Student apologizes for tirade
At 5:27 in the morning on Sunday, Feb. 13, Jarell Corley was just finishing up his Saturday night. The freshman in The College of Arts and Sciences had been up late drinking, but he’d also been doing some serious thinking – about friendships, about women and, perhaps most importantly, about class.Over the course of the evening he remembered a discussion about sex that had been held earlier in the semester in his PHI 191: Ethics and Value Theory class. The debate, led by Professor Laurence Thomas, focused on sex. Specifically, Corley remembered, Thomas wanted to know what inspired men to want to have sex. When the men in the class served up their most ‘macho’ responses, one girl in particular took offense.’She said something like ‘Not one guy in this room wants to have sex because of emotional attachments?” Corley recalled. ‘Women are always feeding us that stuff. I thought it was a bunch of bullshit.’So after a late night, Corley wrote an early morning e-mail to show his disgust – and perhaps that of most men. And, yes, he chose to do this while he was intoxicated.’i no this has nothing 2 do w/ anything,’ Corley wrote in the clearest of Internet dialect. ‘women u guys are dumb.’And so began his 131-word diatribe against women. Before anyone goes and screams ‘misogynist!’ it’s important to note that Corley hadn’t had the best Saturday night. He’d just been let down by a close female friend for whom he’d had feelings. And her reasoning directly contradicted that of Corley’s female classmate. ‘She told me that night that (girls) want the bad-ass,’ Corley said. ‘This is one of my good friends, and that killed me.’So Corley, realizing that bad-asses rarely have sex because of emotional attachments, angrily wrote his e-mail, and happily went to bed.The following Sunday morning, there were early indications of trouble. At around 7 a.m., a classmate called Corley’s room to warn him that he could be expelled for writing such offensive things about women. Corley missed the call, though – he was still asleep. In the afternoon, Professor Thomas wrote a response e-mail to the class saying that, without having seen an apology e-mail, he planned to hand the case over to the University Judicial Board. Corley missed the e-mail, though; he didn’t check his e-mail all day.When Corley finally did check his Orangemail account on Monday, he didn’t know what hit him.’I was just shocked,’ Corley said of all the reaction. Immediately, he issued an e-mail apology to his classmates. After almost a week went by, Thomas announced to his class, via an e-mail on Saturday, that he had decided not to send the issue to the UJB. Thomas denied comment on the issue, but it appears he chose to accept Corley’s apology. Of course, a hearing with the UJB would, at this point, be useless. Corley has already learned his lesson – if not a lesson in love, then in tact. And now he understands the danger of writing drunk e-mails to his professors and classmates. And not surprisingly, he said he regrets what he did.’To a certain extent, yeah,’ Corley said before starting to sound a little macho himself. ‘I always regret doing things that get me into trouble.’
PETE FREEDMAN IS A JUNIOR NEWSPAPER MAJOR. E-MAIL HIM AT PJFREEDM@SYR.EDU.
Published on February 20, 2005 at 12:00 pm