Hey, at least he didn’t ask students to stomp on Jesus.

Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed has the story.

Reprimand for a Blog

In January, Florida journalists noticed that a professor at Florida Atlantic University had been blogging about his doubts that a massacre really took place at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in December.  The professor, James Tracy, teaches communication and writes, among other things, about his view that mainstream media is inaccurate or deceptive in many ways. He has taught about conspiracies.

Of Newtown, he wrote on his blog: “While it sounds like an outrageous claim, one is left to inquire whether the Sandy Hook shooting ever took place — at least in the way law enforcement authorities and the nation’s news media have described.” Tracy speculated that the Obama administration was using Sandy Hook to advance a gun-control agenda.

The university responded at the time (in public at least) the way many institutions do when their faculty members say things that are controversial. A spokeswoman told local reporters that “James Tracy does not speak for the university. The website on which his post appeared is not affiliated with FAU in any way.”

What wasn’t clear at the time is that the university was meeting with Tracy, complaining that he had not done enough — in the opinion of FAU officials — to distance his views from the institution that employs him.

Florida Atlantic is already facing criticism from many professors who say that the university failed to defend a faculty member who was attacked by politicians and others for a  classroom exercise in which he asked students to write the name “Jesus” on a piece of paper and to step on it. The idea behind the exercise is that students will hesitate, leading to a discussion of the power of symbols.