Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Mrs. Cantor Comes Clean

I told you last week how Security Chief Martin Grainger testified at my criminal trial last fall how I was banned from the property as the result of an incident in class where I was virtually screaming in the face of an American Sign Language (ASL) translator who had been invited to the class as a guest.

Surely Mr. Grainger knew this was not the reason. The Trespassing Order was issued hours after the "death threat" Don Metz would later testify about. Locks were changed on his classroom doors, and security guards assigned to his class. Why would Grainger claim I the trespassing order was on account of an in-class incident that had taken place two months before?

My theory is that the University knew the "death threat" was a cock-and-bull story, they were trying to avoid relying on it in court. That's why Don Metz admitted to it only after being grilled for about twenty minutes...and why Neil Besner claimed to have never even heard of it! So instead they were claiming I was kicked out on account of a "verbal assault", as Grainger called it.

This peculiar strategy was about to backfire on them, because by introducing it as evidence, they had just given me the opportunity to cross-examine on it. And I took advantage of that opportunity by subpoenaing Lauralyn Cantor, the professor whose reporting of this incident played a huge role in my getting expelled from the Education program.

I already showed you the letter Mrs. Cantor sent the Dean. She actually spent most of it complaining about an assignment I wrote, but then finished off with the following:

"At the conclusion of one of the final presentations, Marty made an inappropriate request of an ASL interpreter. The student who had invited the interpreter was embarrassed and offended, and wrote an email, which I have enclosed, with redaction. 

"As indicated, I feel that Marty Green's behavior in class has had a detrimental effect on his fellow classmates.

That's a little vague, but there was nothing vague about email which she attached. Here it is:

"Hi Dr. Cantor,
"I just wanted to send you an email regarding our presentation today. I am really upset about how the presentation ended. I was extremely offended when Mary asked Christie to repeat certain words in sign language so that he could essentially make fun of her. She was super embarrassed and offended when he told her to make the facial expressions that go along with the signs. I am pretty sure that she is never going to do anything like this again, nor will I ask someone to do that again. Facial expressions are part of sign language (as I'm sure you know) and she was very offended that he found it entertaining to watch her make certain facial expressions. I think it was super disrespectful and if I wasn't afraid of Marty making a personal attack on myself, I would have said something to him.
"Several other students in class approached me after the presentation to say how embarrassed they were to even see that happen at a University setting.
"I apologize for my rather hasty email, but I have been upset about this for several hours now and can't seem to calm down. "

That's a pretty harsh letter. So I asked Mrs Cantor on the witness stand: just what was it I did that was so offensive and disrespectful?

Well, she said she could see the student getting very uncomfortable...

But what about you? Did you see anything mean-spirited in my question? Did you think I was making fun of that student?

She did not! Personally, she testified, she had found nothing improper or mean-spirited in my attitutde towards the ASL translator; quite the contrary. I had been respectful and complimentary...."effusive" in my praise of the job she had done translating the student presentaion, I think was the word used.

So why did you send that letter?

Because she was asked to write the letter by John Anchan, the associate dean.

And you attached the student's email, knowing how horrible it made me look. Did you share her perceptions?

"No."

Yet in your email, you mentioned my "inappropriate request" to the ASL interpreter and attached the horrifying email. "Can you see how someone reading the letter...the dean, or the registrar or the people who kicked me out of school...would read this letter and think you shared these perceptions?"

Mrs. Cantor was silent. 

24 comments:

  1. Did the signer find your behavior offensive?

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    1. If I'm understanding you correctly, I think you're saying you find nothing wrong or unethical about what Mrs. Cantor did.

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    2. You see nothing wrong with going to someones house when they requested you contact them via other means? Get off your high horse.

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    3. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're saying there was nothing wrong with Professor Bush telling the police I tried to force my way into his house when all I really did was knock on his door after he slammed the phone down on me.

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    4. You did, his wife went to close the door to their home and you wouldn't allow her

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    5. Your own words betray you. If you believed for one minute the "home invasion" story, you wouldn't have started off by accusing me of nothing more than "going to someone's house when they requested you to contact them by other means."

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  2. Seems like you really pick and choose when you decide to listen to your professors. She may not have been offended but it seems other involved were.

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  3. Yes. Very offended.

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    1. But Mrs. Cantor wasn't. So she shouldn't have written a letter telling the Dean she was.

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    2. I re-read it, she never says she felt it was inappropriate. She said your behviour is detrimental to other students. She stated it was an inappropriate request as there were complaints from those involved. Shes speaking on behalf of the students. She never said "I" feel it was inappropriate. People in the class felt your behaviour was hindering their learning or making them uncomfortable and went to the prof.

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    3. Yes, you're quite right. This is how "honest" people tell lies: they word it very carefully so they can go back later and say, "you see, I never meant it that way." But she knew the Dean wanted a hatchet job on me, and that's what she gave him.

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    4. First you said she wrote a letter saying she was offended then I said she did not and you said you agreed with me. You then proceeded to call her a liar. You want to play with wording which you plan on basing this case well I just caught you in a lie.

      If I was a student of yours, and we had a checkered past, and called your house to warn you I was coming in which you said do not and gave me a different avenue to contact you but still showed up, you would see nothing wrong with that?

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    5. Since you were in class with me when I got kicked out of school, why don't you tell us about some horrible stuff you actually saw me doing instead of things you only read about on my blog?

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    6. No thanks, you just want to twist my words and play them against other variations of events that happened 3 years ago. I'll sit and keep catching you mis-speak. Surprised you didnt delete my comments this time like you did about a month ago when you got caught changing your story around.

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  4. All these people like the Bushes and Cantor are like dominoes ... they are upright until something bumps them and down they go.

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  5. The people who have influenced me most in my life are the ones that were strong enough to stand up and say exactly what they were thinking and not worry about who may or may not agree with them. They did not hide behind any "anonymous" pseudonym. An example would be that math teacher (middle school, I believe) who stood up and said the new curriculum was not an effective way to teach children math. I believe she was asked to be a part of redeveloping the curriculum ( I heard her on CJOB last year). Tell me what is worse: going on teaching what you know is not an effective teaching strategy, or actually growing a set of cahoonas and opening your mouth for once. What a world this would be if we all just stood in line like robots and brainless robots at that.

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    1. Didn't said math teacher have to "fall in line" in order to get their certification to teach, so that they could amass enough classroom experience to knowledgeably claim that the curriculum was not effective?

      Not every teacher who plays the game long enough to get that slip of paper ends up playing the game for life.

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    2. Thanks for your opinion Dave, but I will respond as anonymous until I am certain Marty will not show up at my door to discuss my opinions if he finds out my real identity. Maybe you weren't in class with him..... but he's loco!!!!! If he is willing to knock on a profs door, I wouldn't put it past him to knock on a former classmates to 'discuss' opinions.

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  6. "She stated it was an inappropriate request as there were complaints from those involved. Shes speaking on behalf of the students. She never said "I" feel it was inappropriate. " Marty, you are missing the point here. The point is simply that your request was inappropriate because there were complaints from students. In other words, it doesn't matter if she thought your request was just fine - the fact that some students thought it offensive MAKES IT OFFENSIVE. This is the way these people think. If you say something most people would consider perfectly reasonable, yet someone feels offended by it, in their view this makes YOUR comment 'offensive' . This is the mindset of the permanently victimized.

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    1. You're absolutely right, and you can see it on the U of W website where they define non-academic misconduct as "patterns of behaviour which, over time, cumulatively cause others to experience a PERCEIVED THREAT (my emphasis) to their academic or social environment. The test for misconduct isn't about what you actually do, but about how other people FEEL about it. They don't even have to come up with specific reasons, because they can just say it was a "cumulative pattern of behavior."

      And as the anonymous hater pointed out, Mrs. Cantor apparently buys into this definition wholeheartedly; because she was willing to condemn me not based on what she actually saw me doing, but how her students felt about what I did.

      What makes her actions inexcusably cynical is that she must have written the letter knowing that anyone who read it would think it was her own perceptions she was talking about.

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    2. Marty, you are exposing things slowly and carefully, surely any judge will see through this vile behaviour and condemn it ?

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  7. So since the prof didnt find it offensive, all the other students have to "fall into line" and not be offended? You're making assumptions about whether they thought it was her opinion or not. No where in there does it say she felt it was inappropriate. You are making things up at this point, no different than what you are accusing the U of W of doing. Why is her opinion more valuable? You flip flop a lot Marty and we are all starting to see it. You hear what you want, you interpret things and make assumptions to try to make your "case" stronger.

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  8. Marty you are exposing things slowly and carefully. Surely any judge will see through your vile behaviour and condemn you?

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