George R.R. Martin has moved from killing your favorite characters in Westeros to killing people’s jobs IRL.
Francis Schmidt, a professor at Bergen Community College in New Jersey, has been placed on administrative leave (without pay) after posting a photo of his daughter wearing a Game of Thrones t-shirt to his Google+ page.
Here’s the post:
Schmidt met with human resources shortly after the post went up in January, and was dismissed.
Why in the hell would this get anyone suspended from anything ever? As it turns out, the office politics at Bergen Community College are about as complex and unpredictable as they are in Game of Thrones.
The faculty union of the school is in “open conflict” with the administration, according to nj.com. They recently cast a no-confidence vote in Bergen’s president earlier this month, citing poor communication between administration and staff.
A commenter on Schmidt’s Google+ profile also dismissed his suspension as “politics.”
Bergen Community College released a statement of its own regarding Schmidt’s dismissal, which somehow ties a photo of a young girl doing yoga in a Game of Thrones t-shirt to school shootings:
“The referenced incident refers to a private personnel matter at Bergen Community College. Since January 1, 2014, 34 incidents of school shootings have occurred in the United States. In following its safety and security procedures, the college investigates all situations where a member of its community – students, faculty, staff or local residents – expresses a safety or security concern.”
If you ask us, Bergen’s administration took the Red Wedding waaaaaay too seriously.
Have you ever lost your job or been suspended over a Game of Thrones t-shirt? Yeah, we didn’t think so. This isn’t exactly common.