Professor Suspended for Making Students Pledge to Vote for Obama

A professor at a Florida community college has been suspended without pay after allegedly forcing her class to sign a pledge to vote for President Obama and all Democrats “up and down the ticket” in November.

WatchdogWire.com is reporting that assistant professor Sharon Sweet at Brevard Community College in Melbourne, Florida handed out a pledge card during class that reads “I pledge to vote for President Obama and Democrats up and down the ticket” and told all students to sign it.

The school found out about it a person whose nephew attends the school brought home a bookmark pledging to vote for Obama that was passed out in class along with the pledge card. On the tear-away Gottavote.org pledge card, which is provided by the Obama campaign, students are required to “state their party affiliation.” The student reported that Sweet often stated her personal political views in class and was openly supportive of President Obama. The student also noted that an older gentleman in the class would often argue with her but that the rest of the students did not.

The school believes Sweet may have violated the College’s harassment policy which clearly forbids any form of intimidation related to a student’s political affiliation.

“Based on the allegations, Associate Professor Sweet has requested, and been granted, a leave of absence without pay effective immediately,” reads a statement put out by John Glisch, Associate Vice President for Communications at BCC. “The college will continue its investigation into the matter, which will include interviews with all students in her class.”

Sweet may be in even more trouble with Florida election laws which state that “no officer or employee of the state… shall… use his or her official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with an election or nomination of officer or influencing another person’s vote or affecting the result thereof.”

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One Response to “Professor Suspended for Making Students Pledge to Vote for Obama

  1. I don’t know about making him lose his job over this, but a fine or suspension would be good. Today the trend seems to be to fire or sue anyone for anything, and there is already a jobs and financial crisis as it is…

    This “pledge to vote for Obama” is really lame and should be reported; on the other hand, there is no way for the professor to verify that a student actually did vote for Obama… what are they going to do, take a picture of their ballot? They can always discard it/ask for a new ballot, and I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to take pictures inside the polling place anyway.

    This is a free country and people should be allowed to vote the way they want to. We don’t want to end up in a dictatorship where the incumbent wins with 99% of the vote and then the 1% who didn’t vote for the incumbent “mysteriously disappear.”