When I was reading the section on removing a student from your class it reminded me of the following incident;
On December 1, 2005 at approximately 11:55 AM I was about to start my ARB121 Radio Broadcast Advertising Sales class when student X walked in wearing a t-shirt that depicted a smile face with a cat’s tail hanging from the mouth the caption under the cartoon read “I eat pussyâ€. I quietly asked Mr. X to either turn his shirt inside-out , wear his jacket to cover the shirt or leave. He respectfully replied that he was not going to do any of those things and that he was exercising his First Amendment rights.
I explained that if this was the University of Minnesota or a public school he would have a stronger argument but, that he was on private property and would have to follow one of my requests. He refused.
Instructor Y is cross-training in my class. I quietly explained to him that a student was being insubordinate would he please go get security. Mr. Y got security and the guard asked Mr. X to leave. Again, Mr. X refused; the guard explained that the police would be called. Mr. X acknowledged this outcome.
At approximately 12:30 the police arrived and escorted Mr. X from the classroom.
All parties involved remained calm throughout the incident.
Before class was dismissed I explained that everyone in the room, including Mr. Y and me, had signed the policy recognizing that our schooo has zero tolerance for harassment. I went on to tell them as their instructor it is my responsibility to enforce that policy.
Fortunately that was the first and last time that I had to do that
