JOE'S HERO?

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.

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.