Post: #1

Florida Professor Who Cast Doubt On Mass Shootings Is Fired

Quote:A Florida Atlantic University professor who suggested in blog postings and radio interviews that the 2012 massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary and other mass shootings were a hoax designed by the Obama administration to boost support for gun control was fired Tuesday.

James F. Tracy, 50, a tenured associate professor of communications at the Boca Raton university, has repeatedly called into question the authenticity of recent mass shootings, including the slaying of churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., and office workers in San Bernardino, Calif. In his blog postings and radio interviews, Mr. Tracy has said the Newtown massacre may have been carried out by “crisis actors” employed by the Obama administration.

Mr. Tracy’s ideas fall into part of a larger movement of Internet conspiracy theorists who believe the spate of mass murders have simply been staged by the government. A few of the theorists do not think the shootings took place at all.

. . .

Florida Atlantic University ultimately dismissed him on grounds that have nothing to do with his theories . . . . They said Mr. Tracy, who because of his tenure could not be easily fired, had failed to submit paperwork for three years in a row that listed any other jobs or similar activities that he performed outside the university. In a letter to Mr. Tracy, the university said it repeatedly asked him to file the form — which should have listed his blog and his work on a weekly radio show — but Mr. Tracy declined to do so.

“It is the responsibility of the employee to report outside activity on activity forms so that the administration can address potential, actual, or perceived conflicts of commitment or interest,” wrote Diane Alperin, the university’s vice provost. Since Mr. Tracy’s first blog post appeared in 2013 shortly after the Newtown shootings, his views have caused the university mounting embarrassment. The university first reprimanded Mr. Tracy that year for failing to make clear to readers and listeners that his views were his own and did not reflect the institution’s positions.

Mr. Tracy went on to write blog posts and speak out about the Boston Marathon bombings and the Paris shootings. He was reprimanded in November for “insubordination and failure to follow university policy.”

Hard to tell exactly what the prof's exact political persuasion is, but his views clearly cut against the narrative that's rolled out as soon as a shooting or terrorist incident occurs.

It also seems pretty clear to me that the university firing him for failure to do the paperwork was rather flimsy pretext to get around his tenure. If they fired him explicitly for the views he expressed, he would probably win a lawsuit against the university--no matter what he said.

Anyone else think he would still have his job if he expressed equally contrarian views that skewed toward the left?

Post: #2

A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

Post: #3

Does this merit its own thread?

Post: #4

(01-07-2016 01:01 AM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:  Does this merit its own thread?

Yes.

Post: #5

Go ahead and tell me this guy isn't acting. Go ahead.

Post: #6

(01-07-2016 12:41 AM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

Wow.

I can't believe I'm actually reading this.

A tenured professor just lost his job for dissenting against the status quo and you make an appeal to emotions.

The entire point of tenure is to protect professors from this sort of thing.

If you take a look into Sandy Hook, all the facts, not just what the media told us to believe, you come away with more questions than answers.

But lets not think those thoughts.

Bad thoughts, go away bad thoughts! How could the TV lie to me! I must believe the official narrative.

Post: #7

Holy shit. Living abroad I miss out on things like this. I looked at some of the Sandy Hook Hoax articles. Very good reporting. To say Im shocked isn't enough. Im starting to become terrified of the American govt.

Post: #8

(01-07-2016 12:41 AM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

This is a leftist shaming tactic. "Don't question 9/11 because you'll offend the victims." "You can't say anything about the holocaust or you're an anti-semite."

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with alternative theories to these events, but shouldn't people be able to question the official documents, especially if the stories don't add up? Why can't we have an intelligent discussion instead of being shut down through the use of name calling and logical fallacies?

It's illegal to question the holocaust in Germany and Austria. I don't believe the theories of holocaust deniers but the very fact it's illegal makes me think there is more to the story. How long before we are jailed for questioning Sandy Hook, 9/11, or even the Obama administration?

Post: #9

Don't think, don't talk, don't question. Just shut up, and think of the children.

Post: #10

Well we know our government has proposed this type of thing before.
Given the body of research from which the professor makes his case and the questionable nature of the official story, whose to say Operation Northwoods hasn't been revised, re-proposed, and activated? After all, we would never know.

Post: #11

(01-07-2016 10:01 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Don't think, don't talk, don't question. Just shut up, and think of the children.

Just like Obama's acting...uh I mean tears when he took executive action on gun control.

Post: #12

Well, duh. If I worked for NBC and publicly said Trump is the man, I would expect to be fired. If I worked for Fox and said that most Muslims perhaps maybe are decent people, my ass would be on the street before my segment ended. Of course they would fire him, not for saying stupid shit, but for saying shit stupidly on the wrong place.

Post: #13

(01-07-2016 07:35 AM)wi30 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 12:41 AM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

This is a leftist shaming tactic. "Don't question 9/11 because you'll offend the victims."

He called the grieving parents. That crossed a line IMO.

Post: #14

(01-07-2016 07:42 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 07:35 AM)wi30 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 12:41 AM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

This is a leftist shaming tactic. "Don't question 9/11 because you'll offend the victims."

He called the grieving parents. That crossed a line IMO.

edit: delete. I should read the whole article first.

Post: #15

(01-07-2016 07:42 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 07:35 AM)wi30 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 12:41 AM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

This is a leftist shaming tactic. "Don't question 9/11 because you'll offend the victims."

He called the grieving parents. That crossed a line IMO.

From the article:

Quote:Florida Atlantic University, which first reprimanded Mr. Tracy in 2013, dismissed him less than a month after the parents of 6-year-old Noah Pozner, the youngest victim of the shooting at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Conn., publicly accused the professor of harassment in a Sun Sentinel opinion piece. Lenny and Veronique Pozner, angered by Mr. Tracy’s conspiracy theories, had asked Mr. Tracy to remove a photograph of Noah from his blog, Memory Hole. In return, Mr. Tracy sent them a certified letter demanding proof that Noah ever lived and that the Pozners were his parents.

I don't agree with how he went about it, but it doesn't appear that he called the parents out of blue as you insinuated.

Post: #16

I'm not fully informed on all of Tracy's moves with respect to the families prior to his firing (he was probably upsetting certain families by trying to call them out as crisis actors). The NYT piece in my OP states as much, but take it with a grain of salt. I'm sure the reporting is doing everything possible to kick Tracy while he's down.

The angle that interests me is getting around the tenure. In theory, a tenured professorship at an academic institution is supposed to be one of the safest jobs in the world. After a professor proves himself as a valuable scholar during a probationary period, he is then rewarded with a permanent position. While tenure does a poor job of incentivizing future performance, it is justified on grounds that the professor needs the independence (and protection) in order to make unbiased and fruitful contributions to the field in which he belongs.

Firings like these (in the safest profession) worry me. Academia skews toward the PC flavor of the day. If a professor decided to express neomasculine ideas, I'm sure he would be shown the door more often than not, regardless of tenure status.

The most similar occurrence I can remember happening to someone on the left was Ward Churchill. And what he did was more egregious to most. He was the professor who wrote essays that 9/11 was justified because because of American colonialism and imperialism and that the people in the World Trade Center were "little Eichmanns." He was tenured but fired after university officials scrutinized his writings and found research misconduct.

Post: #17

(01-07-2016 07:42 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 07:35 AM)wi30 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 12:41 AM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

This is a leftist shaming tactic. "Don't question 9/11 because you'll offend the victims."

He called the grieving parents. That crossed a line IMO.

If any of the Hoax articles are to be believed, there aren't any dead children. The school was abandoned for 4 years before the "attack". None of the "dead children" had any social security numbers. The pictures of the crime scene are staged. Neighbors next to the school when interviewed were shocked anyone died since the school "has been closed for several years". None of the interviewed "parents" were crying or sad, even though their children had been killed that day. etc

Post: #18

(01-08-2016 08:35 AM)ball dont lie Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 07:42 PM)DarkTriad Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 07:35 AM)wi30 Wrote:  

(01-07-2016 12:41 AM)Mr. Brightside Wrote:  A professional employee of a University not only calls into disrepute his employers but also verbally attacks the families of murdered children and you expect him to keep his job?

This is a leftist shaming tactic. "Don't question 9/11 because you'll offend the victims."

He called the grieving parents. That crossed a line IMO.

If any of the Hoax articles are to be believed, there aren't any dead children. The school was abandoned for 4 years before the "attack". None of the "dead children" had any social security numbers. The pictures of the crime scene are staged. Neighbors next to the school when interviewed were shocked anyone died since the school "has been closed for several years". None of the interviewed "parents" were crying or sad, even though their children had been killed that day. etc

The biggest thing that caught my attention was the lack of any internet presence from that building from 2008 until the actual shooting. What kind of school has zero internet traffic in 2012? Another thing I haven't seen is cell phone records. I'm sure those records are sealed as well, but cell phones track locations of calls and text. No way a single call or text wouldn't come out of a fully functional school in 2012. Does anyone have any data on this?

Post: #19

If he's putting out views from the leftfield to promote discussion and critical thinking, that's what (part of) his job is, isn't it? Universities exist now to close minds, not open them.

Funnily enough, I was thinking about this yesterday. Even across the pond here we hear about your shootings. It seems that the more Obama wants guns banned the frequency of shootings goes up, not that I'm saying OMG IT'S A CONSPIRACY, but would you put it beyond them? Soon enough your citizens will be begging the Government to take away their guns. I predict that before leaving office Obama will start putting together the legislation to ban guns, and Hillary will finish the job.

Post: #20

How humiliating for the university.

The "hoax" drama will blow over but academics will always remember they fired a tenured prof for fabricated reasons.

There really is only one thing bringing smart people to tenured positions.

I guarantee Tracy will not have trouble finding another position.

Post: #21

Not an expert on how tenure works, but common sense would suggest that there was already a recourse to deal with faculty who were embarassing the institution.

Freedom of research is one thing - a professor who begins strutting about the campus nude because of his anthropological studies on the Oogabooga tribe is something else entirely. It is precisely matters such as this, where any reasonable man can agree on a reasonable standard, where tribunals and civil courts should come into play.

Allegedly this professor was harassing the parents of the Sandy Hook victims; in my mind, questioning the event is purely within the realm of reasonable thought, but harassing possible victims is another matter entirely. If he was, in fact, harassing the parents of dead children, then he should have had his tenure revoked for lack of professionalism.

But that's not what happened, is it?

This is nothing but manipulation of the rules to get him dismissed, and it undermines the entire concept of tenure, since every professor has failed to account for some sort of activity at some time. Now perhaps they have a legitimate case about him not filling out the paperwork - but if the real reason for letting him go was the lack of professionalism, they should have based the dismissal on that.

Then again, maybe they had no problem with his extracurricular activities, but were sick of him bucking the paper work system. If so, they need to be clear about that.