UTC should have stood up to pressure
Usually I’m proud to have taught at UTC. I believe that it has helped, and continues to help, countless people, many of modest means, to become better-informed, more competent and more prosperous citizens.
However, I join my retiree colleague, Fouad Maughrabi, in expressing disappointment in UTC’s decision to fire a novice reporter for WUTC. While I agree that she should have verbally identified herself as a reporter while covering high school students’ conversations with state Reps. Mike Bell and Kevin Brooks, firing her seems heavy handed and appears to have been a response to political pressure.
Universities have, I believe, a responsibility to seek truth and resist pressures to suppress it. To my knowledge, neither Rep. Bell nor Rep. Brooks has denied the truth of the WUTC story. But the UTC administration has removed the story from the UTC website. If you look for it there, all you get is the message: “Access Denied.”
George Helton