The letter, dated February 12, on South Florida State College letterhead and hand delivered by the Director of Human Resources, contained four sentences.
asserted
letter → date → sentences
I would be placed on administrative leave with pay till the end of my contract.
asserted
I → place → contract
The contract would not be renewed.
asserted
contract → renew → ?
I would be relieved of all teaching duties immediately.
asserted
I → relieve → duties
A concluding sentence offered contact information if I had any questions.
asserted
I → conclude → questions
I had many.
asserted
I → have → many
My chair and dean—who had vouched for me in the preceding days—seemed in a state of shock.
asserted
who → vouch → shock
I repeatedly asked the HR director for the complaint.
asserted
I → ask → complaint
A staff member, I was told, had made a “verbal complaint.”
asserted
I → tell → complaint
When I pressed further, demanded to know what I had done wrong, the HR director said: “You taught a story that wasn’t in the textbook.”
asserted
that → press → textbook
My chair immediately pointed out that instructors are permitted to use outside resources.
asserted
instructors → point → resources
The response: “The president has the final say.”
asserted
president → have → say
The HR director told me he would need my office keys.
asserted
he → tell → keys
My email accounts would be locked.
asserted
accounts → lock → ?
When he escorted me to collect my belongings, he seemed unexpectedly emotional.
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he → escort → belongings
I had taught his daughter.
asserted
I → teach → daughter
Somehow I drove home.
asserted
I → drive → ?
My parents were arriving the next day, and I wasn’t sure I could manage a brave face for them.
uncertain
I → arrive → them
Earlier that year, I had been asked by the vice president of the college to serve as Faculty Council President for the upcoming academic year.
asserted
I → ask → year
I’ve spent most of my career teaching at small, private liberal arts schools in Upstate New York.
asserted
I → spend → York
I made the decision to move to South Florida in 2023, to be closer to my parents who are now in their eighties.
asserted
who → make → eighties
I left a secure position at Ithaca College—my contract had just been renewed for five more years—to come and work at a public college whose stated values I shared: “the free exchange of ideas in an environment that embraces honesty, fairness, personal responsibility, and ethical leadership.”
asserted
that → leave → honesty
I moved here in good faith, with an open heart and mind, and the hope for better things.
asserted
I → move → things
My interview process was memorably warm, without the guile and pretension that can sometimes typify academia.
asserted
that → typify → academia
Fred Hawkins had not yet arrived as president.
asserted
Hawkins → arrive → president
So, in my final interview, when the vice president told me, “We’re a community; we’re a family and we take care of each other,” I believed it.
asserted
I → tell → it
Perhaps that is why the wound feels so deep.
asserted
wound → feel → ?
My present and future had been summarily snatched.
asserted
present → snatch → ?
By one college president with no professional experience in education, who had never set foot in my classroom.
asserted
who → set → classroom
The triggering story was “Bettering Myself” by award-winning writer Ottessa Moshfegh, a story I have taught for over a decade, including the six semesters at SFSC leading up to my removal in February 2026.
asserted
I → trigger → February
The narrative—with its unwholesome references to sex, drugs, and alcohol—is a kind of Picasso-esque portrait that asks the reader if there is any story value to be found in the unvarnished descent of a character to even further disrepair than the opening sequences suggest.
asserted
sequences → ask → disrepair
We start with a list of students’ unprocessed limbic brain reactions (“Crazy,” “Real,” “Vulgar,” “TMI,” “Icky,” “Why? Why?”) and then tunnel to deeper truths: Will the story ultimately deliver on the promise of its title?
asserted
story → start → title
How does the wayward first-person voice compare with morally compromised male narrators in more canonical examples?
asserted
voice → compare → examples
Can literature ask challenging questions without yielding comfortable answers?
asserted
literature → ask → answers
I have great respect for my students as a whole and, in particular, their proven abilities to rise to the occasion of learning from stories that may challenge them beyond the scope of their own experience.
uncertain
that → have → experience
My students at South Florida State College consistently did so with curiosity, openness, and laughter and were—without parallel—the best part of my job.
asserted
students → do → job
Having difficult conversations in the classroom is one way not to be undone by them outside those walls.
asserted
Having → have → walls
I was not asking my students to like the story.
asserted
I → ask → story
Literature that never unsettles us may be comfortable, but incomplete—antiseptically free of debate, friction, and discovery.
uncertain
that → unsettle → debate
But I found not everyone agrees.
asserted
everyone → find → ?
…and 54 more, not listed.
The Aporia
