Prof suspended for saying nei ge

[Balthazar]

2 hours ago, Demonic_Duck said:

But that face-value reading also falls a little too neatly into a certain culture-wars narrative

 

It could be one of those cases where, you know, reality happens to fall a little too neatly into a narrative we don't like. It happens from time to time (which doesn't mean that the side that holds onto that narrative is right about everything).

 

I don't know the first thing about "Campus Reform", but they did at least contact and get a response from the school in question. If there was more to the complaints than the episode we know about (and actually have a recording of), I highly doubt the response that was submitted would leave this out (or that it wouldn't at least have indicated/hinted to it).

 

Perhaps the "highly reliable" media are working hard on getting to the bottom of the story. Or perhaps its one of those stories they simply won't report on, because it falls a little too neatly into a narrative they don't like.

[Demonic_Duck]

47 minutes ago, Balthazar said:

It could be one of those cases where, you know, reality happens to fall a little too neatly into a narrative we don't like.

 

Fair point. Never said this wasn't a possibility, just that there's cause enough for skepticism.

[Lu]

How it ended:

'The investigation into the professor ended without fanfare on September 25. The university’s Office for Equity, Equal Opportunity, and Title IX concluded there was no ill intent on Patton’s part and that “the use of the Mandarin term had a legitimate pedagogical purpose.”'

 

I can't really tell from the article whether the professor got his position back/kept his position. At least the administration agreed that he did nothing wrong.

[Jan Finster]

5 hours ago, Lu said:

The investigation into the professor ended without fanfare

 

It should have ended with a classroom discussion on how cultural hypervigilance and a knee-jerk Pavlovian response to an acoustic stimulus can harm a person and potentially destroy someone's career. The students should have been told to raise the issue in class with their professor rather than backstabbing him. Shame on those snowflakes!

[feihong]

Another article from the school’s newspaper: http://www.uscannenbergmedia.com/2020/09/29/usc-concludes-professors-controversial-comments-did-not-violate-policy/

However, it directly contradicts some of the things said in the article posted by Lu, which is weird. You can already see some very different takes on this story based on political leaning of the outlet. But up until now, the basic facts remained roughly the same. Now even that doesn’t seem to be true anymore.

[vellocet]

Quote

 

However, in the joint statement, the three organizations wrote that the MBA students never asked for Patton’s removal. Rather, the students wanted a “transparent response” to the discomfort Patton caused in his class. Instead, the three groups wrote in the statement, USC decided to remove Patton without consulting the MBA students and any of the other “appropriate stakeholders,” a decision that the groups said would be “falsely misleading people to think it was the MBA students who pushed for his removal.”

 

Though the statement defended Patton’s pronunciation of the Mandarin phrase as a proper reflection of its usage by native speakers, the organizations said that does not excuse Patton from his “ignorance” in using the phrase in the current social climate of racial tensions. They wrote that, despite Patton’s intention to teach, he can’t ignore how his usage of the Mandarin phrase had a negative impact on his students.

 

“Providing a simple preface that the word might sound similar to a racial slur would have made a world of difference,” the statement said.

 

Discomfort?  Wow, so they really are snowflakes.  A professor has to walk on eggshells and psychically know what his students are going to interpret his use of foreign language terms as.  

 

They then demanded a trigger warning.  I mean, this is like an unbelievable parody of what a racist Facebook uncle thinks happens on campus...but it's all too real.  ?

[Jan Finster]

14 minutes ago, vellocet said:

Quote

“Providing a simple preface that the word might sound similar to a racial slur would have made a world of difference,” the statement said.

 

Discomfort?  Wow, so they really are snowflakes.  A professor has to walk on eggshells and psychically know what his students are going to interpret his use of foreign language terms as.  

 

They then demanded a trigger warning.  I mean, this is like an unbelievable parody of what a racist Facebook uncle thinks happens on campus...but it's all too real.

 

This is unbelievable!

 

So let us email Lonely Planet and have them include a trigger warning in their travel guides: Americans must not order Sauerkraut, because Germans may feel offended ("krauts"). They must not order frog legs in France, because "the frogs" (= the French) may be offended.

Let us email all medical professors and advise them to never speak of "pussy" discharge in front of female medical students...

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceS_jkKjIgo&list=RD60VUtxmN1IE&index=7

 

 

[feihong]

Let's keep in mind that it was at most a few students who made the spurious complaint. It sounds like many more students came out in defense of the professor. The biggest problem seems to be with Dean Geoffrey Garrett, who acted unilaterally in a knee-jerk way.

 

8 hours ago, Lu said:

I can't really tell from the article whether the professor got his position back/kept his position. At least the administration agreed that he did nothing wrong.

The Dean's email suggested that the professor would be suspended, but he never was. He took a break from teaching that particular class. It was a short class that only lasted a couple of weeks, so presumably the impact on the students wasn't that big.

[vellocet]

1 hour ago, feihong said:

The biggest problem seems to be with Dean Geoffrey Garrett, who acted unilaterally in a knee-jerk way.

Because he was terrified of the students and wanted to be seen to comply with their wishes ahead of time.  Deans have been fired or cancelled for less.

 

These sorts of affairs have so much in common with the Cultural Revolution.  Similar things would happen - authority figures would do what had been done in other cases and established as standard - only to have the rug pulled out from under them by the latest edition of Xinhua.  They were then criticized for not adhering to the line that they hadn't known about.  

[Insectosaurus]

I edited my comment, not because I think parallells to the Cultural Revolution aren't disrespectful, but because there is risk of yet another derailing. Good to see this affair reaching the only reasonable conclusion.