Christopher Trogan was reportedly dismissed despite nine-page apology explaining “innocent mistake.”
Academic Christopher Trogan was reportedly fired after mixing up the names of two black students (NYU)
Never apologize, never explain.
A Fordham University professor who ignored that time-honored dictum has come unstuck –seemingly more for his response than his original blunder.
Christopher Trogan, 46, was fired after confusing the names of two black students who showed up late to class, the Fordham Obsever reported.
Despite calling the faux-pas an “innocent mistake,” the English lecturer at the private New York City university still thought it warranted an explanatory nine-page email to students in his Composition II class, according to the campus newspaper.
The rambling apology even reportedly offered an unsolicited defense of the academic’s “entire life” spent working on “issues of justice, equality, and inclusion.”
“The offended student assumed my mistake was because I confused that student with another Black student,” Trogan wrote, according to the November 29 article. “I have done my best to validate and reassure the offended student that I made a simple, human, error. It has nothing to do with race.”
Trogan blamed the gaffe, which happened when the two students arrived late to class on September 24, on his “confused brain.”
However, some students suggested that the lecturer’s wild overreaction – in place of a simple apology – made matters worse.
One of the two black students, freshman Chantal Sims, described the email as “a little excessive.”
“We were not actually that upset about him mixing up our names,” Sims told the Observer. “It was more so the random things he would throw into the response.”
Someone commenting on the newspaper report who claimed to be in Trogan’s class wrote: “I don’t think he deserved to get fired, but his response to a small issue was what blew the entire thing up.”
In the communication, Trogan even urged students upset by his mix-up to complain to the school: “I may – or may not – be your professor in class next week. It’s all up to you,” he bizarrely wrote.
Trogan was fired on October 29, according to the Observer.
Fordham spokesman Bob Howe told The New York Post without further elaboration that “media representations regarding this issue do not reflect the facts in Dr. Trogan’s case.”
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