Student activists of Skidmore College in New York took to social media to encourage the college to fire an art professor who was seen in Twitter and Facebook posts merely having “observed,” without participating, in a pro-police rally, “Back the Blue.”
David Peterson and his wife, who also happens to be an art professor at the same college, observed the protest on July 30th in Saratoga Springs. When students saw social media posts of them on the sidelines of the protest, they demanded the professor be fired.
The college, however, has announced that it will not cater to the whims of the students and decided to ignore calls for the professor to be dismissed. But the president Marc Conner said that they were going to deal with such issues through “ongoing community dialogue” and that the college is “committed to addressing both the subtle and the overt forms of racism that persist in every part of the American project.”
“The Associate Dean of the Faculty who has overseen the investigation has informed me that the administration will not be recommending any sanctions against me,” said David Peterson, two days before he was given a clean chit by the college.
Peterson, however, said that the college, like many colleges these days, was not completely neutral when it comes to political ideology, CollegeFix reported.
“There is, of course, a very dominant political ideology that overshadows almost every aspect of the college.
“The pressure to conform is considerable, and there is little in the way of grace extended to those who transgress the accepted norms of speech and behavior – which have grown more fraught each semester.”
Moreover, the college newspaper also released an op-ed critical of the art professor.
“David Peterson stated that his intention of being at the Blue Lives protest was to learn from his community, but given the political and racist climate of Saratoga Springs, this intention is questionable,” read an excerpt from the op-ed, which as a whole, seemed to have gotten many facts wrong according to Peterson.
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