Two university professors have been caught up in an alleged insider trading conspiracy, including respected lecturer and retired St. John’s University professor, Dr. John F. Marshall. He is accused of giving Pace University Professor Alan L. Tucker insider information, resulting in Tucker making a cool $1.4 million on the tips in 2007. Dr. Marshall’s brother-in-law, Mark R. Larson is also accused of buying shares of I.S.E. stock based on the tips.
Category: Academia
In yet another expansion of the regulation of student speech, the Second Circuit has ruled against high school student Avery Doninger who contested her punishment for posting an objectionable message on an Internet site about Lewis Mills High School. When she objected to the cancellation of a school event in vulgar terms, school officials barred her from running for Senior Class secretary. In Doninger v. Niehoff, the Second Circuit upheld the right of school officials to punish students for out-of–school speech in a major blow to both the first amendment and student rights.
Boy, growing up I thought the Catholic nuns were tough. Yet another elementary teacher has been caught on tape using public humiliation and class condemnation as a pedagogical tool. In New Albany, Indiana, Kristen Woodward (a teacher at S. Ellen Jones Elementary School) verbally abused 5-year-old Gabriel Ross in front of the class, even getting his friends to condemn him. It is something out of the Pol Pot Guide to Elementary Teaching. The tape recording is linked below.
Continue reading “Pol Pot Elementary: Condemn Your Classmate and Be Free”
Harvard Law School professor Charles R. Nesson saw the arrest of Richard E. Cusick and R. Keith Stroup as an opportunity to challenge the Massachusetts ban on marijuana — insisting that the law did not even meet the minimal “rational basis” test and seeking jury nullification. Instead, his clients were not even given an evidentiary hearing, found guilty quickly by the jury, and sentenced to time served.
Continue reading “Legal Defense Goes Up in Smoke: Harvard Professor Challenges Pot Laws Seeking Jury Nullification — and Loses”
To the relief of many, the Mars Phoenix landed on Mars without incident. NASA has released the pictures below taken on the Red Planet’s arctic plains. This was the conclusion of a 296-day voyage and years of planning.
Continue reading “First Pictures From the Mars Phoenix Project”
In Port St. Lucie, the family of nine-year-old Alex Barton are exploring a lawsuit against teacher Wendy Portillo and the school district of his humiliation in front of his class. Alex is in the process of being diagnosed with autism, but Portillo still reportedly punished him by making him stand in front of the class as students were invited to list the things that they hate about him — then led a vote to throw him out of class. This apparently comes from the Lord of the Flies school of teaching.
Continue reading “Teacher Accused of Public Humiliation of Five-Year-Old Autistic Child”
Controversial American author and academic Norman Finkelstein has been arrested at Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv and forced to leave the country. Various news reports indicate that he may be banished from Israel for ten years on on “security’ grounds.”
Continue reading “Norman Finkelstein Denied Entry Into Israel”
Eddie Walker, the principal of Irmo High School in Columbia, S.C., is resigning in the wake of a decision by the Lexington-Richland School District 5 officials, to allow the creation of a gay club at his school. He has cited his own religious views for the protest move.
Professor Michael Todd has been fired by the Maricopa County Community College. This was probably not too surprising. Professors are sometime fired for failing to attend classes, plagiarism, or chronically poor classroom performance. In Todd’s case, it was the dead student found in his home. Continue reading “Professor Fired After Dead Student Found In Townhouse”
A twelve-year-old Muslim girl and her parents have been told by a German court that she must attend co-ed swimming lessons despite her religious objections to wearing formfitting clothing. The court in North Rhine-Westphalia said that the school’s interest in teaching swimming outweighs the bona fide religious objections of the parents. It appears that free style outweighs free exercise in Germany. Continue reading “Sin-chronized Swimming: German Court Holds that Muslim Girl Must Swim Despite Religious Prohibitions”
Yet another teacher has lost her job over private conduct. In Connecticut, Thalberg elementary teacher Marie Jarry has reportedly lost her job after appearing on the Howard Stern Show. It appears that her appearance in a bikini on an adult-oriented show disqualified her from teaching second-year kids. She is only the latest teacher to lose her job to the a new type of American morals police. Continue reading “Video: Teacher Loses Job Over Bikini Appearance on Howard Stern”
This week, the good town of Land O’ Lakes, Florida is free of the scourge of a wizard. While such hunt were once led by pitchfork carrying townsfolk, this important civic action was taken by concerned parents who discovered the magical tendencies of substitute teacher (and fulltime wizard) Jim Piculas in Pasco County School District. Continue reading “Townspeople Hunt Down the Wizard of Land O’ Lakes”
We have seen a disturbing increase in police department and schools firing people over their conduct in their private time and lives. We can now add the case of Tiffany Shepherd, a Biology high school teacher from Port St Lucie, Florida. When school officials saw the photos linked below, they fired Shepherd who worked as a “bikini girl” on charter fishing boats. Continue reading “Florida High School Teacher Fired Over Internet Pictures and Part-Time Work”
In a bizarre case out of Philadelphia, a teacher is shown in the video below apparently referring a fight between students in her special education class. However, two teachers claims that when they reported Tonia Brown, they were fired. They have filed a whistleblower action over the terminations. Presumably, “special education” is not meant to be training for the WWF. Continue reading “Teaching the Three Rs: Wrestling, Rough-Housing, and Refereeing in Philadelphia”
Wendy Gonaver is a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist as well as an instructor in American studies. She was ready to start teaching at Cal State when officials presented her a loyalty pledge to to “defend” the U.S. and California constitutions “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is precisely the type of free speech and free exercise issue that Gonaver expected to teach about. She will not have the chance. When she declined the pledge, she was told that she could not teach in any public school in the state. It is the Cal State version of the Thomas More oath for teachers. Continue reading “California’s Thomas More Pledge: Cal State Fires College Instructor for Refusing to Sign Loyalty Oath”