So I am ruminating before my databases the other morning when the office conversation (a rare event in itself) turns to the subject of a MSU professor who resigned this week upon his exposure as a registered sex offender. Turns out he was convincted twentysomething years ago of rape of a minor. RAPE OF A MINOR. He does not claim innocence, by the way. Just says he has put his life back together, walked the straight and narrow, paid his debt, etc etc.
Whether or not he keeps his academic job, I am deeply ambivalent about. Could not care less. There is a campus community there that needs to duke this one out amongst themselves. He is a sex offender; there are child care centers, a major private school, not to mention thousands of our state's young adults in the mix there.
One of my coworkers has many close university employee friends. All her comments on this case, which is all over our local news, center on how sad it is for this professor. "Award winning researcher and professor, forced to resign" is about a verbatim of the typical comment. Other coworker in 30's (there are only 3 of us) is all about condeming the reporter who first outed this guy to the public. Oh, he's getting depressed. I hope he can put his life back together. All because this guy who is such a joker outed him in the press. Both of these people just graduated from the MSU business school in the last few years.
Um. I am obnoxiously drawn to play the devil's advocate in matters great and petty. One of the reasons, I'm sure, I was such a JOY for my parents to hang out with when I was a righteously indignant teenager. In this case I found myself getting really irritated, not just inspired to poke at their opinions for sport.
The debate over this red lettering of sex offenders is a legitimate one. To me, the statistical reality of recidivism among these people is scientific proof that we need to be wary. Not paranoid, not stripping them of all civil rights, but wary. Felons forfeit certain rights.
Couple of crotchety thoughts to wrap this uP:
- if this guy thought there would be no politics involved in his teaching at a public university as a registered rapist of a minor, he is not as smart as he seems.
- would my coworkers be so outraged on behalf of some guy not so peerlike? Say, the black guy who sweeps the floor, never finished high school, raped a minor back in the day but now just wants to keep coming to school to sweep the floor; to have a chance to put his life back together? gimme a break.
3 comments:
I'm with you Carla. If nothing else, I think that the students at the school should be glad that the school is trying to maintain a level of quality by making this guy unacceptable. Maybe they are really embarrassed and so they take the opinion that the teacher is really the victim and not monster?
I can't believe people are defending this guy. There are far reaching consequences for every action. Maybe he didn't realize, while he was raping a 9 year old, that it might be hard to hold onto a job later. Boohoo, to f'n bad.
Oh, and no, I don't think that people would be so indignant if he was the janitor. I totally agree with you there.
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