Dive Summary:
- Detroit-area Oakland University is defending its suspension of 57-year-old student Joseph Corlett, saying his lustful essay about a teacher violated the school's sexual harassment policy and isn't deserving of First Amendment protection.
- Corlett filed a lawsuit against the university in March seeking over $2 million for mental anguish and the embarrassment of being suspended, and his attorney has until Friday to file a response to the university's request that U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan dismiss the case.
- His essay, titled "Hot for Teacher" after a Van Halen song with the same name, depicts writing instructor Pamela Mitzelfeld as an object of his sexual urges, comparing her to Ginger from "Gilligan's Island," and also describes another pregnant instructor as being "hot, and not just from baking the bun in her oven."
From the article:
... "Corlett's case is not even a close one," the university said in a recent court filing, its first formal response since the lawsuit was filed in March.
"Serious educational concerns are clearly triggered when a student fails to recognize the monumental inappropriateness of directing a missive toward his instructor that describes her as 'stacked,' depicts her as the object of his sexual urges, compares her with an oversexed caricature from a television sitcom, and casts to the wind his worries over his wife's reaction to all of this," attorney Leonard Niehoff wrote. ...