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‘Game of Thrones’ T-shirt fuels suspension

College says professor's photo showing saying from TV series a threat

The Columbian
Published: April 17, 2014, 5:00pm

HACKENSACK, N.J. — A modern-day “Game of Thrones” may be afoot at the Bergen Community College this semester.

Art professor Francis Schmidt said an innocuous Google+ post of his 7-year-old daughter wearing a T-shirt from the hit HBO television show that reads “I will take what is mine with fire & blood” was used to retaliate against him.

Schmidt shared the photo Jan. 12 and it automatically notified the people in his circles, including a dean at the college, he said. College officials suspended him without pay for threatening the dean — “which I never did,” he said. “I posted a picture of my daughter.”

College officials told him they had never heard of the show, and had him Google it to prove it was well-known. He was still suspended, he said, and officials were concerned that the message was violent and could prompt a school shooting.

But revenge appears to be a theme in both the show and Schmidt’s life — he believes the suspension was retaliation for a grievance he had filed earlier after he was denied a sabbatical without explanation about two months before the incident.

“This was payback because I filed a grievance,” he said.

“The referenced incident refers to a private personnel matter at Bergen Community College. Since Jan.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,” college spokesman Larry Hlavenka Jr. said in a statement.

Schmidt said he asked the officials why they thought the slogan was threatening, and one said “when you see the word fire, then someone shows up with an AK-47 here shooting everybody,” he said.

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