Actually, a lie of this magnitude and impact warrants a severe ass thrashing...
But then - I'm one of those radical right wing miscreants that believe nasty actions deserve nasty consequences.
Semper Fi
Apparently the liar has suffered no consequences at all for perpetrating this hoax:
A spokesman for UMass-Dartmouth, John Hoey, told the Globe earlier this week that the student would not be disciplined as a result of his deception. That statement has sparked protest from another professor at the school, Clyde W. Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis, who said the student should be suspended and forced to make a public apology for deceiving the public. He also called on the faculty members who relayed the student’s tale to issue public apologies, as well.
“The reality is this could have been prevented at many points along the way and it wasn’t. This was a conscious and deliberate attempt to perpetrate a hoax,” Barrow said.
Barrow said that the faculty members should not have told the press about the student’s story before verifying it, and he said that their behavior demonstrated an ideological bent in addition to poor judgment.
This incident, Barrow said, was another example of “a faculty culture that seems…continually on the edge of hysteria, constantly predisposed to embrace these kinds of incidents at face value.”
But Williams said that he and Pontbriand both have moderate views and only wanted to find out the truth about the student’s story.
The media coverage of the student’s tale began when Williams mentioned what he had heard about the incident as a side note to a reporter who was interviewing him about President Bush’s authorization of domestic wiretapping, Williams said. The story then became the reporter’s lead, he said.
Williams said he was opposed to any discipline for the student. “It wasn’t something that would have given this kid the help he needed,” he said.