Thoughts on the suspension of this professor?

In My Humble Opinion
181

The only person who has been bullied here is the professor, who has been unjustly suspended from teaching this class, and slurred as a racist.

Who has said the students should be punished? Unless you are using an incredibly broad definition of “punishment”, I have certainly not.

The students escalated this by making a formal accusation supported by poorly researched incorrect evidence, and with no corroborating evidence whatsoever that this professor is a racist. They made hyperbolic claims that their mental health had been damaged, and referenced the murder of George Floyd as somehow relevant, piggybacking off the real racism that the BLM movement is fighting to frame their performative offense-taking and scare a cowed Dean into acting inappropriately.

These are graduate students. The only “punishment” they deserve is the same social impact as anyone gets when you do something incredibly stupid. Their reputation should justifiably take a hit for their poor critical thinking skills and poor judgment.

(If some right wing nutjob is suggesting they actually be punished, of course that’s not something I agree with.)

182

I have, my response was sarcastic. Sorry for not including a /s.

And I disagree with that assessment as well. I think that analogy is exactly backward, as there was evidence, and it was not stupid or immature to point it out.

Maybe they were wrong, but that doesn’t mean that their concerns were not noted in good faith. If they are punished for this, then the next time when the wolves really are at the gates, people will be hesitant to speak up for fear of retaliation as you demand for these students.

Do you feel that you truly know enough about the entirety of the situation, the disciplinary record of the professor, and what his reaction was to the complaint brought forward to say that you actually have evidence for your conclusion that the students should be punished and the dean should be fired?

If there are any boys who are crying wolf, it is these publications that call out the terrors of cancel culture, purely seeking attention, while giving you no evidence beyond a short clip and their biased take on it, and getting the reaction that they want of having people like you rush to judgement.

I feel that the students’ complaint was made in good faith. Do you really feel that the article in the OP was?

Just as a baseline, would you consider the shirt that eschrodinger described to be racist, or would someone objecting to it just be stupid and immature and based on no evidence?

183

So your’e saying - what’s important is intent, not impact?

Well, I think graduate students should be taught that actions have consequences. Even if the consequences are no more serious than if you do something stupid, people will think you’re stupid.

184

Of course I would. Unless there some unrelated in-joke about the word among native speakers that I’m not aware, why would on earth someone wear a t-shirt saying “that”? I’d assume it’s a racist asshole trying to be “clever”.

How is that any more relevant to this situation than the moron on the bus in South Korea?

185

And anyone who disagreed with your opinion. When you demand universal condemnation, and call anything other than your opinion preposterous, that’s bullying.

I’ll agree that you are not bullying these students, but that is only because you have no way to do so. Had you the ability, I have little doubt that you would make your thoughts heard to them as well.

Long thread, and I quoted it in my previous reply, but there calls that these students not be allowed to graduate without taking special remedial classes and a few other such things. At the very least, it is certainly implied that they should be shunned and socially punished.

So you say it was in bad faith then. do you have any evidence as to this conspiracy theory of yours?

So you think that they should be punished, too.

I don’t know if they were right wing nut jobs, but there were posters in this thread that had specific ideas as to what retaliation against these students should be, and I’m the only one that called that out.

It’s nice that you say that you don’t agree, now.

Would you agree that, if the professor had a similar reaction to you in this thread, that he would not be expected to not retaliate against the students who brought forth this complaint? Were you the dean, would you have allowed him to go back into the “classroom” and continue to teach and grade these students, with no expectation that he would punish those he thought responsible for “slurring” him as a racist?

186

No, that’s not what I wrote. Poor judgment, even appallingly poor judgment, is not “bad faith”.

187

As far as retaliation against students, absolutely.

It’s even written in the USC student handbook. It says that their concerns will be dealt with privately and without retaliation from any staff.

You don’t think that that should apply to graduate students?

188

Again, that’s not what I wrote.

I don’t think they should be insulated from the natural process that if you do something stupid, the consequence is that people call you stupid; that if you show poor judgment, people think you’re immature. That’s quite different from actively punishing them.

189

If that means that the content of their accusation cannot be discussed on its merits, I don’t think it should apply to anyone. But I don’t think it means that.

In any event, nobody outside the university is bound by that, and the real world doesn’t work that way. People will obviously form opinions about you based on what you say and do.

If you want to split hairs in the same way as SDMB’s “attack the post rather than the poster” and say that we should call their accusation stupid, rather than calling them stupid, fair enough. Mea culpa. Maybe these are thoughtful, mature students with excellent critical thinking skills who just had a bad day.

190

Some people calling them such on a messaeboard, sure.

People calling them out personally? No.

191

Please provide a cite that anyone has told 1.3 billion Chinese people to stop saying nei ga. You’re even mischaracterizing this situation. It’s not racist to say nei ga when speaking Mandarin.

You know, it’s easy to say outrageous or inflammatory things, but this board expects you to back up your words with facts, not with broad and false generalizations.

192

Did the guy say “nigger, nigger, nigger”?
Or did the guy say “neiga, neiga, neiga”?

The attempt at logical gymnastics to somehow avoid the basic question is astounding.

Ok, some students thought he said nigger. They made a complaint. As is their right. An investigation should be conducted.

And the result of the investigation should be “ thank you for bringing your concerns to us, but he didnt say nigger. He was saying neiga in the context of filler words in foreign languages. Perhaps in the future, he should be more explicit in explaining the origin of the word in question, but at this time we see no need for any disciplinary action”

193

How can anyone possibly call them out “personally”? We don’t know anything about them other than what they wrote in their formal accusation of the professor. So obviously we’re only talking about the merits of the accusation. The formal distinction between “that accusation is stupid” and “the person who wrote that accusation is stupid” is meaningless in this situation.

You are twisting the fact that they should be immune from substantial retaliation, which of course I agree with, to imply that their claims should not be addressed on their merits. In the real world, if you say or write something stupid, you are not immune from social impact in terms of what people think of you. If these students are being insulated and taught something else, taught that they can show poor judgment, poor critical thinking skills, and make wild unsubstantiated allegations with impunity to their reputation, the college is doing them a disservice.

194

Did they really think that?

Actually, come to think of it, I can believe they did. Maybe they were staring at their phones, not really paying attention, until it broke into their consciousness that the professor was saying something that sounded like the n-word, like Ginger from The Far Side.

195

Nobody quite said that, but what they did say was almost equally ridiculous. Remember that we’re talking about a word that occurs with the combined frequency of “that” and “um”.

“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.”

And they continue, blissfully unaware of the irony, to accuse the professor thus:

the emotional exhaustion of carrying on with an instructor that disregards cultural diversity

Given the paucity of simple phonemes and diversity of languages, it was kind of inevitable… someone in the Language Log thread claims that the English filler “um” sounds identical to a Turkish word that corresponds to the misogynistic slur c***. I trust that these students, given their sensitivity to cultural diversity, will in future verify whether there are any Turkish speakers within earshot whenever they are talking, and issue trigger warnings as appropriate.

196

Riemann, Terwilliger claims exactly that. Take it up with him.

197

Did he say “nigger, nigger, nigger”
Or did he say “neiga, neiga, neiga”

198

So, you aren’t saying that they should be personally called stupid and immature and such, just that we should do so on a messagebaord.

That’s cool. No problem with that. I mean, I don’t agree with that assessment, but I don’t see any harm in doing so, even if it is wrong.

But, I certainly did take yours, and many other posters to imply that these people should be singled out for ridicule.

Since we are in agreement that they should not be singled out for ridicule, do you think that it would have been wise to have that professor go back to the same class with the same students, knowing that he might try to guess who it was that called him out? (And he would probably guess at least a few incorrectly, leading to a retaliation against some who had nothing to do with it)

You were saying that their " reputation should justifiably take a hit for their poor critical thinking skills and poor judgment."

I’m not sure how you do that without singling them out.

That you cannot does make no difference to the fact that it seems very clear that you would like to.

No, I take it from your words that they should face repercussions, personally and individually, and you are trying to twist your own words to back up from that. And then use your own words to imply that they should have social impacts for it.

How about, in the real world, if you are a professor, and you say something stupid, you should not be immune as to what people think of you?

I don’t see these as wild unsubstantiated claims. The evidence is in the video that we have all seen. The only question is the interpretation of it. You are making the unsubstantiated claim that they brought it forth with poor judgement and thinking skills, and that they should suffer in their reputation for it.

You don’t think that social and reputational hits are substantial? That being called out the way they have been called out here, but individually and personally would be substantial?

Sure, their claims should be addressed on their merits, but you are addressing them based on your impression of their immaturity and stupidity, not on their merits.

199

This is the second or third time you’ve posted this. Who are you addressing it to?

200

I think he just likes saying it.