THIS VIDEO WAS CREATED IN JANUARY 2017.
WILLIAM & MARY IS TODAY NOT THE UNIVERSITY THESE STUDENTS DESCRIBE.
WILLIAM & MARY IS TODAY NOT THE UNIVERSITY THESE STUDENTS DESCRIBE.
A LOOK BACK AT THE LAST THREE YEARS
as experienced by former government professor David Dessler
The video above was uploaded to YouTube on Thursday, January 26, 2017.
That same week, a group of students from Dr. Dessler's former government classes went to WTKR TV3 studios in Hampton Roads to get his story on the air. Reporter Kim Cung came to campus to interview students when she learned that dozens wanted to speak to her. Only one spokesperson went on the air. The story aired on Friday night, February 17, 2017.
Kim Cung's report is still posted on the WTKR website: https://wtkr.com/2017/02/17/william-mary-professor-arrested-twice-for-sending-harassing-emails/
PROMO RUN BY REPORTER KIM CUNG ON WTKR - FRIDAY, FEB 17, 2017 - THIS WAS THE MOST WATCHED WTKR NEWS BROADCAST OF 2017
"Within the department I study in." Cameraman zooms in on one academic building. The one below.
THE GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT - TYLER HALL
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It is important to understand this event. The students defended their former government professor as mentally ill. The reporter did not understand what they were saying, and neither did most viewers at the time. The students believed Dr. Dessler to have a serious mental health disability, based on the disturbing emails attributed to him. This was the argument they made to defend him.
Here is a text of Kim Cung's broadcast as (still) posted on the web:
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. - A William & Mary professor has been arrested and charged for the second time in one year for harassing a colleague with obscene emails. David Dessler's bio is full of accolades. It's a sharp contrast to an email sent to a former department chairman littered with obscenities and threatening language.
Dessler has been with the college for more than 32 years. A concerned student who asked News 3 to hide his identity said Dessler's achievements are well known. "I had only ever heard positive things about him. I had never heard a bad thing about him," said the student.
Until the charges. According to court documents, around this time last year, Dessler was arrested for sending John McGlennon an email using profanity and threatening him.
On Jan. 13th of this year, Dessler was arrested again for sending dozens of emails berating college officials. In one email, Dessler told a story about someone being "strung up and strangled by the neck."
A college spokeswoman said Dessler has not been in the classroom since Oct. 2015 and even though he is tenured, his current status with the college is inactive. His bio is still on the website.
The student who spoke to News 3's Kim Cung said the lack of information was what frustrated him. "I was very upset about it and the fact that there was little to no communication about something that was going on within the department I study in."
Students who did not want to comment on camera coming to Dessler's defense said he suffers from mental illness.
"It was pretty upsetting to know this long employed professor over one incident was now not allowed to be on campus, not allowed to communicate with students," said the student.
Dessler is currently out on bond. His trial date is set for April 13.
The points the students were making were:
"Why is he in jail and not a hospital?"
"Why is he being put on trial?"
These were mostly students who had been in Dr. Dessler's classes in the spring and fall of 2015. Over four dozen students talked to the reporter, Kim Cung, when she visited campus on Wednesday, February 15, the day that Dr. Dessler was released from the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail after being held there without medications and without access to medical care for 34 days. Students told Ms. Cung that when Dr. Dessler announced a campus mental health initiative at the start of classes in the fall of 2015, he told them he had suffered from serious mental illness before and he made a point of saying, "It could happen again." The students assumed from the news reports of his arrests that he was right.
When former professor Dessler was suspended and banned from campus and prohibited by the terms of bonds set after his arrests from contacting students, the 86 students in the three classes he was removed from were not told these three things:
(1) Why he was removed over their objections. They were told only, "There was an incident--an administrative intervention."
(2) That he was banned from travel to campus that same week.
(3) That he was prohibited from contacting students that same week.
Their complaints have been ignored for almost three years. No longer.
Dr. Dessler's students objected to their former professor being treated like a criminal. They were extremely upset, very frustrated, and confused.
"Why is he in jail and not a hospital?"
"Why is he being put on trial?"
These were mostly students who had been in Dr. Dessler's classes in the spring and fall of 2015. Over four dozen students talked to the reporter, Kim Cung, when she visited campus on Wednesday, February 15, the day that Dr. Dessler was released from the Virginia Peninsula Regional Jail after being held there without medications and without access to medical care for 34 days. Students told Ms. Cung that when Dr. Dessler announced a campus mental health initiative at the start of classes in the fall of 2015, he told them he had suffered from serious mental illness before and he made a point of saying, "It could happen again." The students assumed from the news reports of his arrests that he was right.
When former professor Dessler was suspended and banned from campus and prohibited by the terms of bonds set after his arrests from contacting students, the 86 students in the three classes he was removed from were not told these three things:
(1) Why he was removed over their objections. They were told only, "There was an incident--an administrative intervention."
(2) That he was banned from travel to campus that same week.
(3) That he was prohibited from contacting students that same week.
Their complaints have been ignored for almost three years. No longer.
Dr. Dessler's students objected to their former professor being treated like a criminal. They were extremely upset, very frustrated, and confused.
Dr. Dessler then vanished for almost a year. Students on campus were shocked to see him reappear in this headline the day before Spring 2018 classes began:
Move forward ten months...
...and Dessler's career as the former government professor continues!
Three months later... Dessler is once again a sensational headline... or three!
