“She seems to be a good kid, Sarah. And I don’t know what she really thinks of gun advocacy and political failures that have cost us all these lives and our sense of safety as educators. I don’t know what she does on the weekends. I also don’t know if she understands emotions, or what real rage feels like. It seems to me no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun.” – Myrtle Lynn Payne [not her real name] in Guns, Pancakes, and Ambiguity [via chronicle.com]
More projection from an overly emotional leftist.
^ This!
And yet even the teacher/professor demonstrates an ability to refrain from giving in to their emotions through their preemptive decision to NOT arm themselves.
I find that most interesting. That teacher/professor demonstrates the ability to make one rational and prudent preemptive decision … and yet claims to be unable to make a different rational and prudent preemptive decision (to not proceed to shoot someone purely out of anger).
By the way this sort of thinking totally undermines the gun-grabber position. They openly declare that lots of people are freely walking among us who will get really angry or sad and then lash out against people around them. In other words there are a bunch of emotional ticking time bombs walking around who will go postal at any moment. Thus, I could be facing a crazed person on a rampage (with countless possible improvised weapons available in our everyday environments) at any moment. I cannot think of a better reason to be armed as I go about my business.
We dismiss the power of her motivating principle: that there are crazy and angry people with guns who will go-off without warning or provocation. How many mass murders (the rabid fear of anti-gun supporters) were committed by people who publicly announced beforehand their intention? If we remain contemptuous of emotion as a driving factor, we have no hope of reaching those we think would most benefit. Removing their fear requires acknowledging the emotions exist, and delivering messages that reach people on an emotional level. Emotion is a part of the make-up of us all. Pretending everyone and everything can be reduced to fact and logic is, well, illogical.
2A? Izzat you?
Not 2Asux — Sam is actually making sense here, which our resident troll very rarely does.
Our collective disdain for the role of emotion in decision-making is our biggest weakness.
Emotion plays a powerful part in everything we do. Why do you care about finding the facts and making a sensible decision in the first place? Emotional investment, that’s why. Without it, we’re all just machines awaiting input.
Part 2
Can’t seem to reply to anyone buy myself today.
It seems our current situation we have limited choices in how to deal with those who oppose gun rights:
1. We can tell them, “Go stuff it; I got my rights”. Which should win over enough converts to ensure we have a large and stable voting majority of voters standing with us.
2. We can tell them, “Quit being so emotional. We have facts, logic and law on our side, so stuff it.). Another good way to increase the number of voters who support gun rights.
3. We can find a way that doesn’t completely and grossly alienate non-gun owners from the start.
It is that last one that really requires our understanding of the adversary. Yes, we know they are all about feelings, but do we really understand what we are asking of people already opposed, and those likely to be opposed?
Asking people to come along with your idea is a whole area of study and investigation, which is not for here. However, the part emotion plays in changing one’s position on anything is significant, for several reasons. When you ask an opponent to discard all their emotional investment and become rational, fact-driven people, you are asking them to totally dump their sense of themselves. That means abandoning everything that person thinks about just about everything. Can YOU quickly and easily do that?
Even if you are only asking they abandon emotion about a single decision, you are asking them to enter a world they not only distrust, but have no experience to help them with the process of applying only fact and logic. Could you do that, regarding something with which you have a purely emotional attachment? How easy would that be (don’t just slough that one off)?
Asking a person to be unemotional about one subject or idea is to anticipate that person is capable of agile compartmentalization. That is, asking that person to make the jump for only one thing, without also calling into question everything else they are, about everything else. This is a daunting task, one that most people do not face in their lifetime, one we might all have trouble accomplishing.
So, we can understand and accept the challenge of dealing with the emotional element of people changing their minds (or even making a mid-course correction for those whose mind is not yet fixed), or we can revert to options 1 and 2, and go on our merry way, with no hope to ever really win the battle over gun rights.
Sam I Am,
I like to think that I have a good grasp of how the human mind works … with respect to rational and irrational thinking, as well as logical/factual versus emotional positions. To be totally honest, I don’t see any achievable way, on a large scale, to win over people who oppose firearm ownership on emotional grounds.
Experience clearly shows that a big emotional event must happen to a person before they change their emotional position. We refer to this in every day parlance as “hitting rock bottom”. For example a person who has made the emotional decision to drink alcohol excessively will not typically stop until they are facing loss of job, family, driving license, savings, health, freedom, and often even their lives. Even then many will continue to drink excessively to their death. And how about thrill seekers? They usually don’t stop until they have a severe injury or near death experience.
Perhaps you have heard the saying something to the effect, “A future gun rights supporter is a gun control advocate who has not been robbed/raped/assaulted yet.” There is a MOUNTAIN of truth in that statement. Unfortunately, the implication of that statement means we may not have any way (at least a legal way) to win-over gun-grabbers.
“Not 2Asux — Sam is actually making sense here, which our resident troll very rarely does.”
2asux and Sam I Am are the same poster, I have had them respond to me and get their usernames confused, e.g., SIA responded to me but thought he was posting as 2asux, made it clear they were the same. Perhaps they are two people posting together on the same computer, like maybe a couple or something like that. Or it’s just one troll trying to obfuscate his real intentions and mislead us.
That said I stopped responding to this guy completely (only doing so here because I can’t respond to you Ing). This guy is not interested in honest discussion at all, he is only trying to stir shit up and pollute the boards.
Anyway, my opinion, same guy.
I’ve actually read ALL of 2Asux’s comments. The post from Sam I Am is identical to the arguments he makes, only approached from the opposite side.
@karlbpierson So there’s the troll account and there’s the reasonable-person account? I question the sanity of anyone who would invest so much time into pretending to be two such different people — but then trolls are twisted by definition. Regardless, this particular comment made a really good point.
Any supposed “teacher” who cannot be trusted with a firearm, even if only by him/herself, should *never* be allowed into a room with unarmed students.
Yup. The “I can’t possibly be trusted with a gun, so how can anyone else” argument. I wish these emotional people would take an hour and study the Myers-Briggs personality types. They might realize that not everyone acts or makes decisions based on emotion.
I do hope that was snark, Meyers-Briggs is beyond a joke. It’s as useful as your astrological sign, and just as accurate at predicting behavior.. Difference being, your sign doesn’t change every time you take a test.
Nobody with a brain took M-B results as significant 20 years ago. I think that wisdom has finally reached the business community.
http://fortune.com/2013/05/15/have-we-all-been-duped-by-the-myers-briggs-test/
http://www.businessinsider.com/myers-briggs-personality-test-is-misleading-2014-6
Oooo, those pointy-headed lefty professors, always persecutin’ us gun huggers.
Seriously, none of you ever had a prof who disagreed with your views or didn’t like you for some such reason, and refused to be a reference for you? At least she’s not going out of her way to sandbag this student. You run into at least one of those, too, if you pursue an advanced degree.
Every undergraduate will eventually have a prof who for whatever reason doesn’t like what they write, believe, whatever, and will not support them if they are clueless enough to ask for a recommendation.
Big deal. She’s got her opinion and I got mine. One also learns in college professors, being human, can be wrong.
Oh, and stop whining about “freedom of speech” because you can’t comment anymore on that site. You’re a moron if you think that is what the first amendment freedom covers.
Of course everyone has some professors that don’t want to write them a recommendation whatever the reason. However, this professor already told the student she would write the recommendation – she is now obligated to do so. It doesn’t have to be a glowing shower of praise and the student doesn’t have to use it, but it does need to be written.
I suspect that (CHL not being any portion of the teacher’s responsibility) refusal, especially if the student discovers just why (now announced to the whole world), the teacher will find herself the subject of a lawsuit which will not be defended by her employer, any judgement will come out of her pocket. One would think the employer would sanction her as well.
Textbook case of projection, but what really gets me is the toxic blend of projection, judgement, and the presumptive superior knowledge of OTHER peoples emotional states and experiences.
Bingo. Professor needs to realize that just because she has poor discipline and self control when emotional that not all of us do.
I spent 7 years in higher education – I have never encountered so many educated idiots.
So it goes in our nation’s institutes of higher indoctrination. Independence of thought is high treason and won’t be tolerated. Don’t dare let it slip that you own guns, vote Republican, are a Christian, have doubts about the impact of anthropogenic global warming, or that men should use the men’s restroom and women should use the women’s. Keep your seditious thoughts to yourself or suffer the consequences.
Spot on.
We excused our son Tristin from performing in a play to go deer hunting. In so doing, we got the full dramatic effect from our drama teacher.
You can’t eat Shakespeare.
Recalling my own experiences slogging through higher education and reading anecdotes such as this I often wonder how many life courses are irreparably altered by jack-offs in power positions who either maliciously (they dislikes you) or altruistically (they knew better) mucked with strings behind the scenes.
This is that sort of Alinsky/Newman garbage so many deny exists or write off as fantastical conspiracy hocuspocus.
Well, here it is. Again.
This action should be treated no differently than when a person of authority uses that station to take advantage of an another. It’s a sociological raping.
I remember when I was still a young-un in JC and took my first poli sci class maybe back in 97 or so. I actually enjoyed the class and had a great interest in reading the various topics and class discussions and such – of course I had my own level of naivete but that is to be expected for someone of that age.
I actually had so much fun I went to the instructor after last class of the semester and told her exactly that – that I had fun and got sufficiently learned from her and thought she ran an interesting class and I was being honest and I remember to this day that she seemed glad to have some positive reinforcement, yadda yadda yadda, you get the idea.
Then I mentioned I listened to Rush Limbaugh and to this day I remember how her face and demeanor changed from happy and pleasant to just horrified disappointment. Hah hah, at the time I didn’t really even understand these things, I was truly interested in learning and open discussion and the whole lot.
It’s amazing how much there is nothing new under the sun. These apparatchiks, these good party members are a curse to our society. They are not teachers, they are indoctrinators and state agents, nothing less. Lickspittle.
I am the only free man on this train!
$100,000 in student debt to be taught be quacks like this. Why again does everybody need to go to college?
But notice what matters solely to this indocrinator, feelings. It was all about feelings, not logic, not rational thinking, no controlling and managing your emotions, just feelings.
Cavemen made decisions on feeling. Me hungry, you have food. Me club you, me take food. Me feel happy.
Exhibit A in the de-evolving of most the human race.
This is unethical, and amounts to academic “freedom,” as long as you agree with me. Her beliefs have nothing to do with her academic performance, which is the purpose of the recommendation. And this professor is closing a door for her by refusing to write a recommendation on that invalid basis.
Fortunately, in the comments section, it seems a lot of her colleagues are telling her to do the right thing.
Yet it’s ok for this alleged instructor to have fantasies about sex with a student who wants a grade change…
Also noted is that comments got disabled on the article after too many facts got in the way of emotions.
Freedom of speech and all that.
Oh yea, and it’s not her real name either.
“Myrtle Lynn Payne is the pseudonym of an instructor in the sciences at a college in the western United States.”
Lickspittle.
“It seems to me no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun.”
This is the keystone for anti’s gun observer and the foundation for a pro gun participant. An anti cannot bear reality while a pro accepts life for what it is. Gun ownership is no more than possessing property. Using a gun lawfully, whether on the range or defense, requires mastery of emotions and afterwards judgement. Drill deep enough you may find while anti’s can talk about the relationship between people and arms, they cannot stand to be judged and perhaps the reason why they impose their values.
Also, a concept that is easily refuted. So Professor, no person who has experienced the full range of human emotions should
-operate a car
-practice medicine
-or eat a cheeseburger?
I’m only asking, Mr. Professor, since car crashes, medical errors and obesity have killed a lot more people in the US than gun violence.
Oh, does it seem that way to you? Tell me just how you, yourself, have experienced something approaching the full range of your emotions! And then we can discuss why the hell I should care how that “seems” to you.
I turn 70 this year, and celebrate 50 years of marriage next year. I lost a brother in Vietnam, and killed a bunch of people there a year later. I lost my mother few years back. I have celebrated graduation from high school, college, and USAF pilot training. My sons are 41 and 36. And that is just the beginning of my experiencing the “full range of my emotions”, and I’ll bet you have NOTHING to even compare, yet I have no problem owning so many guns I can’t count them all, and it seems to me that anyone with your irrational attitude should not be permitted to teach, or even express your opinion (since you don’t respect my rights, why should I respect yours?). The person in this article is a pure loser.
yep, because you can’t handle your emotions must mean NO ONE can. what an epic logic fail.
No 20 year old kid knows better than her.
If she can’t control her own homicidal urges, then clearly no 20 year old could, or else that 20 year old would be more mature than the ‘professor’.
And the possibility that a mere student is a more rational actor than the teacher is just not thinkable.
So, she’s aware of her own crazy, but doesn’t have enough awareness to understand why we think her personally held viewpoints are crazy? M’kay…
“It seems to me no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun.”
And it seems to me:
1. We are responsible for controlling our emotions, certainly, to a large degree.
2. Anyone who has experienced the full impact of other people’s unbridled emotions would never be without a gun. And you don’t even need to have PERSONALLY experienced it. I’ve watched ISIS vids. I’ve seen domestic violence. I’ve watched crime vids. I’ve even read BOOKS about wars and stuff.
Man, at his sinful worst, can be even worse than an animal. Be prepared.
Indeed. Part of the reason I carry is for people who’ve experienced the full range of emotion from recreational drugs or street gang initiation.
you can’t do this because I”m afraid of my own self doing this?? what a stupid asinine thing to say and do, pretty sure this professor should be background checked for Psychotic tendencies and then be barred from educational facilities because he has rage Fantasies all the time, his life should be totally collapsed because he is a danger to himself and others! he does not have the Authority to say how others should live and it pisses him off so he’ll show the world what an asshole he is
The professor is one of the “reasonable persons” who will be on your jury. Take a good look at your legal strategy for winning a case of self-defense shooting. This is just the sort of person to refuse to acquit, resulting in a hung-jury (which is not an acquittal; prosecutors will try again).
Do juries acquit in cases of good shootings? No question. However, it would be the most irresponsible folly to presume from the beginning every juror understands facts and logic, and is able to put aside emotions to reach a completely objective conclusion. A trial strategy based on the presumption that your “peers” on the jury are gun owners could prove quite unwise. Believing you can never go to trial in a good shoot situation is likewise unwise.
Don’t get me wrong, wouldn’t put this past a Prof at all. One learns to keep it subtle as anything short of a 100% neo-lib college student. But the way it’s written up, the author’s slobbering veneration of her own feels, rather than basic easy-to-follow ethics… could it be a troll? It’s almost too perfect.
Oh yea, and here’s the same attitude coming from a different profession and a different direction;
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/04/park-ranger-mocks-constitution-while-leading-tour-of-independence-hall.php
“Park Ranger mocks Constitution while leading tour of Independence Hall
Mary “Missy” Hogan, a National Park Service employee who gives guided tours of Independence Hall in Philadelphia, stunned a group of tourists this week by telling them that the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were the product of “class elites who were just out to protect their privileged status.”
Note the common thread here… public sector…
What’s funny is that was the view a lot of US historians held for a long time until Forrest McDonald? put out a book specifically showing the various conflicting business/ideological interests of the Founders. A bit of historiography to brighten your day.
Historians? You mean pointy headed academics like Myrtle Lynn Payne?
Sure, the constitution isn’t perfect, we can do better.
How about we start working within the confines of the damned thing *first*, then we can discuss how horrible it is and look for ways to improve upon it.
Until then when I see agents of the state talking shit about our founding document, on our dime no less, and directly to the public it’s gonna get my back hairs up.
It’s just what I do. A bit of snark to brighten your day.
Yet another sheltered lib with her head in the sand. Typical, never had any sort of physical danger that required her to defend herself because of the umbrella of protection provided by military, police, and armed citizens. You know, people with guns who stand ready to do violence on behalf of those who cannot or will not help themselves.
Sometimes I click through the comments on the Gun Violence Coalition page and look at the people commenting. All old white people that you can tell are soft and have been sheltered their whole lives. I’m getting sick of it and them, and drivel like this lady wrote.
Has anyone touched on the real issue — that this professor is supposed to be recommending a student (or not) for her academic competence, not for her political views or hobbies? She doesn’t even make the argument that “Sarah’s” gun nuttery speaks to a dissolute character, which the prof could cite if “Sarah” had an illegal hobby like prostitution or drug dealing, either of which your lockstep progressive would smile upon.
Seriously, this is just as wrong as if a professor rejects a student for being a Communist or college Republican.
So she discriminates against people whose beliefs on guns differ from hers. But I’m sure she’s at the front of the line to scream “racist / bigot / discrimination!” if somebody dislikes a different religion, alternative lifestyle, transgender people, etc.
It’s hard to say much that y’all haven’t already hit on, but the logic and attitude of this professor demand some sort of comment. All I can really think of, is who the hell does this woman think she is? What gives her the right? If “Sarah” is a good student, and this professor doesn’t write the recommendation based on “Sarah’s” hobby, then this professor loses her credibility. What’s more this lady seems to understand that, yet still is considering denying the recommendation. Pitiful.
“What gives her the right?”
Even that question turns out to be silly. She not only has the right, but you and I are freaking *PAYING* her to do it! Shouldn’t the news include the fact that she was fired?
The irony is strong here.
A person who is in a profession with tenure (guaranteed permanent employment regardless of personal beliefs, opinions, or circumstances) is not sure if they want to refer a student based on their belief, opinion, and circumstance.
I bet money she advocates for more social programs and “free” college, but at the same time doesn’t want her taxes raised.
“permanent employment regardless of personal beliefs, opinions, or circumstances”
Heh, you forgot to mention work performance there, the real biggie.
Good call.
Projecting like mad.
“I regularly fly into homicidal rages, so everyone else must be the same because I have convinced myself I am not a dangerous deviant.”
Cough Cough. Projection.
But again, they can go near knives, fertilizer plants, slingshots and marbles, gas cans, and autozone sulfuric acid containers right? All the better, less messy means of homicide, those are acceptable as well.
This is nothing more than media induced gun hysteria projected from this individual.
“No one who has experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun.”
That friends, is the issue isn’t it? You, are afraid of how you react if you aren’t suppressing your emotions. Feel your emotions? Feel your emotions and they aren’t harmful at all. Stuff them and they come out like a freight train.
The modern description of depression is you don’t want to feel your emotions.
“Oh he just snapped” they say. “Don’t be sad, cheer up.” All things we teach our kids. Why not be sad? Or happy? Or scared? Or Angry? They are emotions. They aren’t bad or good they just are.
Using emotion as an excuse for why I hurt you is just that, an excuse.
So this is another reason people are afraid of guns. They are afraid of what they would do if they let go. They think you also are suppressing your emotions and will “snap” at any moment.
My first words after reading the “professors” statement was what a loon. Geez, I thought these people were supposed to be critical thinkers. Now I get why college degrees are no longer an indicator if someone can do a job.
” no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions ”
This part is correct. I’ve studied terminal ballistics a bit. The muzzle velocity of an emotion is 0. The mass is 0. So as long as E = (M x V²) ÷ K, then yes, no one can possibly experience any impact at all from their emotions.
The better question is, why didn’t pwrserge come up with that comment?
Guys…lets not deny the truth…there is truly emotional impact associated with guns….I have seen it first hand!
just last weekend the kids were ringing steel with the 22 on a 50, 100, and 200 yard course of fire, an informal contest….the smiles and good nature ribbing was extremely unsettling.
Kinda spooky that a “recommendation” from such an obviously rationality-deprived person could actually have a significant impact on someone else’s career path. Unless Bob315 is correct and employers are catching on that “recommendations” from a college professor could as likely as not be coming from a complete airhead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_projection
I’ll just leave this here.
It appears that not all of the special snowflakes are students.
I have truly felt the full impact of my emotions… the rage. The sorrow. The anger.
Then I finished puberty and learned to control my emotions. Like an adult.
If you feel your emotions are so strong that you can’t trust yourself to be near a firearm, you need counseling and a mentor. And if that concept is completely foreign to you, you haven’t grown up enough to be a college professor.
I had a Political Science Professor who was if not a socialist, at least very far to the left.
He wanted us to use things like “The Guardian” as sources. For one paper I cited “Soldier of Fortune” because that was the ONLY source available to me for the information at the time (something about the AK-74, I vaguely recall).
When I explained what I was citing and the reason why, he accepted that as reasonable and allowed me to use the citation.
With regard to the person in the article, I can only quote Brian Griffin from “Family Guy”: “She’s a whiny self-center runt. What, I said RUNT.”
Imagine the story if this were a teacher having 2nd thoughts after hearing Sarah tell a friend she was gay.
Or… If she was having second thoughts about giving a recommendation to a student who confided in her that she was uncomfortable going into a bathroom with a transgender…
“It seems to me no person who has truly experienced the full impact of their own emotions would ever go near a gun.”
So, by her rationale, she should be OK with psychopaths having guns. After all, among other traits, psychopaths reportedly have very narrow and shallow reservoirs of emotions to contend with.
May the author of the original article be on the receiving end of this type indecision over the exercise of any of her rights.
The simplest answer here is to get a degree in something real like science or engineering, since most teaching in those fields are not as mentally ill as your professors in say the women’s study department. Then if you feel you must have a professor’s recommendation for whatever reason, pick one of your professors who isn’t a dumbass to write it. ?
This is supposedly a professor –oops, excuse me, an instructor–“in the sciences”–altho, granted, it could possibly be “social sciences” which aren’t very scientific at all, best I can tell…
“something real like science or engineering, since most teaching in those fields are not as mentally ill as your professors in say the women’s study department. “
Maybe that used to be true, but less so nowadays.
I have worked in several Chemistry departments. The “nut” is strong with them. There’s a reason I don’t work with those people anymore (and yes, it was MY choice): I didn’t want the Progressive horse manure of their thinking to rub off on me.
The “sciences” have been just as diluted as every other field. Higher educated has been infiltrated, and no department was left untouched. We have science departments staffed now by people that have never had a “real job” but rather have spent their entire “career” in academia. That’s not a winning pattern.
When I saw the reference that this nonsensical tripe came from someone “in the sciences,” several individuals I knew personally came to mind as possible sources for the quote.
Translation:
Hey everybody. I’m in a position where I’m basically God and I really want to smite this person because I don’t like something they like. Is that cool or no?
What an idiot, someone else who thinks they ‘know’ what’s good for us because they have an education. Sounds like some of the profs I’ve had. Deny me a recommendation, though, and I’ll make sure you get fired, just like I did with my marketing prof. Don’t ruin my life, I know how to destroy a career.
Get her real name and ruin her life(not sarc- lol)…on a lighter side we’re now officially UN climate savers. No more fossil fuel, hydrocarbons and LEAD guys.
Another snowflake needs a safe space from micro-aggression.
We are not all the same, Professor. Maybe you should acknowledge that instead of condemning someone else for your own failures.
“..Later, when Sarah was a student in another one of my courses, I overheard her confiding that she was looking forward to getting her concealed-carry permit…”
Maybe Sarah was recently a victim of forced rape on campus? Perhaps it happened to a friend or roommate of hers? We hear that’s rampant on college campuses lately. Wonder how the professor would proceed if that were the case?
Fact is it’s none of the professor’s business what she legally does /doesn’t do if it doesn’t pertain to the merits of her recommendation.
I have to say that the article about the college prof withholding a letter of recommendation has me a little worried. As a student, letters of recommendation from your profs are worth their weight in gold. If a prof withholds one, it could seriously hamper a recent grad’s chances of finding a job. I’m starting a 4 year nursing degree program at ryerson university in Toronto (I’m not kidding when I say this city is more liberal than California) in September, and I also have a strong interest in firearms. The prospect of being blacklisted within my chosen career community for something totally unrelated to my academic or practical performance is deeply unsettling, especially if the professor isn’t even going to tell me why they’re withholding the letter of recommendation.
There’s another thing that bothers me; this professor sharing her thoughts and reasoning with the internet and not the student who this will ultimately affect. That’s ridiculous, and I believe it’s because, deep down, she knows that her reasons for withholding a letter or recommendation are invalid so she’s hoping the internet can justify them for her. If she really thinks she has good reasons for potentially kneecapping this girl’s teaching career, she owes it to that girl to tell them to her face (especially after saying she would write the letter in the first place). On that note, I’m glad to see that the good people of the internet (many probably coming from this blog) are calling her out for this. We may have saved someone’s job prospects.
So, this “education” and “recommendation” machine of which you are a part is about vetting & certifying people’s alignment with RightThink.
So, who appointed you to at your discretion define RightThink, evaluate students on their ThoughtCrimes outside the topic of your course or substantive conversation, and withhold support for career advancement & personal development from students who have paid you for these things?
Really, one might comment and withhold a recommendation or not based on whether the student was diligent or not, informed or not, creative or not, rational or not, engaged or not, congenial or not, organized or not, or any number of other, similar things. One might comment or withhold a recommendation based on the student’s absolute achievement & mastery of the material, relative achievement and mastery of the material, demonstration of qualities and capabilities observed in addressing the materials, or other, similar things.
So, in the brutally competitive, “everyone gets an A, and a recommendation from everybody” single-elimination tournament that higher ed has become, you’re gonna withhold a recommendation, knocking this student onto a completely different trajectory, because of her maybe, possibly, perhaps, wrongthink about guns.
I do wonder if the author of the piece would us with their real name, program and institution, so we know what credentials from there are worth.
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