Posted on 04/18/2007 10:26:20 PM PDT by george76
Nearly two years earlier,( Nikki ) Giovanni had stood up to Cho Seung-Hui ...
He wore sunglasses to class and pulled his maroon knit cap down low over his forehead. When she tried to get him to participate in class discussion, his answer was silence.
"Sometimes, students try to intimidate you," ... "And I just assumed that he was trying to assert himself."
But then female students began complaining about Cho.
About five weeks into the semester, students told Giovanni that Cho was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with his cell phone. She told him to stop, but the damage was already done.
Female students refused to come to class, submitting their work by computer instead. As for Cho, he was not adding anything to the classroom atmosphere, only detracting.
Police asked Giovanni not to disclose the exact content or nature of Cho's poetry. But she said it was not violent like other writings that have been circulating.
It was more invasive.
Roy alerted student affairs, the dean's office, even the campus police, but each said there was nothing they could do if Cho had made no overt threats against himself or others. So Roy took him on as a kind of personal tutor.
Giovanni encountered Cho only once after she removed him from class. She was walking down a campus path and noticed him coming toward her. They maintained eye contact until passing each other.
Giovanni, who had survived lung cancer, was determined she would not blink first.
"I was not going to look away as if I were afraid," she said. "To me he was a bully, and I had no fear of this child."
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
I don't really agree. Virginia Tech is one of the whiter campuses in the East...they're always trying to boost minority enrollment, and always having a hard time out-recruiting schools like ODU and the University of Virginia.
The faculty overall is mostly caucasian and male, though the grad student population is from around the world.
You have proved my point.
No University should try to recruit minorities. If you can’t make it on your talent then you do not belong there.
This “poet” has been given a free ride because of her skin color. If I had been at that memorial service, I would have booed her off the stage. She has about as much talent as my dog.
These friggen PC liberals are going to get us all killed.
If I was one of the parents of any of those kids that were killed, and I found out that the administration knew this kid’s problems and did nothing, I would go after them, and it wouldn’t be taking them to court.
Hi Judith Anne,
You have covered the case with examples just as I would have done if I knew those folks. In Cho’s family’s case, we don’t know what they might have tried to do to get help for him, or not tried to do. Haven’t heard anything about them except that they required hospitalization after the massacres, which is not a reaction I’ve ever heard for parents of a mass killer, leading to more questions in my mind.
From what (little) I know of the Asian culture, seeking help for aberrancy is the same as losing face, and losing face is simply not to be borne. Perhaps in some way that factored into this.
In any event, since we don’t have answers at this time, I am left with the same conclusion the English professor (department head?) at VT said. She reported him to several authorities; no one was authorized to take action; if schools could take action without fear of lawsuits, things might be different (i.e., more students might live).
We need to take another look at how to handle people whose behavior is threatening and who have signs of or are provably unstable or mentally ill. One of Cho’s professors said he was taking photos under the desk of girl students’ legs and knees. His behavior overall got so bad that something like 63 out of 70 of her students who had class with Cho protested his behavior and (I can’t remember this exactly) either refused to attend class or else sent their work in online. That should never be allowed to happen. It is bowing to a form of anarchy, and it clearly demonstrates how unsafe his classmates felt ... and were.
Cho had been hospitalized for a short period due to being dangerous to himself, and had medication for depression, according to accounts. Someone had to have paid for this, and as he was still a college senior with no apparent employment, I am thinking it was his parents. So that barrier is likely down. I am sure they knew he was mentally ill, but I am positive that they did not know the negative behavior he engaged in.
His parents were hospitalized from shock in one account, and there are rumors that they may have attempted suicide. They are green card residents of the US, with a business and a daughter who works at the State Department.
I am sure that he did not develop this illness overnight, but that, like many parents, they hoped that he was improving and had no idea about his dreadful fantasies and bizarre behavior. There was just a comment from his aunt in Korea, who said that his mother had worried about him for years, and some in the family thought he may have been autistic.
The family has been in the US for enough years that Cho did not have an much of an accent, from what I heard of his rant.
We may disagree about this...and I have been wrong before. Nevertheless, I am certain that the parents’ concern overrode their pride and that multiple attempts were made to help him. My heart goes out to the parents, they must be absolutely destroyed.
Gotcha, and ditto that!
Thanks for filling me in, Oberon. She sounds like my kind of lady.
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