The Chronicle tells us that A Professor Is in the Hot Seat After Mooning Debate Judges:
A debate coach for Fort Hays State University, in Kansas, is under review by the institution after he swore at officials and mooned judges at a tournament earlier this year, in an incident that was recorded and uploaded to YouTube.
The coach, William Shanahan III, a professor of communication, got into a shouting match with a judge—and at one point briefly dropped his pants—during the national tournament of the Cross Examination Debate Association, which was held in Kansas this spring. A video recording of the incident was posted to YouTube last week, drawing thousands of views, attention from the national news media, and calls to the university from alumni and others demanding that it fire the professor for his behavior.
WARNING: the video is so full of profanity I would not dare post it here!!! I work in academia and love the academy. Usually.
“Fort Hays State University does not condone such behavior or the language Bill uses in that video,” said Larry Gould, the university’s provost, in an interview on Wednesday. “His appointment is under consideration here. We’re investigating at this point, and we want to make sure everybody’s rights are protected.”
This guy is the debate coach!!! The least they can do is prima facia suspend him from that position until the matter is resolved! Without the video, what would the consequences be?
Mr. Shanahan may not have faced an investigation at the university had the video not become public. No one complained to officials there until after the video hit YouTube. “You wouldn’t have seen this five or six years ago,” Mr. Gould said.
But officials for the debate association said they began an investigation before the video went public because someone filed a complaint against Mr. Shanahan’s behavior soon after the tournament.