University Diaries has chronicled scads of professors and students caught on security camera stealing, taping harassment notes to themselves on their doors, scrawling swastikas on their doors… The most spectacular case of this was Pomona professor Kerri Dunn (http://articles.latimes.com/2004/aug/19/local/me-dunn19), although in that case it wasn’t a security camera. A bunch of guys saw her spray painting her car with racist slogans.
Only a few days ago I wrote about the occupational therapy professor filmed returning some amazing products he’d gifted himself out of his university’s endowment (http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?p=36404). He’d been tipped off that university officials suspected him of theft.
Now there’s this:
http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-new-britain-ccsu-bias-made-it-up-0703-20120702,0,4275448.story
This variety of campus story has become, over the years I’ve written this blog, incredibly common. A student reports a hate crime against herself. Once again security cameras film her staging it.
It seems to be about drawing attention to oneself – like Dunn, you get to address big rallies of students and faculty outraged on your behalf.
Sometimes, as allegedly in the Madonna Constantine case
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_Constantine
people do hate stuff to themselves in order to deflect attention from other problems they’re having.
But this is usually about pathetic love-me motives.
July 4th, 2012 at 10:13PM
cannot understand the neediness that induces one to make stuff up.