To deal with obnoxious students who text message during his class, Syracuse University prof Laurence Thomas has a strict policy: If he catches a student doing it, he will end the class immediately and walk out. He’s been making good on his playbook, staging brazen walk outs on his own course after catching students SMSing.

Naturally, parents and students aren’t digging his policy, complaining about the $30k they spend to be consumers of education, and how Thomas has a duty to pay up. The scandal has even reached the student newspaper! (Where we used to work!)

To Thomas, it’s a matter of respect; students need to show some.

So when he caught a student in the front row of a large lecture hall sending a “where r u?” last week, he up and left, and then sent students, the chancellor, and his dean an email about the incident, where he noted the offending student is Cuban and that last year, two Latino students started a game of tic-tac-toe during his class.

You see, white students are also mischievous, but to Thomas, who is black, minority students should have a better understanding of respect. Even if their cell phones are 3G and tricked out with 5 megapixel cams.