College Cuts Ties With Professor Who Said Otto Warmbier Got ‘What He Deserved’

College Cuts Ties With Professor Who Said Otto Warmbier Got ‘What He Deserved’
Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. (Kyodo/File Photo/Reuters)
Ivan Pentchoukov
6/26/2017
Updated:
6/26/2017

The University of Delaware will not renew a contract with a professor who posted an offensive and insensitive message about Otto Warmbier, just days after he died.

Katherine Dettwyler, an adjunct professor of anthropology, posted the now-deleted, profanity-laced comment on Facebook, saying that Warmbier “acted like a spoiled, naive, arrogant U.S. college student who had never had to face the consequence of his actions.”

“Otto is typical of the mindset of a lot the young, white, rich, clueless males who come into my classes,” Dettwyler wrote.

Warmbier, a U.S. citizen, returned to the United States in a coma from North Korea and died several days later. He was imprisoned in North Korea, a communist regime, for allegedly removing a propaganda poster from his hotel room. The regime sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor.

The University of Delaware was under fire when Dettwyler’s Facebook post was reported on by the media and issued a statement condemning her words.

“We condemn any and all messages that endorse hatred and convey insensitivity toward a tragic event such as the one that Otto Warmbier and his family suffered,” the statement reads.

The U.S. Department of state holds North Korea “accountable for Otto Warmbier’s unjust imprisonment,” the agency said in a statement.

Dettwyler’s page on RateMyProfessor.com is filled with negative reviews, with some students saying she is unprofessional, offensive, rude, opinionated and blunt. One student’s review says that Dettwyler “hates America.”

Doctors who were treating Warmbier while he was still alive but in a coma said that he suffered a severe neurological injury and was losing tissue in all areas of his brain.

Warmbier was buried during a tearful ceremony in his hometown in Wyoming on June 22.

Fred and Cindy Warmbier follow their son's, Otto Wambier, casket to the hearse after his funeral at Wyoming High School in Wyoming, Ohio, U.S. June 22, 2017. (John Sommers II/Reuters)
Fred and Cindy Warmbier follow their son's, Otto Wambier, casket to the hearse after his funeral at Wyoming High School in Wyoming, Ohio, U.S. June 22, 2017. (John Sommers II/Reuters)

He was the captain of the soccer team at his high school and gave the salutatorian at the graduation, the New York Post reported.

 

Ivan is the national editor of The Epoch Times. He has reported for The Epoch Times on a variety of topics since 2011.
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