(This post has been UPDATED. See below.)
St. Lawrence College’s (Ontario) Rick Coupland is being investigated after allegedly posting a homophobic remark on Facebook.
The business professor was responding to news that St. Petersburg, Florida had raised a rainbow flag for a gay pride festival:
“It’s the queers they should be hanging, not the flag ….”
Waiting for @whatsinsideslc response to teacher Rick Coupland’s revolting, homophobic comments #ygk pic.twitter.com/MNwoQUvjqO
— Jolisa (@jolisa_) July 19, 2015
An ex-student saved the post in a screenshot and made a formal complaint to the school, Metro News reported.
Coupland later posted that he had been summoned to work, and to bring a representative.
“Please pray for me and my job,” he wrote. His account no longer appears online.
Kelly Wiley, SLC’s director of marketing and communications, confirmed that the school is investigating but would not comment on the specific complaint, the [Kingston] Whig-Standard reported.
“We have several policies that apply to the conduct of our employees,” she told the newspaper.
“This includes the fact that we adhere to the Ontario Human Rights Code, we also have harassment policies, a policy around outside activities of college employees, and our collective agreement.”
Coupland was expected to meet with the college on Monday and Tuesday. He said it was “too early” to comment when reached by Metro on Thursday.
Canada has no First Amendment, and many on social media are clamoring for Coupland to be fired. One person demanded he be charged with a hate crime.
But even First Amendment protections have their limits, as The College Fix has pointed out many times. Expressing a death wish for a certain segment of the population may certainly be one of them, at least in terms of continued employment.
As of this past weekend, Coupland still had his job at SLC.
UPDATE: Coupland’s employment at SLC has been terminated as of today, Advocate.com reports. The school made the announcement on its Facebook page.
SLC spokeswoman Kelly Wiley told the Kingston Whig-Standard “We have several policies that apply to the conduct of our employees. This includes the fact that we adhere to the Ontario Human Rights Code; we also have harassment policies, a policy around outside activities of college employees, and our collective agreement.”
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