Penn Grad Student Enjoys Particle Physics, Game Theory, Touching Boys
Grad students are, pretty much by default, creepy. Not undergrads, not yet professors, they're caught in the murky gray zone that's home to both legitimate career academics and social misfits with no job prospects.
Oh, and child molesters. A couple weeks ago, Penn discovered that Kurt Mitman, a first-year economics grad student, lived off-campus. In fact, he'd been commuting to school all year. From prison. Mitman was convicted in March 2005 for molesting a 14-year-old boy, and was attending classes as part of a daytime academic release program. Penn had no reason to suspect (unless, of course, they'd bothered Googling him): Mitman graduated from UVA with a dual degree in 2004, before going on to study econo-physics at Oxford as a Marshall scholar. It wasn't until Mitman's mother discovered on a sex offender database that her son was enrolled -- six months after he'd started taking classes -- that corrections officials told the university about Mitman's history.
Other than Mitman's little slip-up at genius camp -- the boy was a camper, he was a counselor -- his record is totally clean. That said, there was some ominous foreshadowing in an old UVA puff piece titled, "Curiosity drives Mitman's pursuits."
No word yet on whether he'll get to continue his studies at Penn. But if he does, you won't want him as a TA: Bucks County prison is a schlep, even for office hours.
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January 26th, 2007 at 1:43 pm
Being a graduate student myself, I take some offense at the characterization, despite its obvious truth. Another good example is that Columbia history TA who was arrested earlier this year for having a meth lab in his apartment (he wasn’t even the most ridiculous arrest — a vice president of Citigroup or some such was also in the ring).
January 26th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
It was -8 in Hanover when I woke up this morning!
January 26th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
I find the ongoing coverage of this in the DP and now on here to be troubling, to say the least. Well, maybe not on here, seeing as this is just gossip and not necessarily making a political statement, but the coverage and responses this story is getting in the DP are disheartening. Are we all really of the mind that once someone is convicted of a crime they no longer deserve to exist as productive members within our society? I mean, yeah, he’s a pedophile and that’s fucked up, but does that really mean he should be barred from going to Penn? Or any school for that matter? I really see no way how a man’s mental illness/sexual abnormalities/whatever you want to call it would affect his work in the field of economics. And it’s not like he’s teaching at an elementary school during the day. If you really want to make the case that sexual offenders have no place at all within academia than pretty much every date-raping, Rohypnol-happy member of every frat across the nation would have to be removed, too. Just a thought.
January 26th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I’m with Penn ‘08. What’s the possible reason that this man should be thrown out of Penn?
January 26th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Exposing people’s private lives (especially uninteresting nobodies) is neither news nor news-worthy. When Harold Bloom finally gets his fingers caught in the underaged cookie jar, call me, but this story is just sad. Why not go through the police records of every Ivy Leaguer and publicly humiliate ALL of them.
January 26th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
The only issue I really see here is his non-disclosure. Since grad students are application based (and usually compensated in some round-about fashion through working for a professor or the university? right) wouldn’t he have had to answer the following question:
Have you ever been convicted of a crime? If yes explain the nature of convictions etc etc.
So, not disclosing his status as a convicted sex offender would be fraud, right?
Badunno
January 26th, 2007 at 3:09 pm
“Why not go through the police records of every Ivy Leaguer and publicly humiliate ALL of them.”
What the . . .?
Having a police record qualifies you for public humiliation, Hello. If you do something society deems out of line, part of your punishment is having people know about it.
The real scandal here is Penn’s ignorance, not the work-release program.
January 26th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Kate: Do you have ANY friends? On second thought, don’t answer that b/c no one will believe you if you say yes. (Pets don’t count, btw.)
January 26th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Fraud issues aside, I am discussing the reaction to his presence on campus. I have no problem with him being expelled for misrepresenting himself on an application. That’s another topic altogether. My problem is with the knee-jerk, it’s-outrageous-that-he’s-allowed-to-go-to-Penn reaction that I have been observing as of late.
And Kate, does being convicted of a crime really give society-at-large carte blanche to humiliate you? Are we supposed to assume that people are incapable of reform or change, and then proceed to ridicule and ostracize them for the rest of their lives? Why not just remove criminals from society forever through execution or deportation to some kind of penal colony if all crime warrants perpetual punishment? And as far as Penn’s ignorance goes, why is it their prerogative to figure out that he’s a sex-offender if he did in fact misrepresent himself on his application? But more importantly, why should his status as a sex-offender have anything to do with his acceptance into Penn for a graduate program in economics?
January 26th, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Are you claiming that Penn is the Australia of the Ivy League? (we’ll send our criminals there!…where are those hasty pudding producers from 6 years ago?)
January 26th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
how Penn now longs for the heady days of the late ’80s when it was known as ‘the uni that Gary from Thirtysomething taught at, and I think Michael also went there as well’.
January 26th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
the way i see it, the implications are worse for the penal system than they are for penn. because they let a convicted sex offender who is still serving a sentence out on his own for 12 hours a day monday-friday. he was not paroled, he was let out of prison on academic release – he’s still serving a sentence. shouldn’t there be a more rigorous system of monitoring? if he were out on academic release, wouldn’t you think the corrections facility would check in with the academic institution he was attending to make sure everything was in order, and that he actually was doing what he said he was doing?
January 26th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
regarding fraud/non-disclosure:
UPenn doesn’t actually ask applicants to declare if they have been convicted of a felony on the grad application. You can see the application for yourself here:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/GAS/AppDL.html
Usually, that statement is found only on Law School applications, because convictions/nondisclosure can hurt your chances of being admitted to the Bar.
January 26th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
my mistake. I know that you have to note that on almost any job application (which might mean that if he was being at all compensated for his work…) and certainly for applications to harvard schools.
Guess penn got what they asked for…
January 27th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Don’t dog on grad students. If it were not for our cheap labor doing research and teaching for the esteemed faculties, undergrads would probably be paying $250,000 a year in tuition instead of having our hard-fought grant money supporting your asses
January 29th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Mr. Roboto,
I appreciate the sentiment, but actually their tuition supports you. That said, $250,000 a year sounds about right to me.
January 29th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Actually… it depends on the program. Many grad students actually have to apply for outside grants to support themselves. Or they apply on behalf of faculty, who get huge grants which benefit the entire program. This tends to be more the norm in the hard sciences/engineering.
January 30th, 2007 at 12:13 am
So wait…his own mother ratted him out?! Damn…sux to be him
January 31st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
holy shit- did you see this in the scholarship article:
Guide Service (tours for children are his favorite), to the International Relations Organization, where he co-founded a foreign affairs journal.
TOURS FOR CHILDREN ARE HIS FAVORITE?
February 1st, 2007 at 10:52 am
I was also surprised his mom was the one who found out from other articles I thought it was the victim’s mother who found out… Except that the location works for his mom… And I think it was that the mother had been asked to be notified BEFORE Kurt was allowed to leave prison.
February 13th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Just to set the record straight — Mitman did NOT commit fraud. Penn’s application did not ask whether he had been convicted of a crime. According to PA law, once a person has been approved for work release, which the Judge approved, the correctional facilities can determine the best course of action for someone. Since Mitman had been a student, they allowed him to continue his studies. Mitman’s case is all about politics and harassment. The teenager’s mother was upset that Kurt was allowed to go to school. The Megan’s law website was used to harass and make Mitman a national figure. He had never had any publicity and was just trying to put his life back together. It is a felony to use information on the website to harass individuals. If we think that sex offenders should be on a website, why stop there? Why not put all convicted felons on a website. Statistics show that the recidivism rate among the general criminal population is higher than that of sex offenders. More people are killed or harmed by drunk drivers than sex offenders. Why not put all persons convicted of DUI on a website, so the neighbors can monitor when they drink? It sounds like the Soviet Union — it that what we want in America?
Finally in most states teenagers can be treated as adults when they commit crimes, why is it that teenagers can’t make decisions about their sexual activity? Mitman, by definition, is not a child molester — he had contact with a teenager, not a pre-pubescent child.
November 26th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
He should make every underrgrad bitch whore suck his cock.
June 8th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
or burnt, a bit of I still School as a sapling about
June 8th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
wasn’t at and climb having even know just their had probably beechnuts him. even a job natural crown. a scientist. neighborhood we just
June 9th, 2008 at 3:01 am
I remember Forest. more than for the to dine managed planted
June 9th, 2008 at 3:04 am
damage else and climb for kids woods neighborhood beechnuts