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There are bad days and then there are extremely bad days. St. Thomas University professor and department chair Mikhail Molchanov must have been having an extremely bad day on Jan. 7 when he asked a student mid-lecture in a second-year political science course if he was “mentally challenged,” told him to see physician and that he should be “institutionalized” before kicking him out of the class. Several students walked out of the classroom right after the incident, some with tears in their eyes, along with the student in question, who in fact does have a mental disorder: autism.
Now we’ve learned from Molchanov’s sister, Vera, who spoke to The Aquinian student newspaper earlier this month, that his own daughter had been recently diagnosed with a “severe mental disability” and that his mother had recently became paralyzed. She begged students to understand that professors are human and can be forgiven when they’re having bad days.
But students should not let him get away with such a comment. The incident prompted eight formal complaints and his removal from teaching this term. He should be removed from St. Thomas permanently. It’s that simple. If he had been in another job—let’s say a bus driver—one can imagine he would have been let go immediately. Sadly, this wasn’t the case. Molchanov has tenure and that makes it incredibly difficult to fire him. If he did not have tenure, his office would likely be empty now, and St. Thomas would already be searching for a new political scientist to head up the department.
Universities are places in which differing opinions are accepted and welcomed but ignorance about disabilities has no place. It is incredibly offensive that he apparently believed he could get away with saying such a thing and saddening that the political science department may be shamed by him.
The mother of the student Molchanov attacked wrote to the New Brunswick Beacon newspaper that the punishment of was, “nothing but a slap on the wrist and a paid vacation.” I agree.
Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time a professor has verbally attacked a student at St. Thomas. Shaun Narine, another political science professor, yelled at a student during a debate to “read a book for God’s sake.” The student was expressing her opinion on why young people don’t vote, saying the political system was complicated and many don’t understand it. It was an uncharacteristic outburst on Narine’s behalf (and the same might be said for Molchanov as well) but that kind of outburst doesn’t belong in our classrooms. They are supposed to be safe havens where people can express their opinions without fear of attacks. St. Thomas has an opportunity to set a precedent and hopefully put a halt to the idea that there are few consequences for such outbursts.
Whether or not Molchanov was having a bad day, I want to remind everyone he would have had sick days at his disposal and Jan. 7 would have been the perfect day to have used them, rather than risk damaging the school’s reputation and hurting an innocent student with a disability.
Connor Jay is a journalism student at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B.
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