Oakland University student booted over 'Hot for Teacher' essay is now suing

[alp227]

Last edited Sat Mar 23, 2013, 06:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Detroit Free Press

An Oakland University student kicked out of school after writing an essay titled “Hot for Teacher” is suing the college for more than $2.2 million, claiming the school violated his rights to free speech and freedom of expression.

Joseph Corlett, 57, now lives in Sarasota, Florida after moving from Orion Township. He filed the lawsuit today in U.S. District Court in Detroit against Oakland University’s board of trustees, president Gary Russi and vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, Mary Beth Snyder.

“In the end, he just ended up getting suspended from school for completing a homework assignment,” his Detroit lawyer, Alari Adams, said today after filing the lawsuit.

(...)

Corlett says he was unfairly kicked out of school after penning the essay in Sept. 2011 while enrolled in “English 380: Advanced Critical Writing,” taught by Pamela Mitzelfeld. He says the essay, named after the 1984 Van Halen song that glamorizes a student’s lust for his teacher, was a “whimsical exaggeration” of his attraction toward Mitzelfeld.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20130315/NEWS01/130315072/Oakland-University-student-booted-over-Hot-for-Teacher-essay-is-now-suing

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The professor also worried about Corlett being obsessed with guns. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has condemned the university for its speech code that caused Corlett to be punished. The university president wrote back to FIRE explaining why admin would not intervene in defense of Corlett. Here's TYT's take on the case:

As much of a 1st amendment absolutist I personally am--keeping in mind Oakland University is a public university--it's hard to defend this creep.

[L0oniX]

1. It's ok for David Lee Roth though...

[sarchasm]

6. I believe DLR was asked to leave as well ...

".. little girl from Cherry Lawn, how can you be so bold? .."

http://www.cherrylawnschool.org/reunions/1999Reunion/ORG/dariennews.html

"The lack of structure and Bohemian atmosphere was a balm for some but a bane for others, including notable drop-outs like director Mike Nichols (then Michael Peschkowsky), actress Carol Kane ("Taxi&quot and rocker David Lee Roth (who later penned a song for his famous band, Van Halen, called "Hot for Teacher," about a Cherry Lawn staffer that was the object of his affection)."

[Squinch]

2. Corlett, if you read all the information, is pretty thoroughly creepy.

[Kolesar]

3. Corlett is a gun nut

That is part of the reason that faculty distrusts him.

http://www.yousaytoo.com/professor-pamela-mitzelfeld-outraged-over-students-hot-for-teacher-essa/1901069

Mitzelfeld expressed her displeasure via the following email to faculty at the university:

Due to our recent discovery that Joseph Corlett has made his gun obsession obvious to other colleagues and has managed to make himself known in negative ways to so many other females on campus, I am feeling increasingly uncomfortable and unsafe. As he has written letters to our school newspaper defending the right to carry concealed weapons on campus, I cannot feel safe knowing that he might have a weapon with him at any time. He might have had a gun in his backpack when he sat 20 feet away from me at the writing center last week. [...]

Please grant this request and advocate for me as necessary. Either Mr Corlett leaves campus or I do. I will not be afraid to go to the ladies restroom, as I was today, because someone informed me that he was in the library.

This is an unacceptable and dangerous work environment.

How did she know that Corlett was a gun advocate? Thanks to this letter he sent in to the Oakland Post, as a response to a pro-gun-control editorial:

http://www.yousaytoo.com/professor-pamela-mitzelfeld-outraged-over-students-hot-for-teacher-essa/1901069


http://oaklandpostonline.com/2011/01/25/perspectives/letters-to-the-editors/


President – Students for Concealed Carry at Oakland University
If OUPD Chief Lucido believes “our rules regulating firearms are correct”, he hasn’t spoken with Victor Zambardi, Vice President of Oakland University’s General Counsel {sic}, who, along with OUPD Campus Police Lieutenant Mel Gilroy, found that OU’s firearms ordinance “did not comport with state statute” and is therefore unenforceable.
Perhaps Chief Lucido will don his investigatory cap as to the recent dismissal without prejudice of a concealing a handgun charge against a Wayne State University student.
The State’s contention was that the student was carrying in a pistol free zone; the student’s defense was that the hallway is not a PFZ. The judge found that the State’s case had no legal standing. Chief Lucido is bound by Michigan rulings and law and is not “backed up” by the Supreme Court of Virginia.
Your editorial correctly noted that Michigan law prohibits concealed pistol licensees from carrying concealed pistols in college classrooms and dorms but failed to mention that according to Michigan State Police Legal Update No. 86, unconcealed pistols are legal in classrooms and dorms by CPL holders.
I provided the Oakland Post this information last semester. How sad and unprofessional those emotions of current events cloud your journalistic judgment and you renege on written promises to freelancers, denying critical balance to readers. I will provide “The Story the Oakland Post Does Not Want You To Read” to anyone who e-mails a request.
I hope Oakland University institutes a ban on poorly reasoned and researched editorials and that the ban stays in place.
Joseph Corlett
Junior, Writing and Rhetoric
[e-mail]
***

[wickerwoman]

4. Sorry dude. Free speech doesn't cover your right to sexually harrass people.

Universities are also work places. If I wrote an essay about how hot my boss was and circulated it at work, I would expect to be fired.

[bemildred]

5. Dumb ass.

I hope they make him go to court.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

7. He's a 57 year-old student, or former student? It's time for him to now learn about Rule 11.

[struggle4progress]

16. 57 yo student with the emotional maturity of a 14 yo, it seems

[BainsBane]

22. As someone who received an essay in which a student

wrote about raping me, I have some sympathy for the professor's situation.
In this case, it seems to me the guy was looking for trouble from the start. It wouldn't surprise me if he wasn't a plant for the purpose of a law suit.

Edit: posted in the wrong place, but whatever.

[surrealAmerican]

8. Talk about chutzpah.

He should be thankful the professor didn't choose to take legal action, instead he's suing.

[idwiyo]

9. Creep. And that essay is nothing less than sexual harassment.

[davidthegnome]

10. 57... in college...

and has no clue how to talk to, or even about a woman. I've written things about women I like, or find attractive, but I'd sooner lose both my arms than have them be read, or actually hand them over to women who did not indicate an interest in me. Any time she says stop... you stop, it's a really simple concept. Looks like she made it very clear that she wasn't interested, yet he kept writing this essay, turning it into her, and expecting her to read it as if it were typical? Seems like intimidation to me.

I find his writing absolutely disgusting. It's one thing for a hormonally charged teenager to drool over a good looking teacher, it's something else entirely when a 57 year old man in an advanced writing class rants about her body in a manner that is reminiscent of really bad rap music.

Looks like a very obvious case of harassment. I have no sympathy for this guy, at all.

[Blandocyte]

11. Sounds like "disruptive behavior" for which a student would be disciplined

Sorry, creep, I guess you can't write a communication to your teacher about how you want to have sex with her and have it be OK. Now crawl back under your rock.

And for the college administrator who is blaming the teacher for being too sensitive, you are a jerk, too. Throwing a faculty under the bus and tolerating disruptive behavior from a perv student is proof you need to find another field to work in.

I hope the creeper student gets a settlement and I hope the teacher sues. Bring this "school" to its knees financially. I think the school had a duty to act as soon as the teacher claimed sexual harassment. They will not be on the winning side of that suit, if it is brought.

[rucky]

12. Sit down, Waldo

[alp227]

14. "He was not trying to put his penis in her vagina."

Come on man, you and I know he had FANTASIES about it!

Just curious, why did you register today to make your point and link to that blog?

[bluesbassman]

15. Your defense of this cretin is that he didn't attempt to rape her?

Dude, you're on the wroooong discussion board. Her "job" does not include being sexually harassed in writing by one of her students.

Waldo should've kept his "creative" writing confined to Penthouse Forum or some other equally enlightened outlet.

[bigworld]

17. I'm wondering if this lawsuit was the idea all along?

Quick payout from a rich college?

[bluesbassman]

18. Well there's that. Crossed my mind too.

Any 57 year old man that would even consider writing, let alone turning in such dreck is certainly warped enough to conceive a scam like that.

[llmart]

24. This guy is a troublemaker trying to find one issue or another.....

to sue the university. First he's pushing the envelope of their concealed weapons policy and now this. I've seen him on the local news and the local newscaster said his wife fully supports what he did. Yeah, right, especially because she thinks it may bring in some lawsuit money.

If you read his essay you'd see it's on about a third grade level. He's a total jackass and I hope he's never allowed to step foot on Oakland's campus again.

[Blandocyte]

19. He was a disruptive student no matter what form disruption took

Don't be a jackass.

[geek tragedy]

21. I say 4 posts before the PPR happens. nt

[onenote]

20. I'm pretty sure Oakland University is a public university

If it was private, this guy wouldn't be able to bring a first amendment based claim since there would be no state action involved in his expulsion. As it is, the first amendment is in play, but it doesn't give him free rein to harass his teacher.

[alp227]

23. Oh my bad it IS public.

Just checked wikipedia.

[gtar100]

25. Ana got it right - this is about sexual harassment, not free speech.

Though for one reason or another, neither the teacher nor the university pursued the matter as such.

If the teacher told him to knock it off, he should have. But he didn't.

[Brickbat]

26. Sexual harassment isn't protected speech.

[Agony]

27. TYT guy is creepy

gunning for a spot on fair and balanced fuxsnooze?

[Doctor_J]

28. I would bet that Pamela Mitzelfeld is

now "trending"

[gmontour]

29. Report all the facts

Before you go spitting out your opinion lets report the facts or challenge what has been said.

Student was told:

No subject was off limits and get very personal.

Now was he not told that?

Yes-then everything you said is BS.

No-then lets offer some proof.

He was told to stop an on going essay in the middle. That is very week.

As far as she was uncomfortable,

He did a great job in writing and expressing his feelings.

Ohh...Lets ban Alford Hitchcock from the movie industry!!

[hrmjustin]

30. Welcome to DU my friend!