Not Your Average Advice Question

[xypathos]

I'm part of a small'ish FB group for religious studies professors in Texas. I'm using RS here broadly, there are biblical studies, cultural, theology professors, etc. With the pandemic a lot of our discussion over the last 1.5 years is "Zoom sucks but it's the medium, how do we engage our students?!?"

Anyway, a professor shared a captured zoom video. I want to preface that this professor didn't record the video and they're not at the school in question. It was meant to be a conversation starter about "How would you have handled this?" kind of situation. That said, the student featured in the video is a M* student at a divinity school in Texas. Their name, mistakenly/intentionally was not blocked so through the powers of Google-Fu it's easy to identify the school and look up the student.

Said student (Student A) was responding to another student (Student B ) that mistakenly summarized the Ethiopian Orthodox Church's views on Jesus' divinity. Student B was wrong, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Student A then proceeded into a verbal assault of Protestants being 1) lazy and 2) stupid. Verbatim, straight up rant about Protestants that the professor made no attempt to stop, redirect, etc. Completely derailed the conversation and Student B was visually upset.

A student, we'll call them C, is the one that recorded the video on their cell phone. They added text over the video later and you can hear them snickering. The text said something to the effect of "Another angry white guy that wants to be a NT professor" in reference to Student A. They're presumably the sharer of this video in an effort to shame their peer.

Well, professors in this group obviously look up the student and verify that he's in fact wanting to be a NT professor and is/will be applying to programs. Said professors have emphatically stated that Student A is on their blacklist - they would never welcome an application from him.

To make matters worse, a professor from the divinity school in question chimed in and "tried" to defend the student. He's bright, excellent grades, super passionate about NT studies and making sure churches like the EOC get fair descriptions, etc. Unfortunately for this student, the professor also described them as emotionally immature and that this isn't their first outburst in a class. So, bad reference!

I'm new to all of this being a professor thing and I don't know what to do. The video has since been taken down but the damage is done. While the group is obviously not inclusive of every professor or anything, people talk. A small number of them mentioned showing this video to their TAs as a training of 1) don't let this happen and 2) here's how you recover.

I kind of want to give Student A a heads up but it's also not my place!

Thoughts?!?

Edited June 28, 2021 by xypathos
Minor typos

[kor_to_nola]

So...to summarize, and to clarify 

1. Student A seems to be outside of a Protestant context, and started ranting about Protestants. 

2. Student C, a 3rd person involved in this virtual conversation, recorded the video. Possibly thinking that the situation seemed ridiculous or Student A was going to far in his rant. 

3. The video was uploaded to the FB group, and members of the group(possibly professors?) added some comments that Student A will not be considered as a Ph.D applicant.

4. and you, xypathos, are wanting to intervene in this situation since you are thinking there are some misunderstandings. 

Am I correct? I can understand the situation, but I'm not sure what you are wanting to do. Are you seeking an advice on how to intervene in the situation?

[theofan]

It's against my university's rules to record class conversations without consent of the participants. For good reasons. I wonder if C recorded with consent and the professors are viewing with consent. 

[xypathos]

10 hours ago, kor_to_nola said:

So...to summarize, and to clarify 

1. Student A seems to be outside of a Protestant context, and started ranting about Protestants. 

2. Student C, a 3rd person involved in this virtual conversation, recorded the video. Possibly thinking that the situation seemed ridiculous or Student A was going to far in his rant. 

3. The video was uploaded to the FB group, and members of the group(possibly professors?) added some comments that Student A will not be considered as a Ph.D applicant.

4. and you, xypathos, are wanting to intervene in this situation since you are thinking there are some misunderstandings. 

Am I correct? I can understand the situation, but I'm not sure what you are wanting to do. Are you seeking an advice on how to intervene in the situation?

Your summary is correct. The small change is that the FB group in question is all professors. Graduate students, those outside the academy, etc aren't allowed in.

Yes, I think the situation is overblown. Student A was out of line. I don't know their religious background. I think the professor lost control of the classroom and couldn't recover. That said, I think barring this student from being considered is an overreach. Sure, maybe the professors will calm down in time, maybe Student A will never even apply to their program, etc., etc., etc

That said too, I know from conversations while I was a PhD student that applicants get turned away for all sorts of petty/subjective reasons, despite being a stellar applicant on paper. 

[xypathos]

7 hours ago, theofan said:

It's against my university's rules to record class conversations without consent of the participants. For good reasons. I wonder if C recorded with consent and the professors are viewing with consent. 

Good questions. I couldn't find anything on the school's website regarding recording. Legally, Texas is a one party consent state. That said, I know at my school most professors don't record b/c they want to "protect" IP. I generally don't record myself b/c if you miss the class, just ask a classmate for notes. I have sometimes recorded my lecture but I never record student discussion.