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Columbia Professor Mugger Homework Story Is Satire
By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 7, 2011
Modified Feb 7, 2011
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By
John Del Signore
Published Feb 7, 2011
Modified Feb 7, 2011
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Gawker prides itself on astute bullshit detection, but the website's reblog of this funny little story in Columbia University's The Morningside Post—"Columbia Professor Ruder Than Columbia Muggers"—somehow slipped through. It starts out as a fairly routine account of a student getting mugged on her way to class, with the twist that she convinced the muggers—"wearing ski masks and dressed entirely in black"—to give her back her homework. "They started to run away with my bag but I screamed and begged them to let me have my Statistics homework," Jane Watkins reportedly said. "I told them they could have my wallet, my iPhone, anything—just not the homework." This is where things get really cute:
In a moment of charity, one of the muggers apparently reached into Ms. Watkins’ purse and retrieved her homework assignment, laying it neatly on the sidewalk next to where the incident occurred.
“Even though my ankle hurt really badly and I couldn’t really walk very well, I knew that Professor Thurman would have been really angry if I tried to turn the homework in late. So I hobbled to the SIPA building as fast as I could. I thought because I was only two minutes late he’d be lenient. I thought wrong," says the "student."
When she "reportedly" limped into class two minutes late with her bloody ankle, Professor Thurman (who is a real professor) refused to accept her homework. Citing class policy, Thurman "reportedly" told The Morningside Post, "My late policy is right there in the syllabus, so why should I be lenient just because it wasn’t strictly her fault for being late? Besides, if she had consulted her z-tables she would have known that the probability of being mugged on that block is quite high and she probably should have taken a different route to class."
That comment seemed a little... fanciful to us, so we contacted the paper and Thurman. We have yet to hear back from the professor, but The Morningside Post editor Ethan S. Wilkes tells us, "The story is in fact all satire. Paul Thurman is known for a fairly strict reputation, so we thought we'd have some fun with it." We're sorry to disillusion everyone. Of course, how do you know anything we've told you is factual, either? Well, if you can't trust the 1010 Wins of blogosphere, who can you trust?
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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