22 July 2005

TGIS: Thank God It's Schadenfreude! (23)

This week's joy in the misfortune of others comes courtesy of the Associated Press (from Tuesday, July 19; link good at time of posting):
A former Boston Herald columnist was fired from a part-time job teaching journalism at Boston University after posting a note on an Internet site that a female student was "incredibly hot."

Michael Gee, a 17-year veteran of the Herald, was hired by Boston University to teach an introductory journalism course. He had been among dozens of staffers who left the newspaper this spring amid job cuts.

On July 5, Gee wrote on the sportsjournalists.com Web site about his first day teaching and mentioned the student, according to a Web log run by sports media critic David Scott on http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com.

"Of my six students, one (the smartest, wouldn't you know it?) is incredibly hot. ... It was all I could do to remember the other five students."

Gee was fired July 13, according to Bob Zelnick, chairman of BU's journalism department. Zelnick said the posting violated the trust essential to the student-teacher relationship.

Students "have to be confident their work will judged impartially" and not on the basis of their looks, he said.

. . . .

Gee declined to comment when reached at home on Tuesday by The Associated Press. In a posting after he was fired, Gee called his remarks "pathetic, juvenile, and boorish," according to Scott's log. He said he was "deeply ashamed" of them and would make no further public comment.

[Previous TGIS]

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