WELLESLEY, MA– An Indian-American professor, who posted a joke on Facebook about Iran choosing 52 US cultural sites to bomb, has been fired by Wellesley, MA-based Babson College. U.S. News & World Report has ranked Babson No. 1 for entrepreneurship for the 23rd consecutive time.
Babson College said Asheen Phansey was fired because the post on his “personal Facebook page does not represent the values and culture of the College”, according to WBZ television.
He had apologized for the post last week calling it “sloppy humour” that was “read as a threat”.
His post was a reaction to President Donald Trump’s tweet about targeting sties “very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture”.
Bombing cultural sites is a war crime under international law and contradicting Trump, US officials said that Washington would not target them.
Phansey suggested on Facebook that Iran selected 52 US sites such as the Mall of America in Minnesota or the residence of the Kardashians, a family of American celebrities made famous by the reality TV series “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”.
He was the director of sustainability at Babson College, an institution that specializes in business and entrepreneurship education.
“I am really concerned about what this portends for our ability as Americans to engage in political discourse without presuming the worst about each other,” Phansey said in a statement quoted by WBZ.
“People willfully misinterpreted a joke I made to my friends on Facebook,” and had hoped the college “would have defended and supported my right to free speech”.
The college however, said that it “condemns any type of threatening words and/or actions condoning violence and/or hate”.
“Babson College conducted a prompt and thorough investigation related to a post shared on a staff member’s personal Facebook page that does not represent the values and culture of the College,” according to a statement by the school in Wellesley that has over 3,000 undergraduate and graduate students, according to NBC News. “Based on the results of the investigation, the staff member is no longer a Babson College employee. As we have previously stated, Babson College condemns any type of threatening words and/or actions condoning violence and/or hate.”
(From news reports)
