Roommates, I need your thoughts on this one. A professor at the University of Miami was allegedly fired after a viral TikTok video made by one of his students pointed out a pornography bookmark on his computer.
Professor John Peng Zhang was sharing his computer screen with his business class over Zoom during a lecture when students in his class spotted a bookmark on his browser titled “busty college girl,” according to Insider.
One of the first students who spotted the bookmark called it out over the live microphone and the rest of the class took notice and began taking screenshots and sharing it on social media.
A TikTok by one of his students that published screen grabs of the bookmark went viral and Zhang never returned to class. The video garnered more than 800,000 views in only a few hours, according to the college newspaper, The Miami Hurricane.
Jesse Lieberman, the author of The Hurricane story, reported that Zhang addressed the issue with his class in the next meeting.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he said, according to Lieberman. “I didn’t see it, I’m pretty sure everybody else did…My apologies to the class.”
The professor’s name has since been removed from the university webpage and other professors have been filling in for his classes, according to The Miami Hurricane.
Some students told the paper they were unhappy that they were never given an explanation about what happened to their professor and that other professors with different teaching styles have been assigned to their classes so late in the semester.
The University of Miami gave the following statement to the paper:
“The University of Miami aggressively investigates all complaints of inappropriate behavior or sexual harassment. After receiving a complaint through the University’s ethics hotline, the incident was investigated by the Office of the Provost, Title IX investigator and Miami Herbert Business School.”
This may serve as a cautionary tale for the next time you have to share your screen in a professional setting.
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