Professor fired after criticizing Warmbier and ‘white clueless males’

The casket of Otto Warmbier is carried from his funeral at Wyoming High School June 22 in Wyoming, Ohio. Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old college student who was released from a North Korean prison after spending 17 months in captivity for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

The casket of Otto Warmbier is carried from his funeral at Wyoming High School June 22 in Wyoming, Ohio. Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old college student who was released from a North Korean prison after spending 17 months in captivity for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images

A Delaware adjunct college professor who said on social media that Otto Warmbier’s “cluelessness” got him killed found her remarks got her fired from her job.

On her personal Facebook page, Kathy Dettwyler, a former adjunct professor at the University of Delaware, wrote that Warmbier situation was “typical of a mindset of a lot of the young, white, rich, clueless males who come into my classes,” according to reports on Delaware Online and elsewhere.

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“These are the same kids who cry about their grades because they didn’t think they’d really have to read and study the material to get a good grade,” she said on her Facebook page, which has since been taken down or made private. “His parents ultimately are to blame for his growing up thinking he could get away with whatever he wanted.”

Warmbier died in Cincinnati on June 19. He was a University of Virginia student visiting North Korea in January 2016 when he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years hard labor after being accused of stealing a propaganda poster from his hotel.

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Dettwyler’s remarks sparked an outcry, with people across the country calling for her to be fired.

“Katherine Dettwyler, who last taught in the spring as an adjunct faculty member, will not be rehired to teach at the university in the future,” a statement from University of Delaware read, according to Fox News.

“The comments of Katherine Dettwyler do not reflect the values or position of the University of Delaware,” the university also said. “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.”

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