Professor who said Otto Warmbier was ‘clueless white male’ loses job

Jun 26, 2017

Katherine Dettwyler, the University of Delaware professor who said that Otto Warmbier, who died after being imprisoned in North Korea, “deserved” his death, will not be returning to the university.

According to the Washington Post, the university said that Dettwyler “will not be rehired to teach at the University in the future.” The university added that Dettwyler was not employed by the university when she made the comments about Warmbier and added that her views “in no way reflect the values or position of the University of Delaware.”

Dettwyler wrote on Facebook in comments that have since been deleted that Warmbier, who was returned to the United States in a coma shortly before he died, was “typical of a mindset of a lot of the young, white, rich, clueless males who come into my classes.”

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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,” Dettwyler wrote. “His parents ultimately are to blame for his growing up thinking he could get away with whatever he wanted. Maybe in the US, where young, white, rich, clueless white males routinely get away with raping women. Not so much in North Korea. And of course, it’s Ottos’ parents who will pay the price for the rest of their lives.”

“Is it wrong of me to think that Otto Warmbier got exactly what he deserved?” she also wrote. “I see him crying at his sentencing hearing and think, ‘What did you expect?’”