Posted on 03/11/2021 1:55:55 PM PST by HogsBreath
Georgetown Law has fired one white professor and placed another on administrative leave after a video of their discussion about a black student was condemned on social media.
Dean Bill Treanor announced on Thursday that the school had ended its relationship with Professor Sandra Sellers, 62, after the video showed her complaining on Zoom that black students were predominantly at the bottom of her class.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
“Please define “color” and “race” as used in your post. Please also tell us what subject you teach.”
*****
I teach a semester-long survey class on the business of health care. 90% United States. No policy. No politics. Just how to run the business better. Operations. Finance. Cost accounting. Budgeting. Governance. Etc.
Color: I have > 30% international students coming from all over the globe and nearly ever professional school — engineering, law, business, informatics, medical/pharmacy/nursing/public health schools, ... Many have never heard of Medicare. Many have English as a second language and enroll knowing that their work is evaluated entirely based on six written essays and a class presentation. But they enroll anyway, knowing how disadvantaged they are in terms of grading relative to their white, all-US counterparts. In two decades of teaching this class, I do not recall even one student asking for me to put a thumb on the scale to compensate.
The anger on this thread toward black students in particular is orthogonal to the truth in my 30+ years of experience. You are blaming the victims. These students are poorly served by all aspects of the higher education status quo and are heroic in their hard work to navigate a system that is totally FUBAR and aligned AGAINST them even as it poses to be in favor. Their patience is to be respected and whatever anger they have is warranted and righteous.
I am an old white male by the way. I am in the middle of a system that you are all treating very speculatively.
When I went to pharmacy school (circa 1983) about 10% of the professional students were black. They did well. However, what wipes out most students of all races is the pre-pharmacy courses in chem, physics, math, botany, biology, etc. If they make it through that they will do well in pharmacy school. I suspect that law school was admitting students that should not have been admitted regardless of race.
Oddly in pharmacy school the orientals were at the top of most classes, even those with English as a second language. Some were my friends.
She criticized the Race with Royal Blood—how dare she?
And the other prof who just listened is guilty of “failure to denounce “.
Conservatives tend to be far less racist than liberals are. It's not about skin color for us, but about merit. We do not like advancing people based on factors other than merit. Advancing people based on other than merit does not help anybody, especially the people it is supposedly designed to help.
My wife is an elementary school teacher in one of the richest jurisdictions in the country. She doesn't have problems with students of color. In fact, she says that students of color are often her highest achievers. There are exceptions, of course, but overall she has the most trouble with US black kids (and, significantly, their parents).
Truth hurts like hell doesn’t it??????
I wonder. Early in my academic career I discovered the laziness and insouciance of the professoriat at another top rated university. I was appalled that they didn't care if they passed on BS and that they were happy giving out A+s to students who fed their BS back in essays and on exams, if they bothered having exams. I didn't do the latter and didn't get the former kinds of grades. I was there to learn even if they were determined not to teach. To this day I condemn the place and think it should be nuked until the rubble bounces.
I see, so were their comments lies? Were they fabricated? Are they racist? Or as you seem to suggest, are they just failures at teaching?
And if they are failures at teaching, why did the white folks do significantly better? Why weren't they at the bottom of the class as well?
____________________________________________
Once again, could you respond to my questions about this story? Your response was wordy, disjointed and had little to to do with your claim about these people.
I am specifically interested in your response to my last question above.
Just to be clear, I’m not defending (nor indicting) the GT professor’s comments. My real problem is with her dismissal.
While I think the substance of her comment would make for an interesting academic discussion, it appears we have now reached a point our academic culture where such discussions aren’t allowed. That is terrifying and this is what I was chiefly responding to.
One of the underlying, foundational elements of the legal profession is the Socratic method. How do we teach aspiring lawyers how to employ the Socratic method when at the very same time, the school responsible for the teaching disallows any argumentative dialogue and critical thinking that flows from that dialogue. We can’t.
At our premiere educational institutions, we are teaching developing minds that critical thinking is dangerous and we’re doing it all in the name of equality. This won’t end well.
And if they are failures at teaching and they, "Suck" at teaching, why did the white folks do significantly better? Why weren't they at the bottom of the class as well?
dragnet2, OK I can distill: These educators do a lousy job. They are lazy, entrenched, self-indulgent in choosing subject matter and pedagogy, and more.
They need to know their students’ names, just for example; and yes it takes more work to learn their black students’ names. Just do it.
It takes more work in general to meet the needs of students who are not mainstream white. And these professors’ reluctance to put in the work matters. If this prof does not like it that some students end up at the bottom, she could take basic measures to improve her own performance that would go a long way to remediate the very thing that upsets her so. Instead she whines.
The term “racist” has lost nearly all of its meaning. I prefer the terms “pathetic” and “good for nothing.”
Law school is the wrong place for this. One of the main functions of law school is to teach students that they must be self-sufficient. In most courses, a law student's entire grade is based on just one exam. There are generally no quizzes, mid-terms, tutoring or extra credit. Those without a strong work ethic, organizational skills and self-discipline won't succeed. The professors couldn't care less who succeeds and who doesn't. And that's a good thing because as a lawyer there is nobody helping you when you get into the real world. In reality, pretty much everyone you're dealing with as a lawyer will be fighting very hard to hurt you.
“My real problem is with her dismissal... it appears we have now reached a point our academic culture where such discussions aren’t allowed. That is terrifying and this is what I was chiefly responding to.”
*******
Yes, up to a point except that in the end she can’t go back into a classroom with black students and have any credibility in a situation that is already stacked against them. Freedom of speech is one thing, but she needs to be an effective teacher and she has betrayed a stereotype — statistically well-grounded or not (I think NOT) — that I find disqualifying. If I were the dean, I’d have fired her too.
I’m making a big deal of mis-pronouncing names, but consider this hypothetical:
Fred (2nd-year law student): We get the Business Judgment Rule in part from Shlensky v. Wrigley (1968).
Professor Scuba: Very good, Hans.
Fred: Sir, for the 4th time this month, my name is Fred.
Professor Scuba: (Chuckling …) Duly noted, Hans. I will try to keep that straight.
If Professor Scuba consistently gets half of his black students’ names wrong while never mis-pronouncing the white John or Sally, then the clear message is that he does not give a rat’s patootie about his black students. Multiply this by slights on 100 other dimensions.
Result: Irrespective of any other considerations, the white students will fare much better than the black students.
On top of my assertion that this professor cannot ever again be credible in a classroom, she all along had it within her power to mitigate this problem with clear remedial measures. She is being fired as much for her laziness and disregard for basic decency as for this statement.
It’s the right call by Georgetown to fire her.
It would be the right call for conservatives to say, hey, all of this political correctness is over the top but by golly we’re also in favor of holding faculty accountable for basic professionalism and competencies (of which learning names is merely one of many examples).
I see, so were their comments lies? Were they fabricated? Are they racist? Or as you seem to suggest, are they just failures at teaching?
And if they are failures at teaching, why did the white folks do significantly better? Why weren't they at the bottom of the class as well?
It takes more work in general to meet the needs of students who are not mainstream white.
So according to you it takes more, "Work" to teach the blacks as opposed to whites. And the fault here lies with the lazy, lousy teachers?
And the fault here lies with the lazy, lousy teachers?
Finally! We’ve connected!
In regards to black folk specifically, why is that? Are the teachers at every level failed bad educators who suck at teaching?
I'm calling you out on this. I highly doubt there is any legitimate professor, especially one at Georgetown Law, which is not exactly a conservative institution, who would not make the effort to learn the name of a student of color just because it's a student of color. There are many foreign and even African-American names that are extremely difficult to pronounce. There can easily be over a hundred students in each class at Georgetown Law and that professor may be teaching five classes. There is no way that he/she can be expected to get every one right. And like I said above, the professors shouldn't really care anyway. The job of a law professor is to toughen students up not to coddle them. A law student not comfortable with this reality should perhaps instead consider a career in business health care.
OK, you’ve lost me on the name thing. I read the entire DailyMail article and didn’t find any behavior of the professor’s that was alleged to be ‘racist’ other than her anecdotal observation that the kids at the bottom of her class were all ‘black.’
Does it matter if that anecdotal observation is accurate in her experience? Yes. If it’s accurate, then it’s not racist.
It may not be probative (or, it may be), but it’s not racist. As best I can tell, she was fired because she made an observation which may in fact be factually accurate, in her experience. And, she was only fired because of that comment.
Think about all the discussions in a LAW classroom that may be touched by the subject of race. If a professor makes a comment - a factual comment - that a specific student or group of students finds objectionable, that professor is now persona non grata? Yikes. Again, that does nothing to advance the practice of the Socratic method and it won’t end well.
Yep.
And I admire your attempts to educate that one on the reality of the law school situation, but its mind is obviously made up.
Law school is the wrong place for this. One of the main functions of law school is to teach students that they must be self-sufficient. ... The professors couldn’t care less who succeeds and who doesn’t. And that’s a good thing because as a lawyer there is nobody helping you when you get into the real world.
_________
Kevin B, I enjoy going back and forth. You are well-reasoned and reasonable. I see two problems with your logic. First, it can be circular and self-fulfilling: law schools need students to be tough because the real world is tough; and out in the real world, the toughness is ok because law schools have prepared their students to abide it all.
Second, I am only arguing for common sense whereas it seems to me that you are taking a principled stand that does not hold up. I would not hold faculty responsible for a perfectly level playing field, but rather basic mitigating efforts like learning all students’ names and how to pronounce them correctly. What I have learned over the past ten years, gradually, is that there are dozens of simple measures that I could and should be doing that really matter. Some of the activities that my university puts forward are heavy-handed nonsense and offensive; some of it helps me to be a better teacher. Admitting to the latter does not make me a liberal or RINO.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.