James Franco continues to be a menace to the academic world, which is pretty rich considering the guy considers his butt to be “art” and is currently appearing in the “raunchy” post-modern joke called Spring Breakers. He’s also gracing us with his presence in a new HuffPo column called “The Search for the Real,” which is all about “thinking about the ways different art forms use fantasy and reality.” In his latest column, James insists that all of his work is “pure,” and the only reason some critics don’t like him is because they are “superficial critics, and those tend to be the ones that my work attracts. I guess because I was in Spiderman.” Whatever, dude.

Regardless of his “artistic” body of acting work, Franco keeps insisting that he’s more than just a pretty face because he’s currently enrolled in three different universities. Not that this makes him a serious student though, because he was photographed sleeping through a lecture at Columbia University. More recently, he also got one of his NYU professors, Jose Santana, fired for giving him a “D” grade. Never mind that Franco missed 12 out of the 14 required meetings for that course, right? He’s James Franco, Artist! As it happened, James caused a huge ruckus over this grade because none of the other NYU profs dared to call him out for never coming to class because “big names such as Franco’s typically translate into big bucks for universities.” So James complained, and this guy got fired. Not only that, but Franco kept trashing the guy in interviews and said the only reason he didn’t attend class was because the guy was a terrible teacher. As if Franco would know this for a fact even though he never came to class, right? Well, Jose Santana has now slapped Franco with a defamation lawsuit. Good:

Actor James Franco may have to shell out another arm and a leg following a lawsuit filed yesterday by his former NYU film instructor — who claims the 127 Hours star defamed him because he got a “D” for playing hookey. Franco is “a bully,’” said the former full-time professor. “He uses the bully pulpit of his celebrity to punish anyone who doesn’t do his bidding.”

Jose Santana is seeking unspecified monetary damages in the Manhattan Supreme Court civil action against Franco, who has played a rock climber who amputated his own arm to free himself from a crevasse. The ex-instructor, who has already sued NYU, blasted Franco for making “disparaging and inaccurate public statements.”

“I didn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of those falsehoods,” said Santana, who has been a teacher since 1979 and was earning $70,000 when he was fired in September 2011. “I was outraged that someone with his attendance record at NYU had the audacity to make those statements.” He insisted he was only doing his job while other star-struck professors “bent over backwards to create a Franco-friendly environment.”

“When the suit was filed against him, Mr. Franco initially took the high road and said nothing,” said Matthew Blit, Santana’s lawyer. “Unfortunately, he could not help himself once his new movie was being released.”

Franco, who missed 12 of Santana’s 14 directing classes, had told reporters Santana was “awful,” adding, “I didn’t feel like I needed to waste my time with a bad teacher.”

“No teacher will ever be fired from NYU for giving a student a ‘D,'” Franco told several media outlets in April. “He wasn’t fired, he was asked not to come back after three years because they didn’t think he was a good teacher.”

“He is not going to be hired at another institution,” Franco charged in another interview.

Santana claims the actor had access to teaching records — but defamed him despite knowing the professor had “overwhelmingly positive student evaluations.”

[From Page Six]

You know, it’s bad enough that Franco got this guy fired (and I believe he did so by threatening to pull out of the Tisch program), but then he has to go and keep badmouthing the guy and wish ill will on his continued teaching career? This professor earned his job through several years of graduate-level schooling, and Franco swans in with his “art”-filled presence and thinks that he deserves the world for nothing. Mind you, it’s not like Franco saves the world for a living — he merely pretends to be other people and gets paid for it. He’s an entertainer. Yet Franco honestly and truly thinks that he’s performing an invaluable service to people by appearing in their movies and television shows. As a result, he thinks he should get anything he wants, and he’ll destroy people who get in his way by throwing a raging tantrum. NYU played along with his little game too. How shameful.

Photos courtesy of WENN