director of FIRE’s Individual Rights Defense Program.
WOW, and like de merits of de class are worth it? Is this a military training ground? 30 and a speech class, if it weren’t true I would laugh.