Art School Exit-stential
There’s basically nothing about this story in the current Portland Mercury that isn’t hilarious:
Bob Averill’s classmates at the Art Institute of Portland had finished up their work in a character development class on November 8, and were chatting to pass the time until class was over. The discussion moved toward spirituality. Averill, a Game Art Design student and a devoted atheist—he even runs a blog called Portland Atheist—sidled over and joined the conversation.
It was the last time he’d be in an Art Institute class—within two weeks, he was expelled, less than a year before he’d hoped to graduate.
In the classroom that day, Averill says one young woman was talking about her belief in energy layers and astral beings.
“I jokingly asked her if she believed in leprechauns. It turns out, she does. They live on another energy layer,” Averill wrote in notes to himself later that day. [My Emphasis] “In the interest of bringing my own view to the discussion, I began to ask her how she knew these things. Again I know all too well that people can be sensitive about their spiritual beliefs, so I was pretty much walking on glass as I did so.”
Averill says he wasn’t trying to disprove the other student’s religious beliefs, but “to convince her not to insist that they were scientifically proven.”
The student, apparently offended, complained to the teacher. Averill was called into a meeting that evening, he says, with the Art Institute’s dean of education, associate dean, and the dean of student affairs.
According to Averill, he was told the meeting was “because of my altercation with [the other student].” Averill says he pointed out that he’d “only offered a different viewpoint in a discussion that [my classmate] had started.”
“They didn’t respond well,” Averill told the Mercury. “Their mantra was ‘no discussing religion in school,’ which is fine except that I did not initiate the conversation, she had.” Averill was suspended for four days, until a judicial hearing with the dean of student affairs.
Well, he sounds like a calm and reasonable young man! Let’s see what his blog has to say…
Hold on now! Before you go and get the wrong idea, this ISN’T another rant about why religion is bad, or why it’s wrong. Of course, it IS bad, and it IS wrong. But this is so blindingly obvious that it no longer needs to be said. Instead, this is a direct attack on you, the religious person. The argument? That your failure to reject religion indicates you are colossally, irredeemably stupid.
[…]
I refuse to respect religious beliefs, and I refuse to respect people who hold them.
Your willful ignorance is inexcusable, and it disgusts me.
What could possibly go wrong in a conversation between him and someone who strongly believes in leprechauns?
For bonus laughs, check out the conversation on the Something Awful forums, where Bob was (is?) a member.
