EBD Blog

A New York (US) court has ordered a education program to reinstate a teacher education student whom it had expelled ostensibly because he advocated use of corporal punishement, according the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Jennifer Jacobson

A New York appeals court has ordered Le Moyne College to reinstate Scott W. McConnell as a student in its education program, a year after the Syracuse institution expelled him for advocating the use of corporal punishment in the classroom.

The court, which issued its ruling on Wednesday, found that the college had violated Mr. McConnell’s due-process rights and its own regulations when it dismissed him from the master’s-level program. The three-page decision, which overturned a lower-court ruling, was unanimous.

In a written statement released on Thursday, Le Moyne officials said that they would abide by the ruling and that they had begun the process of appealing the decision to the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court.

Lawyers for Mr. McConnell hailed the ruling. “There is an attempt in teaching programs nationwide not only to indoctrinate the students but also to make sure only people with particular political views can graduate,” said Christopher J. Hajec, a lawyer with the Center for Individual Rights, a Washington-based advocacy group, which represented Mr. McConnell. “Whether you agree with him or not, he definitely has the right to get his degree.”

The case is one among several in which students — backed by national conservative organizations — have complained in the last year about education professors who are more interested in students’ political views than in their classroom performance (The Chronicle, December 16).

I have several wonders about this:

1. Why couldn’t someone at Le Moyne explain to Mr. McConnell that there are more appropriate means for teaching students?
2. Was the manner in which Mr. McConnell expressed his views inappropriate?
3. Do conservatives as a group advocate corporal punishment?

The Chronicle requires subscriptions, but here’s the link anyway.