My favorite professor became a convicted rapist
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| John F. Dye via WRAL |
He was actually a grad student when he taught my summer class in Sociology. The topic was Black-White relations. John F. Dye was Hawaiian, Puerto Rican and Black. If I remember correctly, he was adopted.
My class was really small. There may have been five or six of us in the class, of multiple ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds. I don't know how it happened, but somehow there was the Jewish son of a business owner, a Southern White girl, a Latina, a future NFL player, me, and I feel like there was one other person.
We would all talk openly...the discussions would get hot, but John kept them calm. He was a thought provoking mediator. I appreciated the fact that our class discussions had no boundaries. He was cool, and encouraged us to appreciate differences, while embracing similarities.
That's the guy I knew as John F. Dye. I think I took the class the summer before my senior year. John was one of the instructors I kept in touch with after I graduated...at least through email, for a short time. I think he may have been one of my recommendation writers for law school along with a Poli Sci instructor I really liked. I took several classes with her in international politics.
I had a schoolmate who took the class later on. He was also fond of John. Over the years we have discussed the class off and on. Yesterday he hit me up on Facebook with some shocking news.
19 hours ago
Needless to say, I was floored and disgusted by what I learned. The sad thing is for his stepdaughter to have had to live through her trauma in silence. This all started after John had taught us... I don't know if he changed, or if he was always this way.
The John who instructed us was intelligent, respectful, genuine, and spoke highly and lovingly of his blended family. That makes what he did even more cruel. But, as I said to my classmate, people have the capacity for good and evil.
It has become difficult for me to say, "There's no way so and so would do x,y,z..." I can only say, "That is not what I know of him or her." Yet, I don't walk around suspicious of people. I'm not fearful. I trust God, and understand people.
John is serving 108 years in prison... His actions damaged a family...but there are other people who don't get caught or go unpunished, and leave their victims to bear the burdens.
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University of Virginia Suspends All Fraternities After Sex Assault Report
The University of Virginia on Saturday suspended all fraternities and related activities in the wake of a shocking report in Rolling Stone about an alleged 2012 sexual assault involving seven men, and the peer pressure that followed urging the victim not to report it. (Source)
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