Professor Gregory Sullivan of the United States Merchant Marine Academy may lose his job because of a terrible joke about the Colorado movie theater shooting that was amplified because a student’s father was shot and killed in the massacre. According to the Times, Sullivan turned down the lights in a classroom at the Kings Point, New York–based school when he put on a documentary, and before exiting the room, said to the students, “If someone with orange hair appears in the corner of the room, run for the exit.” The tenured humanities professor received a “notice of proposed removal” on August 10, giving him ten days from then to contest the firing — not solely for making the remark but because he “reasonably should have been aware” about the student’s father because of an e-mail sent schoolwide concerning the student’s absence.
