OFF THE RECORD: Deviant for a Day? What About Two Years?!

Amidst the daily revelations surrounding the scandalous behavior of Nashville Mayor Megan Barry, Off the Record thought it might be interesting to explore the teachings of Barry’s extremely liberal husband Bruce, who teaches at Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Bruce is a member of the national board of directors of the ACLU and is past President of the Tennessee ACLU chapter. According to his Vanderbilt bio: “Professor Barry’s current and recent research explores the social context of ethical decision making, the intersection of ethics and emotion, and deception and entitlement in negotiation.” (Emphasis added.)

Vanderbilt also notes that Professor’s Barry’s expertise is in two particular areas: “(1) social issues in management, including ethics, public policy, and workplace rights; and (2) the psychology of interpersonal and group behavior in organizations, including power, influence, negotiation, conflict and justice.”

So, exactly how does Professor Barry impart his expertise and research on these issues into the minds of his students? A review of the course syllabus from one of his classes at Vanderbilt’s Owen School a few years back is instructive. The syllabus details the various class assignments and expectations, grading, etc. for Management 443, Power and Influence in Organizations.

One particular assignment of interest, representing 15% off the course grade, was the Deviant for a Day Paper. “The objective is to violate some basic aspect of your self-image for an entire day, without telling anyone why you are doing this deviant action, and to observe both how others react to you and how you respond to this experience.” Students then wrote a paper of approximately 1250 words detailing their experience.

Deviant for a Day?!?!? Mayor Megan Barry took it to two years. Did she expect extra credit?

The assignment is very consistent with Professor Barry’s research into “deviant behavior” and its effect on bystanders, co-workers, colleagues, etc. In fact, he wrote a scholarly paper about it in which he concluded, among other things, that “deviant behavior” makes others around the deviant actor more susceptible to engage in their own deviant behavior.  It is not that deviant behavior itself is “contagious,” just that in an environment where deviant behavior is exhibited by some it becomes more widely practiced by others.

Yes, Every Kid

If Professor Barry is right, then the Mayor’s office and the Police Department may have other “deviant behavior” issues that have not yet come to light – but which deserve a thorough and immediate investigation.

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14 Thoughts to “OFF THE RECORD: Deviant for a Day? What About Two Years?!”

  1. Brian McMurphy

    From what I’ve seen, nothing runs in that “family”.

  2. Sherrie Orange

    Only Tennessee Star will be doing true investigative journalism! That is why this paper continues to be popular. Truth matters to these people!

  3. Randall

    “Deviance” seems to run in her family

  4. Claudia Henneberry

    I’m so confused! According to the left, there is no deviant behavior unless it is committed by someone on the right. Why would the Tennessean throw their Marxist Mayor under the bus? Who was about to reveal Megan’s dirty little secret before she was forced to get out in front of it and reveal it herself? Guess we’ll never know what was said in the emails and texts because, above all, the left will protect their sacred agenda.

  5. Claudia Henneberry

    I’m so confused! According to the left, there is no such thing as deviant behavior unless someone on the right engages in it. Hmmm, why would the Tennesseean throw their Marxist Mayor under the bus?? Who was about to reveal Megan’s little secret before she decided it should be revealed instead by her?

  6. Austin

    Did Megan furnish the research work for husband Professor Barry’s course?

  7. Dee

    Had she been a man with these “indiscretions” coming to light–er, caught– the left-wing feminist organizations (nasty women) would have swarmed Nashville from the four corners of America to riot and stampede the capitol building. Where’s the outrage? Why is it no longer “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander”? I’m female, and I will not tolerate or forgive her actions or her confidence that she will stay in office.. Double standard in reverse. Where is Ashley Judd when ya need her?!?

  8. Not My Mayor

    Nashville is not Nash-Francisco. But that’s what the Mayor and her soon to be ex-husband communist want. ( among a few others on the Council)

  9. Wolf Woman

    Being involved with the ACLU TN chapter, Bruce Barry knows Hedy Weinberg, the director here in Nashville and her husband Dan Cornfield, who are both committed socialists. Dan Cornfield teaches at Vanderbilt in the Sociology Dept. If they aren’t friends with the Mayor and Bruce, then they are at least working companions in the progressive (socialist) branch of the Tennessee democrat party.

    Hedy and Dan are from Chicago, and like Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, admirers of Saul Alinsky, a sociologist who wrote Rules for Radicals, the playbook for the radical left. Alinsky showed how community organizing could mobilize individuals and form them into social “justice” activist groups that could attack the established political system (they hate the U.S. Constitution) in a variety of ways. Think Black Lives Matter, Antifa, New Black Panthers, Highlander School, ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, etc. Saul Alinsky dedicated his play book to Lucifer. That tells you a lot.

    If you dig deeper, you’ll find our fair city has been coopted by a gang of lefty crooks, power mongers and pseudo-intellectuals who dedicated themselves to burrowing into our pubic and private institutions in the name of socialism. But how smart can they be if they dedicated a life time to a system that has failed where ever it has been tried. And Vanderbilt has been their incubator. That’s telling too.

  10. Floyd

    No big surprise that the Mayor and her betrayed husband worship the likes of Saul Alinsky and David Rockefeller. The time has come to consider a recall election in order to remove this stubborn and dictatorial socialist from office. She’s the one who keeps bragging that she’s staying because we trusted and voted for her three years ago. Let’s see if she can survive a recall election within the coming weeks based on a more current vote.

    1. Karen Bracken

      I do not believe you can recall her. Maybe ouster would work. TN needs to create a stronger wider recall policy. If nothing else make sure she does not get elected again. The south is ripe for these infiltrations and every major city in TN has been coopted not just Nashville.

  11. Papa

    “Deviant”? There are a few other words that would describe Barry’s actions. Opportunist/parasite/hypocrite/liar . . . . .
    Barry made her first public appearance after the ‘confession’ in two black churches in Nashville acting all humble. I can’t remember a time going to the alter to atone for a sin that I kept dry eyes. But once again her face showed no emotion and there were no tears. Why would she not go to ‘her’ church and ‘her’ pastor in private? These actions were no more than a publicity stunt for a photo shoot. By the way . . . .Barry claims to be Catholic!

    1. Erc

      I suspect shes atheist like her commie husband.

  12. Brian McMurphy

    Bruce Barry’s Nashville Scene website has, to date, published three Pith In The Wind blog posts.

    The last of which was all but an endorsement of adultery because, like, who are you to judge or something.

    I am all about solutions though. Let’s get Bruce in some ED commercials for his impotence or an extreme makeover on Pickler & Ben. Change that hair don’t into a hair do.

    Get that syllabus on his advanced 600 level graduate course on the Power and Ethics of Cuckolding and write your dissertation on being a Sub Hubby with Aunt Peg For A Night.

    The real meat of this story is going to be the e-mails and text messages between Aunt Peg and Sgt. Forrest Hump in discovery. Why no one has demanded those be released yet is beyond me.

    Probably because it is going to also reveal collusion with the lobbyists to pass this $10 billion dollar abomination, how much of a commie she is, and all sorts of other dirt.

    Don’t expect The Scene, Tennesean, or the local tv stations to do any investgative work on that.

    Comfort the comfortable and afflict the afflicted as they say.

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