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.
“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).