Another Academy of Art Student Expelled Over Fiction

The Bay Guardian reports a new twist to the Academy of Art University controversy: a second student who's been expelled based on the contents of a creative writing assignment. This time around, it's a young woman whose metafictional story included a suggestion that she'd kill herself if she didn't get an A and a splotch of what she claimed was her blood.

[T]he administration demanded that she sign a behavioral contract and call a psychotherapist to understand her "inappropriate behaviors." When she saw that "behavior" was partly defined by the school as "expression," she resisted, fearing that agreeing to the code would mean she was agreeing to censor herself. The contract would have required that she never again write about suicide, "in jest or as a literary device," or "submit papers that contain blood stains." She also objected to the school's restriction on "vulgarity... lewd, indecent or obscene behavior... [including] sexually explicit content" and felt the contract would limit her rights to criticize the administration.

So they sent her home. And then they "expressed concerns" to her teacher about his use of class time to discuss the controversy with students. Keep in mind that they've already fired a teacher who went off the syllabus before... this story just gets better and better, doesn't it?