No blog is worth losing your job over:
DALLAS - For most of the past two semesters, nobody knew the identity of "The Phantom Professor."The educator's anonymous Web log, set at an unnamed university "in the South," spun tales of spoiled-rich "Ashleys" with their $500 sandals and $1,500 handbags, eating disorders, plagiarism and drug use, legal and illegal.
"At this school it seems like every kid is on multiple medications," the professor wrote, describing her charges as "barely literate," prone to emotional problems and "terrified of displeasing Mommy and Daddy."
Surrounded by students sporting French manicures and plans for spring break in Cabo, the blog's author told stories like the one about "a certain member of a Middle Eastern royal family who got a new Mercedes by convincing a frat buddy to crash his one-year-old model into a wall" or how one stall in a certain ladies room was known as "the purge-atory."
No names were used, but this spring at Southern Methodist University, students and faculty began recognizing themselves in the phantom's prose. A student in SMU's corporate communications and public affairs department discovered the blog had quoted the content of e-mail she had sent to one of her teachers. It called her "clueless."
An assistant professor had no trouble identifying herself in another short posting about a faculty member who was "fresh from a mediocre Midwestern University with a Ph.D. in something no one cares about."
Earlier this month, Elaine Liner, an adjunct professor who taught writing and ethics classes in SMU's public relations department since 2001, revealed in an online publication that the blog was hers. Liner, who writes freelance theater reviews for a Dallas weekly, also let it be known that in late March she was told her contract to teach at the school would not be renewed.
"One of the ironies of this is that I worked in a building that had the First Amendment carved in stone across its front," Liner said in an interview last week. She said she is certain she was let go because of her blog.
"I can't arrive at any other conclusion," said Liner, who was paid $18,000 a year, no benefits, to teach two classes for three semesters.
To paraphrase "Bull Durham": She's got a million-dollar education and a five-cent head.
Yeah, kind of crazy she would think that the First Amendment applies to all, especially those living in Texas. But, no need to fear. If she needs to replace that $18,000 a year salary, I hear Wal-Mart is hiring.
Posted by: Ken Sain at May 31, 2005 11:30 AMJesus, lighten up, Kenny.
At $18,000 a year and no benefits, she wasn't exactly being treated like a queen by academia either.
Posted by: Jeff at May 31, 2005 09:34 PM