A Federal judge has dismissed a Michigan student’s lawsuit against Oakland University after he was suspended for writing about his attraction to his teachers in a class journal.
57-year-old Joseph Corlett sued the school in March for $2.2 million and four lost credits, claiming his free-speech rights were violated.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan dismissed Corlett’s lawsuit and ruled in favor of Oakland University in suburban Detroit on Tuesday.
When Corlett referred to his teacher as ’stacked’ and graphically compared her to a sitcom character he fetishized in a writing assignment, “he brought a pig into the parlor,” Duggan said. “Such expressions, while possibly appropriate in some settings, need not be tolerated by university officials,” the judge said.
Corlett was suspended in 2012 after writing about his writing instructor. He compared her to the sexy starlet Ginger from the 1960s TV series, “Gilligan’s Island” and described her as “tall, blonde, stacked,” among other things. “Kee-Rist, I’ll never learn a thing. … I’ll search for something unattractive about her. No luck yet,” Corlett wrote.
He titled his essay “Hot for Teacher,” the name of a Van Halen song.
Corlett said students in the English 380 class were told to write honestly and that no topic was off limits. Oakland said the work was clearly inappropriate.
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