The professor in question is a repeat offender.

Colleen Flaherty reports at Inside Higher Ed.

Extracurricular Criminal

A professor finds himself in trouble with the law several times within the span of a few years. But none of those crimes and alleged crimes relate directly to his teaching or publications, and he’s apparently a good professor — at least good enough to have been promoted to full professor last year while he was serving a jail sentence. But some — included one lawmaker — want him fired. So what’s a college or university to do? When do personal transgressions become professional ones?

Central Connecticut State University is facing those questions and others regarding Ravi Shankar, a tenured professor of poetry who’s been arrested on various charges since 2011. Those include credit card fraud, driving under the influence, and in a separate incident, driving with a suspended license and evading responsibility. (The first two cases resulted in convictions; the latter two cases are pending.)

Most recently, late last month, Shankar was arrested for shoplifting at a local Home Depot. Police reports say he tried to return some $1,300 worth of merchandise he hadn’t purchased for store credit. He was charged with third-degree larceny and released on bond. He’s due in court Wednesday.

In a recent editorial, the Hartford Courant argued that Shankar should be terminated if he’s convicted on the newest set of charges.

“Tenure gives a professor the right not to be fired without just cause,” reads the editorial. “That’s fine, but if Mr. Shankar’s string of run-ins with the law do not constitute just cause, what does? Teachers are role models for young people — and his behavior has shown him to be an extremely poor model.”

A local lawmaker, State Senator Kevin Witkos, a Republican from Canton, went further in a letter to Jack Miller, Central Connecticut State’s president. Witkos wants Shankar terminated immediately, according to the Courant.

“By his continuous disregard for the law, Mr. Shankar has repeatedly demonstrated that he is unfit to discharge his professional responsibilities,” wrote Witkos, who authored an unsuccessful bill earlier this year that would have allowed states colleges and universities to do background checks on faculty members prior to promotion.