Former Drexel engineering professor accused of misusing $185,000 worth of grant money on strippers, sports bars, and iTunes

The romantic in me likes to imagine these were some swinging engineering classes, but I digress.

The former chairman of Drexel University's engineering department was charged last week by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office for allegedly stealing $185,000 worth of grant money.

Professor Chikaodinaka Nwankpa is accused of spending the money on strip clubs, sports bars, and iTunes. The District Attorney's office charged Nwankpa with theft by unlawful taking* and theft by deception, each of which is a felony.

His alleged crimes occurred between 2010 and 2017 and seemed suspicious when an audit showed a number of "no receipt" purchases. When confronted, Nwankpa allegedly passed off his strip club visits as catering and food expenses, although many of the purchases occurred between midnight and 2am. But who doesn't get the late night munchies sometimes, amiright?

Of the $185,000, Nwankpa allegedly used $96,000 on "adult entertainment" and sports bars, while $89,000 was spent on iTunes, various meals, and other additional purchases. So, with that iTunes catalog, he has a future side-hustle as a wedding DJ.

Drexel placed Nwankpa on administrative leave pending the investigation, but he later resigned. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for January 29th.



*Isn't "theft by unlawful taking" sort of redundant? Theft is literally taking something unlawfully--no? Can you commit theft by taking stuff lawfully? Just sit there and grab something and promise you might bring it back? Why haven't we been told this before??

The comedic stylings of Drexel University professor causes a ruckus.

On Christmas day, Drexel University associate professor of politics George Ciccariello-Maher, went for the open-mic night material and decided to tweet the following (now made private on Twitter):

"All I want for Christmas is white genocide."

If this sounds similar to that time you posted your negative holiday views about fruitcake on Facebook, it's exactly like that, except deadlier and a lot more problematic for millions of racists.

Conservative news sites like Breitbart lathered up the masses, worried that an intellectual was encouraging the death of white society.

Ciccariello-Maher released a statement saying that his tweet was satirical (zing!), even though his follow-up tweet on Sunday also said:

"To clarify: when the whites were massacre [sic] during the Haitian revolution, that was a good thing indeed."

This is the worst Saturday Night Live sketch ever,

Admittedly, I'm not certain the professor understands how satire works, and--if anything--the comedic stylings of Ciccariello-Maher are a little  moderately  massively dry, but it raises multiple issues.

White supremacists and their poorly run websites irrationally fear an American "white genocide" that will topple them from the socio-economic power position in the United States. Meanwhile, academics fear that freedom of speech will be smothered by a notable American university as a means to kill bad press.

In the end, what will really happen from all of this?

Nothing.

It'll blow over. News will cycle. Drexel University will sweat it out. Ciccariello-Maher will remain hidden on Twitter. White supremacists will spread hate. And everything old is new again is old again is new.

Zing!

Because satire is hard.