University Fires Teaching Assistant For Swearing In An E-mail
In 2015, Columbia University fired a teaching assistant for saying “fucked” in an e-mail. According to Columbia Spectator, “When Longxi Zhao, a former chemical engineering teaching assistant, used the word “fucked” in an email to apologize for a CourseWorks mishap, he was summoned to a Dean’s Discipline hearing for allegedly ‘harassing others.’ Four days later and a day before the hearing, Zhao received an emailed letter terminating his teaching assistant appointment to chemical engineering professor Scott Banta’s Reactor Design course. The grounds for dismissal were an unapproved vacation day taken on the Friday before spring break, failure to proctor a makeup quiz, incorrect implementation of homework policy, and inappropriate communication, referring to the ‘fucked’ email.”
