Three Wallace Hettle Updates

First - Check out Hettle's email to Paul Deignan PhD Advisors:

Yesterday and last night Paul Deignan spent in "trolling" a feminist academic web site with disruptive and abusive comments.

This is a highly visible liberal site. He was banned, but used his computer expertise to defeat the ban and taunt the host of the site.

This kind of behavior is not unheard of on the net. But Mr. Deignan chose to do this action from a homepage that claims you as a dissertation adviser.

Mr. Deignan has a right to free speech. He shouldn't disrupt the discussions of others--it is highly unprofessional. And it is linked to your name.

Might you please advise him to exercise a little discretion in the future. As matters stand, Mr. Deignan appears to be doing a bit more politicking than mechanical engineering.

Thank you,

Wallace
Hettle

Speaks volumes...no? What an pompous a-hole. I'd love to audit one of Hettle's courses just to take him to task. I'm assuming he would find any challenges to his classroom belief system as "disruptive".

Second - the story has made an article in Inside Higher Ed. Check it out.

And third - there has been an impact to Deignan's academic career. From the Inside Higher Ed article:

What might have ended there as an everyday online spat was only the beginning. A frequent visitor to the Bitch Ph.D. site, the University of Northern Iowa history professor Wallace Hettle, felt obliged to defend Bitch Ph.D.'s liberal end of the blogosphere. Hettle found Deignan's curriculum vita at Info Theory, which lists his academic advisers, the Purdue mechanical engineers Galen King and Peter Meckl, who will play a big part in deciding if he will ultimately receive a Ph.D. Hettle e-mailed them, indicating that Deignan'?s comments were "unprofessionalÂ? and Â?contrary to the spirit of free enquiry." Hettle announced his actions within the comment section of Bitch Ph.D.

"Yes, we received an e-mail,"? King confirmed on Wednesday. "?It said that Paul was exceeding his bounds, if you will, on what is essentially a private site. He's been asked to refrain, at least until he'?s [graduated from Purdue]."?

Libel...? I have no idea. But again, what an pompous a-hole.

Also, I do not understand why Paul is going after Bitch PhD. Sure, she lived up to her Blog moniker, but worth a lawsuit. I don't think so.

Hettle, on the other hand, deserves everything he gets - even if that's only the problem of having to deal with the emails and letters.

Once again H/T Protein Wisdom