# Thoughts on the suspension of this professor? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 4, 2020, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830 "2020-09-04T18:08:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/81 "2020-09-05T02:04:20Z")
USC has been mired in controversy for a while and this present action is likely an overreaction to recent events. > **[How USC Fired One Dean, Hired Another, And Kept Itself Mired In Controversy](https://laist.com/news/how-usc-fired-one-dean-hired-another-and-kept-itself-mired-in-controversy)** > > Details of how the dean of USC's Marshall School of Business was hired -- secretively and swiftly, with those involved in the process saying no other candidate was seriously considered -- have raised questions yet again about how USC operates. > [@](#): > > USC board chair Rick Caruso told the [LA Times](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-usc-business-school-dean-trustees-20181212-story.html) that the decision was “part of where the university is today in terms of acknowledging a proper culture that needs to be embraced and practiced on campus.” The Los Angeles Times, which several months later won a Pulitzer for its coverage of a scandal involving former USC gynecologist George Tyndall, [reported that Ellis’s removal](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-usc-business-school-dean-trustees-20181212-story.html) was prompted by how he handled “allegations of racial and gender discrimination and hostile workplace conditions” against Marshall school faculty and staff. > **[USC Cardiology Program Loses Accreditation Amid Med School Scandals](https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/clery/usc-cardiology-program-loses-accreditation/)** > > In a faculty memo Thursday, USC's medical school dean said the program was losing its accreditation due to "resident safety and wellness processes.” > **[Another Accuser Speaks Out As State Investigators Meet with Former USC...](https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/another-accuser-speaks-out-as-state-investigators-meet-with-former-usc-gynecologist-at-center-of-controversy/47688/)** > > Another accuser discussed the concerns she had at the time, and why she is speaking out now, even as state investigators met George Tyndall, a former gynecologist at the USC Student Health Center. Meantime, pressure for change of leadership at the... ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/82 "2020-09-05T02:20:11Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I wonder if the difference this time was that he was teaching online instead of in person. This makes tons of sense to me. If you watch the video, it’s so awful as to be distractingly bad. I could definitely imagine watching and mostly tuning out because of the awful quality, and then suddenly I have a teacher saying “nigga nigga nigga” at me. Basically, “blah blah blah nigga nigga nigga” – it would definitely get my attention, and I probably wouldn’t get the context. I look forward to a new thread for each teacher suspension going forward! ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/83 "2020-09-05T02:30:34Z")
> [@eschrodinger](#): > > It’s not really a matter of “plausib[ility].” It is if you are going to take action like suspending someone from their job. The mere sound of the phonemes regardless of context cannot possibly be intrinsically traumatic in a world where it’s widely used as “reclaimed” word in the African American community. What if the word is spoken on the radio by an unknown speaker - is the listener in a quantum superposition of harm and non-harm until they discover the identity of the speaker? When we talk of “harm” or “trauma” we usually mean something far more immediate and visceral than this type of contigency. It is simply not credible that the context of a black person speaking the word renders it harmless; yet someone _not even saying the word_ but instead speaking a word clearly and explicitly stated to be in a different language, a word that bears only a passing superficial resemblance, is not adequate context to render the phonemes harmless. ---
**Author:** ![eschrodinger](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschrodinger/32/122_2.png) [@eschrodinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschrodinger)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/84 "2020-09-05T02:39:12Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > It is if you are going to take action like suspending someone from their job. I think if he is really suspended – there seems to be some question about the actions taken – that is completely unreasonable. That does not depend on whether someone was actually traumatized, because it appears that his actions were reasonable. Whether someone was traumatized is not dependent on whether his actions were reasonable. I’m not going to argue about the credibility of a claim of being traumatized when I still haven’t seen any evidence that someone has made such a claim. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/85 "2020-09-05T02:43:38Z")
> [@eschrodinger](#): > > I’m not going to argue about the credibility of a claim of being traumatized when I still haven’t seen any evidence that someone has made such a claim. I was responding to _you_ bringing up the issue by saying that it’s possible for someone to be traumatized regardless of intent or fault. I don’t think that’s applicable to this situation - I don’t think it’s plausible that anyone was traumatized here. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/86 "2020-09-05T02:45:55Z")
_Sigh_, as usual, the actual facts of the case are completely omitted in favor of a simplistic rendering that makes everyone look stupid so people get to feed their recreational outrage over their moral superiority. The complaint did _not_ have a problem with the professor using the term 那个, the students involved are perfectly well aware that 那个 is a common term in Mandarin. The complaint was that the professor was purposefully mispronouncing 那个 in a malicious fashion to make it sound as close to the N-word as possible as a way of antagonizing Black students. In support of this, the black students claim they consulted actual native Mandarin speakers who confirmed to them that the pronunciation was not in line with how it’s pronounced in China. Now, this complaint is factually wrong, 那个 varies widely in pronunciation across China and the rendition done by the professor sounds like standard White-Guy-who-hasn’t-mastered-tones Chinese. I don’t know which native speakers they consulted or if that’s what the native speakers actually said or this was misinterpreted by the Black students. But it’s at least an interesting way of being wrong rather than a stupid way of being wrong. Consider what you propose they do if they _were_ indeed correct? If they actually had a professor who dressed up a totally superfluous language lesson just as a way to say the N-word, do you think they should just sit back and grit their teeth? Or should they gather evidence, build a case and submit it to an oversight board as a complaint? Which is what they did? My purpose in posting this isn’t to defend the students, I think what they did was stupid too. But to highlight how almost all stories of recreational outrage intentionally flatten the characters so they seem like they’re complaining about something dumber than they actually are and we shouldn’t feed into this clickbait media ecosystem. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/87 "2020-09-05T02:49:03Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > This makes tons of sense to me. If you watch the video, it’s so awful as to be distractingly bad. I could definitely imagine watching and mostly tuning out because of the awful quality, and then suddenly I have a teacher saying “nigga nigga nigga” at me. Basically, “blah blah blah nigga nigga nigga” – it would definitely get my attention, and I probably wouldn’t get the context. Sure, this explains why a student who wasn’t paying attention to the lecture reacted stupidly. It doesn’t explain how the Dean reacted after he (presumably) listened to the tape of the lecture. ---
**Author:** ![complexfreeformd2r](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d9b06d/32.png) [@complexfreeformd2r](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/complexfreeformd2r)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/88 "2020-09-05T02:50:25Z")
Where did you get all this information? May I have a link, please? ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/89 "2020-09-05T02:51:27Z")
> [@complexfreeformd2r](#): > > Where did you get all this information? May I have a link, please? > **[USC Professor Placed on Leave after Black Students Complained His...](https://www.nationalreview.com/news/usc-professor-placed-on-leave-after-black-students-complained-his-pronunciation-of-a-chinese-word-affected-their-mental-health/)** > > Professor Greg Patton was giving a lecture about the use of “filler words” in speech during a recent online class. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/90 "2020-09-05T02:52:34Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > But to highlight how almost all stories of recreational outrage intentionally flatten the characters so they seem like they’re complaining about something dumber than they actually are and we shouldn’t feed into this clickbait media ecosystem. Truer words have not been said. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/91 "2020-09-05T03:03:21Z")
> [@Shalmanese](#): > > But it’s at least an interesting way of being wrong rather than a stupid way of being wrong. As you say, the complaint is factually incorrect, his pronunciation is perfectly correct in standard Mandarin. The error they may have made is in asking native speakers without context how to say “that”, because in some contexts it’s pronounced na-ge. But as a filler word, it’s always nei-ge, exactly as he pronounces it in standard Mandarin. But it’s still not an interesting way to be wrong. It’s still utterly stupid to fantasize this mistaken notion that he’s deliberately mispronouncing Chinese to bait black students unless they had _other_ prior reason to believe that he’s a racist. Which I assume doesn’t exist, or we’d have heard it. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/92 "2020-09-05T03:04:42Z")
The person doing the suspending should be fired for stupidity. If our college aged adults are really this fragile this country is in terrible shape. ---
**Author:** ![WitnessMe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/witnessme/32/4597_2.png) [@WitnessMe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WitnessMe)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/93 "2020-09-05T03:08:45Z")
[![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wTk2WkRMLzg/hqdefault.jpg "The "N" Word in Mandarin Chinese 那个 Niggaa") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTk2WkRMLzg) This is a video a fluent Speaker posted all the way back in 2011, and he uses it exactly the way the professor does, I trust his pronunciation more than these nameless and faceless mandarin speakers, who nobody knows in your article. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/94 "2020-09-05T03:18:39Z")
> [@WitnessMe](#): > > This is a video a fluent Speaker posted all the way back in 2011, and he uses it exactly the way the professor does, I trust his pronunciation… You are absolutely correct. The way the professor says “neige” is perfectly standard pronunciation. From the article linked above > **[USC Professor Placed on Leave after Black Students Complained His...](https://www.nationalreview.com/news/usc-professor-placed-on-leave-after-black-students-complained-his-pronunciation-of-a-chinese-word-affected-their-mental-health/)** > > Professor Greg Patton was giving a lecture about the use of “filler words” in speech during a recent online class. Quote from the student complainants: > “It was confirmed that the pronunciation of this word is much different than what Professor Patton described in class,” the students wrote. Factually incorrect, his pronunciation is perfectly standard. > “The word is most commonly used with a pause in between both syllables. Again factually incorrect, there is _never_ a pause between syllables. > In addition, we have lived abroad in China and have taken Chinese language courses at several colleges and this phrase, clearly and precisely before instruction is always identified as a phonetic homonym and a racial derogatory term, and should be carefully used, especially in the context of speaking Chinese within the social context of the United States.” So they think people speaking Chinese should give trigger warnings about every upcoming instance of the words “that” or “um”? No, @Shalmanese, this is not an “interesting” way to be wrong. This is pathetic, and these people are complete fucking idiots. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/95 "2020-09-05T03:57:39Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > No, @Shalmanese, this is not an “interesting” way to be wrong. This is pathetic, and these people are complete fucking idiots. As I said in my post, I don’t disagree with anyone that their actions were stupid. But walk through the counterfactual with me, assume there was a professor who genuinely did build a lesson around 那个 just for a chance to say the N-word and intentionally pronounced it wrong just so they could irk black people. Like, for example, when [Trump supporters flash the OK signal](https://twitter.com/AuthorKimberley/status/1106943238148116480) or when [Laura Ingraham flashes something resembling the Nazi salute](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/laura-ingrahams-nazi-salute-examined.html), it’s not outside the realm of possibility that such a thing could happen on a college campus. What exactly do you think a student should do in such a scenario? Is it that, unless they have absolutely, incontrovertible, smoking gun evidence, they should just shut up? Are they supposed to just allow every single microaggression to go unchecked as long as there’s a smidge of plausible deniability? Because that’s been the standard that’s been upheld under White supremacy and POC are, understandably, sick of it and don’t regard this as acceptable any more. But if that’s not the solution, what is? It seems to me, the best case is that we expect them to gather up a file of supporting evidence and pass it on to a regulating authority and trust enough in the system that a system of checks and balances will mete out as good a justice as is possible in situations as deliberately ambiguous as this. They did not do a great job of due diligence but why would we expect them to? They’re college kids, not professional linguists. The college did not do a great job in adjudicating but also, why would they? Cases like this are exceedingly murky and politicized and nobody cares about the 100 times they make a correct decision if they only make one single mistake. At the core of it, it’s still that we care more about a single case where a white, middle aged male professor was unjustly put on suspension on probably improper grounds and give a collective shrug to the definitely thousands of cases of unambiguous, unpunished racism enacted on POC every single day. We’re fine with any system that mitigates racism as long as it unambiguously, 100% never makes the mistake of unfairly accusing a non-racist of being a racist which means we’re not actually fine with any system to address racism ever. ---
**Author:** ![Terwilliger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Terwilliger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terwilliger)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/96 "2020-09-05T05:14:54Z")
As a non native speaker, i took some chinese in college. I am aware of the whole neiga neiga neiga thing. In a multi cultural setting, my POC aquaintance said to me, dang sounds like they are saying nigger, nigger, nigger (somewhat jokingly, i dont think he actually thought these chinese people were calling him a nigger) I explained that neiga was a chinese filler word like umm, err, like, ya know, whatchmallit. Guess what he said? “Ah i see”. And he moved on with his life. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/97 "2020-09-05T05:25:47Z")
This is my surprised face. 😐 This is what always happens. It turns out the anti-PC outrage press leaves out important details. I disagree entirely that someone can assume someone isn’t being racist. That would only be possible when people didn’t try to the thing claimed. Yet people who try to find a way to get an n-word pass by using a similar word happens all the time. I don’t blame the students at all for investigating, and, since they apparently spoke to actual Mandarin speakers who said the word was being mispronounced, it makes perfect sense they’d make the conclusion they did. They asked an expert. That it turns out this is a valid pronunciation means they may have gotten it wrong–assuming the guy was speaking the same dialect he actually uses when he speaks Mandarin. (If you don’t speak the language, then it would be obvious to pick the pronunciation that doesn’t sound like a slur for your lesson.) The transcript seems incomplete, too, given that people are saying the word came up more than once. That would also be foolish. And we’re not even sure he’s actually been suspended or if it’s just for a temporary investigation. As usual, I see nothing to get super upset about. This is always what happens. The anti-PC press complains about overreactions, but ironically overrescts themselves. And seemingly intentionally tries to get their readers to overreact. The goal is to make it seem like political correctness as a whole is bad. I’ve seen the good it can do, so I won’t jump on board that train. IF this turns out to be an overreaction, I’ll say it should be corrected. But that’s it. ---
**Author:** ![Terwilliger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a587f6/32.png) [@Terwilliger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terwilliger)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/98 "2020-09-05T06:07:24Z")
The anti-PC press complains about overreactions. And everyone trying to justify this is feeding the anti-PC press. Sometimes, people go to far. Doesn’t mean you agreeing that people saying nigger is free speech, but 1.3 billion people speaking a foreign language say a word that sounds like nigga (depending on the dialect, not to mention a white USC professor attempt at tonal language) is racist or insensitive, but has an entirely different meaning is just wrong. The students might have every right to bring their concerns to the dean. The Dean is the fool here. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/99 "2020-09-05T06:32:18Z")
> [@Terwilliger](#): > > The Dean is the fool here. If you read post #81 by @madsircool, you’ll see that the **previous dean was fired** for ignoring “allegations of racial and gender discrimination and hostile workplace conditions”. I’m sure the current dean knows the accusation is stupid, but you can’t really blame him for acting as he did. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [September 5, 2020, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830/100 "2020-09-05T07:58:40Z")
It’s because it’s utterly ridiculous that a word is so scary nowadays that you have folks acting as if Voldemort’s name was uttered in Harry Potter. It’s a joke. When I was in 8th grade reading and writing about Huckleberry Finn we had zero problems with the language. We had zero problems with any language when I was in school. We had zero problems with graphic footage of concentration camps. Why? Because expectations of 13 year olds then were higher then expectations of so-called adults of today. And we probably could read and write better then 1/2 of the incoming freshman of today as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/thoughts-on-the-suspension-of-this-professor/919830.md?page=6)