What is unprofessional about breastfeeding. I guess if the teacher sneezed she would not have been giving her students 100%?
1st day of class so unlikely the TA could have done a reasonable job.

The rest of your points are reasonable.

What is so terrible about breastfeeding to people. (as long as it's not in an Olive Garden).

Breastfeeding while giving a lecture? I see nothing wrong with breastfeeding, but while giving a lecture is overboard. There are breast pumps she could use to prepare for the baby. I see nothing wrong with her breastfeeding in class while students are taking a test, but giving a lecture and doing so is also disturbing the baby.

Neither of my kids did.
Unlikely it was disturbing to the baby. They're usually pretty mellow while nursing.

Is the baby usually in childcare? If so, then then how is the baby usuky fed in that situation?

Regardless, this is the problem with purists. The issue is that the woman is on the job. Is it ok for a surgeon to breastfeed while operating? A cop while walking the beat? A lawyer while arguing in front of a jury?

I have no issues with breadtfeedung in public. This isn't anout that, altho many try to argue that strawman point. The professor was at work. Being paid and on the job. She has a TA babysitting, and her child was crawling around and being a distraction. To me, the issue isn't the breastfeeding. It's the lack of professionalism. Do I wish we had better options for parents with sick kids? Yes . But sometimes when you have a sick kid, your only option is to call in sick yourself. Was that not an option?

but I do believe that there are times it is inappropriate. When a woman is actually in the process of carrying out the job for which she has been hired to perform, it is totally inappropriate to be breast feeding a child. It is not a matter of breast feeding right or wrong it is all about professional conduct. I am female and have worked in both the banking industry and state government. If I had an employee that pulled a similar stunt while in the middle of actually performing the job for which she was hired you had better believe that I would remember it and it would factor in reviewing future opportunities for that person.

My understanding is that the child is in day care while her mother is at work. When Mom is not around she has to be eating somehow. The child was reported to be one years old so there are normal baby/young children food that the child should have also been eating.

The woman did have options:
1. The University gives employees sick days so she could have stayed at home
2. She claimed that it was either bring the baby to class or cancel class. That is BS because she did have a Teaching Assistant. Another member of DU posted on a thread that there wasn't a semester that she didn't have a class via email/blackboard because she had to stay home with a sick child.
3. She cannot claim to have been totally focused on her class and lecture because she had to remove a paper clip from the child's mouth and shoo her away from an electrical outlet. Even though she told the TA that the TA did not have to hold the child off and on, the TA must have felt like the child was a distraction to the class and felt like she had to keep picking the child up.
4. It kind of makes me wonder what would have happened if the child needed to have her diaper changed. Would she have stopped to change it in the middle of class?

Another thing that really raises the red flag for me is the comment that she is a militant medical anthropologist, militant being the operative word. In addition, look at the way she reacted to the school newspaper. Both these things show to me that she has chosen to start this fight.

Women have enough problems being taken seriously in the work place. Women like her do not help the cause. I expect professional conduct by both men and women in the work place.

A teaching assistant cannot be reasonably expected to come up with a lecture at a moment's notice, not even another professor will do that. If the main instructor of a class cannot show up to lecture, s/he is supposed to either leave a full lecture (or possibly well fleshed out notes, if the substitute is willing) for someone else to present or cancel.

had to keep picking up the child would indicate that the child was a distraction to the class.

But calling in with "My kid is sick, you have to give a lecture this morning" is not acceptable. The right thing to do is cancel the lecture or have someone else watch the kid, even if that means paying a childcare professional to watch the kid.

a professor in class might well be a part of his/her job duties. As the TA was in the class during the lecture, one might guess that the TA is actively involved with working alongside the Professor. Back when I was in college, a lot of my lab classes were run solely by TAs. I don't think that it would have been out of line for the Professor to have allowed a TA handle a class. She could have notified via phone or email what the class was for that day, having the TA either teach the class or give the students an assignment that they would have to complete for the next class.

Edit ad that I have also had classes taught by TAs.

I doubt the risk was very great unless the students were kissing the baby. (or breastfeeding afterward. )

something possibly contagious, you should stay home and not spread it around.

If you have limited number of sick days, or don't get paid when you don't work, you may have little choice.

because of Elizab***h Hasselb***h.

The wife watches it just to hear what that rude, rabidly conservative Republican, fundamentally religious (if that term can be applied to a Mormon), Hannity/Beck/Limbaugh/O'Reilly parroting, Barbara Walters protege will say on the latest political topics.

I'm lucky she hasn't (yet!) smashed the TV.


On edit: and as for the breast feeding professor ... I like breasts as much as the next guy but ... were I a student in her class I'd be pissed because I paid my tuition so I expect her attention to be on teaching me not chasing after and feeding her infant.

And I breastfed them in terms of years, not months (ahem, I may have been quite militant too). I have to say it's not something I think is a great idea - taking a baby to class. Now, if this was a case of a young baby not yet on solid food and unwilling to take a bottle from anyone, and was not normally in childcare and the mother was a guest speaker and her sitter cancelled, I might cut her some slack and I definitely wouldn't see breastfeeding in class as the main issue. But the child is older and is normally in childcare, can eat and drink things other than breastmilk and is SICK therefore I disagree with what the professor did.

People who bring their sick kids everywhere bother the crap out of me. When my kids were sick, they were at home or with someone else. They were NOT at school, daycare, out at a birthday party, snotting all over the shopping cart, etc. Inevitably, someone would invite us over for a playdate and when we got there, all of their kids were hacking and coughing with flushed cheeks from fever and had snot running everywhere. "Oh, don't mind little Suzy, she has a bit of a cold." THANKS for letting me KNOW! and then we ALL got sick - me AND my kids and it was NEVER 'just a cold' - it was always worse than a cold, and always turned into barfing or bronchitis or something more serious. It's a giant pet-peeve of mine. So just for the sick kid thing this woman gets a giant thumbs down. Plus, this woman is fucking LUCKY - she HAS sick days and family leave time. How many poor women DON'T have that and have to take a day off without pay?! Jeez, use those days - this is the kind of thing they are THERE for!

I'm not even opposed to people taking their kids to work once in awhile. My mom used to have to go in on the odd Saturday to finish up some things and always brought us kids. We got to play on the typewriter (yeah, loooong time ago, lol) and run around the warehouse. I have friends that had jobs that made taking their kids to work do-able. This, I don't believe, is one of those jobs. JMO. And the sick thing again.