Chapter 5: Starting a New Term With No Phone or Filter: A Story of Teaching Under Federal Indictment

In this chapter, Michael Loadenthal shares his personal experience teaching while under federal indictment. His chapter discusses how he handled class discussion of that issue, and how his students responded.

I hadn’t intended to share the weekend’s goings on with the class, or at least not on our first meeting.

It was my first back day at work in 6 weeks and only my fifth month in a new job. This was a hard won job after nearly 2 years of un/underemployment after moving from DC to Cincinnati. I did not want to lose this job.

It was the first day of the Spring 2017 semester. It was Monday, January 23, 2017, and I had just spent the previous 3 days marching in the streets, detained by police, incarcerated, and driving from Ohio to DC and back. With little than a few hours between each event, I had been rapidly transported from Ohio to DC, to the DC jail and federal court detention system, and then back in a car headed from DC to Ohio, and nearly straight into a classroom of smiling undergrads.