Posted on 04/25/2005 11:39:50 PM PDT by DameAutour
NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Southern Connecticut State University barred a student from a poetry class after his professor said a poem he submitted contained veiled threats to sexually assault her and her 3-year-old daughter.
The student, Edward Bolles, said his poem entitled "Professor White," was meant to be a satirical piece about globalization. In it, a Mexican student named Juan has a sexual encounter with the daughter of his white professor.
Bolles' professor, Kelly Ritter, found the poem "disturbing," according to an April 8 campus police report, and said she believed the poem was a threat. University officials prohibited Bolles, who is Mexican, from attending his poetry class while he was investigated.
Bolles, a 36-year-old married father of two, said he and Ritter have had political disagreements in class. Bolles, a conservative, said he has disagreed with some of the liberal political themes in Ritter's poetry selections.
The same is true of the Bolles' poetic character, who pledges to "turn the tables" on his professor and has a tryst with her college-age daughter. While Bolles' acknowledges that Ritter inspired the poem, he said it was not a threat and said he did not know she had a daughter.
"I think she flatters herself," Bolles said Monday. "This poem is about a lot more than a cranky teacher. It's about anti-globalization."
Ritter, 36, did not return telephone messages seeking comment.
Bolles said the poem's interracial affair symbolizes white America's feeling that Mexicans are corrupting their culture. The encounter is not violent, and the professor's daughter brings Juan home to meet her disapproving mother.
"I came in using a different set of reasoning as context to look at the craft of poetry, and she was put off by it," Bolles said.
The poem ends with the professor trying to get Juan kicked out of school by calling one of his poems racist.
Bolles began publicly protesting the university's decision Monday, wearing a "Save Professor White" shirt and handing out fliers on campus. After that protest began and university officials received calls from The Associated Press Monday, Bolles received a hand-delivered, one-sentence letter from the administration:
"As a result of the investigation, I wish to inform you that no formal disciplinary charges will be filed on behalf of the university and you are permitted to return to your English 202, Section 1, course, Introduction to Poetry," Christopher Piscitelli, director of judicial affairs, wrote.
University spokesman Patrick Dilger said the matter was handled like any other. He said students are often held out of classes when a professor raises these types of concerns.
In her police report, Ritter asked the university to require Bolles to get a psychiatric evaluation. The school did not require that, Dilger said.
Bolles is set to return to class Wednesday, though he doesn't know how he will be received. He said he would not apologize and is concerned with how he will make up the two weeks of missed classes.
First of all, sounds like an interesting metaphorical poem.
This professor was trying to attack one of her conservative students, plain and simple. The poem doesn't resemble anything in this woman's life, and there is no sexual assault in the poem. She didn't "misconstrue" it. She tried to hassle him and cause him trouble. Now how's she gonna pay? What about his missed classes?
bump
Often? Often? Just how often are concerns like these raised? Seems odd...
Yet another case of "Liberals Gone Nuts".
I hope the Professor sweats out the rest of the semester, and the student had best be ready to protest the grade he receives.
When will there be a few class action lawsuits against universities for discrimination in grading? Students stand to lose large amounts of money in their employed life if they get poor grades in college; the problem is more than an annoyance and should be the basis for a claim of damages.
Ah yes ....... is not that the sounds of tolerence that we hear echoing out of yonder ivory tower?
Here is the offending poem, seems about a "compassionate" white liberal professor who can't handle it when her own (adult) daughter dates a Mexican. I think the poem is right on.
Professor White
In New Haven she taught, a liberal city,
Famed for its doctors and dirty drug dealers.
Dr. White who had seen it did ponder and pity
How blacks were oppressed and seen as such stealers.
This professor protested with a grand pithy,
Being well known as a sensitive feeler,
How there could be such a blatant division
Between stinky reality and kind vision.
Her department was English, a liberal art,
Where the halls did moan when Bush won again.
She hated economists who said, “Liberals aren't
Qualified to accuse Bush of zero sum games.”
Those economists were enemies, she hated to heart.
“To quantify feelings is a profession so lame!”
Kerry was plastered on her new tan office.
She was his lover as well a true fan of his.
She taught prose and poetry, her students were liberal
Who wrote about feelings and kisses and tears
One day came a student, and with him his libro all
Tattered. He sat and awakened her fears.
He had riddling eyes that invited a brawl,
And a stinging voice that shot to her ears.
His name was Juan after the artistic saint,
He came from art, he got in trouble for paint.
A talented artist, a genius at best,
He painted a Muslim and religiously dressed her
in a black burka, but he embossed her breast.
The art teacher was jealous and started to pester
Juan to submit this art at her behest.
That tart creature hid in her office and caressed her.
She got too excited and made a wet dent,
Then insulted poor Juan and away he went.
So in poetry class, a poem they read,
That made Gringos greedy, and Mexicans martyrs.
Juan Diego protested of this hatred that was fed,
“The Gringos just did things much better and smarter.”
White called him a racist, her face went all red.
Juan thought of this challenge and how next he can
smart her.
“She wants me to hate Gringos,” thought clever Juan
Diego,
“But tables will turn, Señora tan ciega!”
By well made chance , Juan Diego found out,
That in the same dorm and down just one door,
A beautiful girl, with a squishy round snout,
Slept every day. He could hear her snore.
One night she walked by, her blue eyes funned out.
She bumped into Juan, just a night shirt she wore.
“My name is Snow, my mother is White”
Juan's brown eyes widened, his pants grew tight.
It seems to be custom, here in the States,
That after a girl loves a boy for just one night,
She brings him to dinner, though her mother hates
The sight of new boys with smiles so bright.
So Juan was invited to the White estate.
He rang the door bell and held Snowy tight.
White opened the door and there was a great swap.
As one face lit up, the other face dropped.
White became livid and worked up her panic
To think that her daughter infringed and corrupted
The purity of this boy of culture Hispanic.
She ripped out her hair just like an eruption
And started to think a variety of antics.
She could put Juan on the run by shoring up shun.
She told the professors that Juan must go,
And that he was not welcome, they must show.
The next day in class, they had one more fight.
Over a sestina that whined about diction.
“The English are invading the Hispanic right
To own their language, race and tradition!”
Declared Dr. White with Juan in plain sight.
Juan Diego did answer about such perdition,
“I don't care about tradition or whatever,
I just compete for a life that is better”
That was one punch but Juan had a second.
He took the sestina, and copied though be a
Flipped around version from his vision fecund.
“White, blue eyed, bubble gum” phobia
Were such lines that Juan had succumbed
To, “dirty skin, brown eyed, chili cornucopia.”
The Bilingual Sestina assumed national pride;
His Biracial Sestina proved racial divide.
White tried everything as an instructor
To drive away Juan from English afflictions
She told him to shut up and not to disrupt her.
In order to confuse him, she gave contradictions.
His poem she read, and that day it struck her
How she could bring her plan to fruition.
She took the poem to the board and the Dean
And said, ”Juan is a racist, vicious, and mean.”
The Dean read the poem and thought Juan sincere.
He missed the sarcasm or so he pretended.
“This student hates Mexicans, he cannot be here!”
And so Juan's adventures in education were ended.
Then what happened next was just as Juan feared,
He was sent back to Mexico, to the farm that he
tended.
“That boy is farming and it feels so right,
That I saved his culture.” Exclaimed Dr. White.
Then White and her daughter went on a vacation
To frolic the sights and sounds of Cancun.
They visited Juan who worked his vocation
His eyes were dejected like a sad buffoon.
“You farm in the tradition that befits your nation.”
Congratulated White as her ego ballooned.
“I don't care for tradition,” Juan Diego repeated,
“I aspired for life, but now I'm defeated.”
They stripped down and tanned under the sun
While Juan continued to toil and sweat.
They got thirsty and paid some children to run
And bring one of Juan's melons, juicy and wet.
“We really are envious, your life is so fun!”
said White, and said Snow, “So really, don't fret.”
White gave him ten dollars and patted his head.
Then they got in their van, and away they sped.
There's that liberal intolerance to free speech. Ooooh, did I use "liberal" and "intolerance" in the same sentence? Shame on me. We all know that they are the tolerant ones.
The more I read the poem, the more outrageous this whole thing seems. There is just no way one could see any kind of threat in the poem.
I find ALL poetry pretentious, pointless and just plain boring.
taxesareforever wrote:
Ooooh, did I use "liberal" and "intolerance" in the same sentence? Shame on me. We all know that they are the tolerant ones.
--> Shame on you, You know Liberals are the rolemodels and you should have a picture of janet reno on your wall ;) /Sarc!
Naaa. Takes too much time and the lawyers get most of the $$$$ from a class action lawsuit anyway. Don't want to feed the enemy...
Besides, a few of these student will get PO'ed enogh to wait outside the Profs office one evening. A good a$$-kicking will put the "fear of God" into the leftist faculty.
WOW! I can't believe that the Professor, after reading a line like this still stupidly takes it to the Dean:
She told him to shut up and not to disrupt her. In order to confuse him, she gave contradictions. His poem she read, and that day it struck her How she could bring her plan to fruition.
I can just see this professor. "See, we like lesbian socialist Hispanics who will write about the victimization of womyn, but everyone knows that a Hispanic simply CAN'T be conservative! It's against the Constitution or SOMETHING!"
Wow. That poem is *gold*. I can understand why she screeched "threeeaaaat!". The libs always consider themselves smarter, better educated, more elegant, and more rational than we the unwashed, and in those departments she was soundly beaten, outsmarted at her own game. So she pulled a Hillary Clinton vis-a-vis Rick Lazio, painting the "evil man" as threatening the "poor, defenseless, woman" in an effort to save face and defang his (obvious) argument.
"He's oppressing me with his words..."
Geez. Whiner. When you beat these people in the court of ideas, they resort to making up stuff and tattling.
Seriously! She did EXACTLY what the poem said "she" would!!
She suffers from a severe irony deficiency.
I wish I were half decent at poetry (sadly, my skills are limited to prose). I would love to see her face if she was subsequently inundated with poetry about this episode (and especially her naked attempt at silencing conservatives who don't fit her worldview).
Clearly the writer knows his audience, eh?
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