District suspends ‘dangerous’ teacher for writing scifi novel about school shooting in 2902

He's black too. Now there is an additional dimension to this?

This whole thing isn't passing the smell test. It stinks.

There are allegations of something that (may have) happened some other time, and that someone is not under arrest for writing something (but not the novels) yet somewhat is not free (waiting for release).

Though to be fair this sounds like a classic case of artistic/bohemian-type teacher heading straight for a breakdown... I guess the sercecy of the authorities is understandable in this instance.

Am I the only one who doesn't think his books were the issue?

McLaw was institutionalized for a letter he sent to school officials over the summer. It is not clear whether his books had anything to do with their decision, but on account of them sending K9 units in to find bombs and guns then they must have had a reason to assume there was something wrong.

To me, this feels more like the criminalization of mental illness. It appears to me that they hired the guy despite his books but when they learned that he might not be within the acceptable range of mental health they started assuming that he must be dangerous. This feels much more like an instance where people's irrational fears of people with mental illness are being sensationalized. I think it points to a larger problem of people not understanding mental health and what, if any, actual danger there is with certain types of mental health issues.

I'm with Jamie on this one. I see it often.

Silly people. Writers don't kill people. That's why they write; so they don't have to.

Can you imagine if we held authors of the classics to this standard? Hemingway, Dickens, Carroll... they'd all be locked away forever. What about Stephen King? By all accounts that guy is twisted, but some of his writing is incredible and he hasn't murdered anyone as far as I know.

And don't even get me started on song lyrics...

There are, however, some countries that do just that...