Georgetown Law Professor: Student Edition

[Wahoo Redux]

Does your wife plan to include a statement in her vote explaining that minority candidates in general are weaker scholars/teachers than white men? If not, then I don't think she has anything to worry about.

Wait, wait, wait...I have to disagree.  I cannot predict what would or will happen.  But we live in a time in which all it takes is an accusation for people, departments, schools, politicians, government offices and companies can be demonized and individuals penalized, sometimes tremendously harshly----as in the scenario of the article in question.  I am sure you are not naïve. 

Okay, fine.  The students were offended.  That is their right.  If it ended there I would call it appropriate.  I would even call it appropriate if the students spoke out, as is also their right.

But that is not what happened.

And I again have to emphasize that this was a work discussion in which an opinion was expressed about working conditions.  We are in dangerous territory if we are not allowed to have opinions, no matter how offensive, and no matter the context.

What are the actual numbers on African-American students at GA Law School? 

If I made the same sort of comment about the students at my current employer, and I was recorded accidentally  (or at least it didn't occur to me that I was being recorded, as in this case), and I was fired, I would sue.  And if I was forced to produce evidence which would bolster my opinion as essentially fact, I could. 

I wonder if the professors in this scenario could do the same.  They might be taking their lives in their hands, however, which is another level of problem...

If the GA Law School professors could produce proof that their discussion has merit----that AA students struggle in their classes more than other groups of students----should they be penalized?

[Sun_Worshiper]

One can generalize about blacks and then say "but not all blacks." And she did actually say that black students do not perform as well as their peers, and contrary to your suggestion it doesn't appear that she based this on a systematic reexamining of her gradebooks from years past.

So had she said, "Between 2015 and 2020, 80% of the black students in my course have had final grades  in the bottom 20% of the class" (or whatever), would that have been OK? Is the problem really that it wasn't a statistically testable claim based on clearly documented criteria?

And you can type at me in all caps if it makes you feel better, but I'm merely explaining to you why some folks are offended. You can insist that she did nothing wrong and that the people who are upset shouldn't be, or you can try to understand where black students are coming from (even if you ultimately think they, or the university, are overreacting).

The problem is not that some people were offended; it's that the university fell all over themselves to throw the professor under the bus. (And for a law school, instead of considering whether the evidence supported what the prof said, they just shot the messenger.)

And if a prof in some conservative region got fired for saying to a colleague that "Black lives matter", would that just be the university "overreacting"?

Are you asking me these questions or suggesting them as questions for the students?

For me, a systematic analysis of data showing that black students do poorly would be much more appropriate for assessing the state of their collective performance than some off the cuff statement based on one's memory of past years. I also would assume that this would be more defendable in the court of public opinion and in the university system. I can't say what students would say about this, of course.

If you read my posts you will see that I don't think anyone should be hastily fired, but rather that there should be some due process. However, the professor was not basing their assessment on anything that could be considered credible evidence, and lining it up with some data after the fact would not exonerate her as you seem to think it would.

And yes, in your scenario that would be the university "overreacting."

Does your wife plan to include a statement in her vote explaining that minority candidates in general are weaker scholars/teachers than white men? If not, then I don't think she has anything to worry about.

Wait, wait, wait...I have to disagree.  I cannot predict what would or will happen.  But we live in a time in which all it takes is an accusation for people, departments, schools, politicians, government offices and companies can be demonized and individuals penalized, sometimes tremendously harshly----as in the scenario of the article in question.  I am sure you are not naïve. 

Okay, fine.  The students were offended.  That is their right.  If it ended there I would call it appropriate.  I would even call it appropriate if the students spoke out, as is also their right.

But that is not what happened.

And I again have to emphasize that this was a work discussion in which an opinion was expressed about working conditions.  We are in dangerous territory if we are not allowed to have opinions, no matter how offensive, and no matter the context.

What are the actual numbers on African-American students at GA Law School? 

If I made the same sort of comment about the students at my current employer, and I was recorded accidentally  (or at least it didn't occur to me that I was being recorded, as in this case), and I was fired, I would sue.  And if I was forced to produce evidence which would bolster my opinion as essentially fact, I could. 

I wonder if the professors in this scenario could do the same.  They might be taking their lives in their hands, however, which is another level of problem...

If the GA Law School professors could produce proof that their discussion has merit----that AA students struggle in their classes more than other groups of students----should they be penalized?

There is a pretty clear distinction between a recorded video of one professor lamenting that AA students consistently perform poorly and a tenure vote on a colleague of color. If you can point to a statistical trend, or even a handful of examples, showing that academics are penalized for their negative tenure votes on POC then I'm happy to look at it, but I don't think your spouse has anything to worry about and I don't think this particular incident at Gtown is relevant to her situation, unless she makes an accompanying statement about the performance of people who share the same the race as her colleague.

And in the bolded, you say this was a workplace discussion about work conditions, as though they were fired for talking about occupational health and safety in their facility. It is not that, it was a poorly thought through exchange that was caught on tape (not secretly recorded, btw, do they not know how Zoom works?), and a professor was fired. Was a hasty firing the right thing to do? Not in my opinion. Perhaps the profs could sue, although I think they are adjuncts so don't have much protection from at-will firings. I also don't quite know what you mean when you say they'd be taking their lives in their hands. Have their been any threats to their lives? Would they face more threats on their lives if they sue the university?

Bottom line is that a lot of folks around here take these individual incidents as evidence of a wider trend. Maybe they are, but none of the culture warrior posters on this site seem to be able to provide more than a few anecdotes to prove it.

[Wahoo Redux]

Maybe I have not been in the right place at the right time, or maybe I am just blind to it, but part of the reason I am so suspicious of GA Law School is precisely because I have seen so little real, quantifiable, overt racism in academia. If anything, after the myriad diversity training sessions, anti-racist / anti-sexist video tutorials, Fora debates and campus discussions, I have witnessed a near hysteria for racial justice.

The reason we are so crazed, I think, is because we actually do care and university employees are soft targets.  We police each other because we cannot police the Trump rallies, and that makes us a little crazy. 

And because we have ready made student factions who will start shouting immediately, we have media who will do their jobs and report on controversy, and we have professors readily available for the public which is already suspicious of us, we have a potential powder-keg for any charge of racism on a college campus, no matter how weak the evidence.

I very seriously doubt that either of the profs in question would fit the designation of a "racist" or meant to make a racist comment.

And as I asked, what if Sellers is correct about her AA students?  Would her comment still be "racist?"   

And yeeeeeeeeesss of course a statistical analysis would be a better, more accurate tool for gaging student performance, but that was not, was not, was not what was going on in an ostensibly private conversation----there was no reason Sellers would have stats at her fingertips on that afternoon.  Again, this was not a conference paper, it was two profs talking.  They obviously had no idea that it would be anything but a private chat.

You are probably correct that a negative tenure vote at our little backwater uni would result in a simple tenure denial and we would all be safe and fine.  But we had an almost an identical scenario three years ago in which a white candidate was denied and an AA candidate was granted tenure with almost identical publication problems.   Neither candidate met tenure or service requirements and both had had problems with student complaints.  I do not know why two essentially identical votes went radically different directions. 

So sure, maybe everything would be fine, but when a tenure challenge does occur in an academic setting, it is generally news fodder (which is one my big suspicions regarding the above):

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/09/former-calvin-university-professor-denied-tenure-and-terminated-alleges-racial

https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-harvard-professor-cornel-west-denied-tenure-request-threatens-to-resign/

https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-harvard-professor-cornel-west-denied-tenure-request-threatens-to-resign/


Tenure, Discrimination, and African-American Faculty
Terry L. Leap
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education
No. 7 (Spring, 1995), pp. 103-105 (3 pages)
Published By: The JBHE Foundation, Inc

[mahagonny]

If you read my posts you will see that I don't think anyone should be hastily fired, but rather that there should be some due process.

In fact the college violated its own policy even for adjunct faculty. They're not supposed to terminate anyone mid-semester unless they are dangerous. But the tenured faculty at Georgetown aren't going to say anything about it, and you wouldn't either if it were your school. Well, maybe you would. But I'd be absolutely amazed.

If I made the same sort of comment about the students at my current employer, and I was recorded accidentally  (or at least it didn't occur to me that I was being recorded, as in this case), and I was fired, I would sue.  And if I was forced to produce evidence which would bolster my opinion as essentially fact, I could. 

I wonder if the professors in this scenario could do the same.  They might be taking their lives in their hands, however, which is another level of problem...

And imagine suing for half a semester's adjunct pay. The school has absolutely nothing to fear in treating these two professors like dirt. Although I wouldn't be amazed if the next person to 'go postal' is a snubbed adjunct. Who thinks of that?

[Hegemony]

Why was the professor identifying the students by race in the first place? Why not say, "I have a group of students who are not doing so well — I worry that something's gone wrong for them to get such poor results  — wondering if there's something I could change that would help..." etc. After all, some of the lower-performing students must be white. Why not include them in the group that warrants concern as well? Why even bother to mention race? You say the remarks are just casual observations, but why is race a part of them? Why single out the students by race, instead of by one of many other aspects? "Well, race is the obvious one!" you may say. And I say, "Noticing race above all other variables ... that sounds like you're a bit fixated on race, huh?" You don't have to say offensive phrases if you just single out race as the determinant variable.

I'll tell you one thing about black students. If they come from an inner-city education, as many do, their education was hardly worth squat. I went to a high school that was about 98% black, and it was the stuff of nightmares. Two English teachers actually got into a knock-down drag-out fistfight in class once. (No, neither of them was black. They were just the kind of teacher that couldn't get a job elsewhere.) Only one of them was even semi-literate. No teaching went on in that school. The math teacher (also not black) showed movies all day. Not movies about math. Some students did climb their way out of there and go to college. They typically had families that were a little better off than others, and hadn't been irreparably injured on the way to school. (That was another thing that happened.) When those kids got to college, smart as they were, they were way behind. The same thing happened to me when I got to college. I was completely at sea, because I had only a smattering of education beforehand. I got A's in high school mostly by showing up and being able to punctuate. But for one thing, my parents could pay for college, so I went. Boy did I flounder in college. If a teacher looked at me, though, she'd think, "Hmm, that one's not doing so well." But for the other kids, their teacher would think, "Hmm, that one's not doing so well. Black."

As for Wahoo's contention that academics can't be racist because they're so anti-racist — well, many discussions on these boards demonstrates the full capacity of academics to be racist. Sure, not all academics, right? But enough.

[Wahoo Redux]

Why was the professor identifying the students by race in the first place?

If you see a particular demographic repeatedly struggling, isn't that worth commentary?

Your own next commentary provides an indication for why one might do just that:

I'll tell you one thing about black students. If they come from an inner-city education, as many do, their education was hardly worth squat.

As a matter of fact, I've already said that. 

And just to be clear, it has nothing to do with the amount of melatonin in the first microns in our students' skins and everything to do with the history of white privilege, red-lining, systematic racism, and the resulting inequities in family income, location, and public schooling.  Nor, to be clear, does any one demographic or group have the market on poor performance. 

This is the environment I am now teaching in.

As for Wahoo's contention that academics can't be racist because they're so anti-racist — well, many discussions on these boards demonstrates the full capacity of academics to be racist. Sure, not all academics, right? But enough.

I know this is a subject that makes you very angry, Hegemony, but I did not say that.  I said I have seen a rage to fight racism in academia and, at the risk of starting a flame war, that academics tend to get hysterical over the subject.  I know maybe one or two posters here who say things that might be construed as racist but I don't think they really are.  At worst, these posters are tone-deaf.  What I said is that I have yet to see quantifiable, overt racism in academia.  And that is true here.

Are you able to discus this without attacking other posters?  Maybe, my friend, your reaction here is what I have been posting about on this thread. 

[mahagonny]

Why care how any of the students are doing, let alone the more disadvantaged ones, for the chump change they're paying?
These professors were fired for caring.

on edit:

Why was the professor identifying the students by race in the first place? Why not say, "I have a group of students who are not doing so well — I worry that something's gone wrong for them to get such poor results  — wondering if there's something I could change that would help..." etc. After all, some of the lower-performing students must be white. Why not include them in the group that warrants concern as well? Why even bother to mention race? You say the remarks are just casual observations, but why is race a part of them? Why single out the students by race, instead of by one of many other aspects? "Well, race is the obvious one!" you may say. And I say, "Noticing race above all other variables ... that sounds like you're a bit fixated on race, huh?" You don't have to say offensive phrases if you just single out race as the determinant variable.

[facepalm] I don't believe this.

Uh, because we are being implored, daily, by our institutions, our elected leaders in government and the media to care more about minorities, racial and other, and disadvantaged persons, and to hope for not only equal opportunity, but comparable outcomes.

Cheap shot much?

[marshwiggle]

Why was the professor identifying the students by race in the first place?


I'll tell you one thing about black students. If they come from an inner-city education, as many do, their education was hardly worth squat.

As Wahoo, pointed out, you've answered your own question.

As for Wahoo's contention that academics can't be racist because they're so anti-racist — well, many discussions on these boards demonstrates the full capacity of academics to be racist. Sure, not all academics, right? But enough.

Has anyone on here ever disagreed with the point made about many urban schools with predominantly black student populations being underfunded? The debate has never been about whether there are legitimate reasons some people struggle, but rather, as in this case, whether trying to avoid talking about the racial correlation (NOT causation!!!!) simply to avoid any possibility of a hint of causation, does any good for the very students who are struggling.

If those schools are the problem:

• Blaming "systemic racism" isn't going to fix those schools.
• Lowering post-secondary admission standards for those students isn't going to fix those schools.
• Lowering progression and graduation requirements for those students isn't going to fix those schools.

However, identifying those schools, (by identifying the students who come from them) is a prerequisite for any action to fix those schools.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Maybe I have not been in the right place at the right time, or maybe I am just blind to it, but part of the reason I am so suspicious of GA Law School is precisely because I have seen so little real, quantifiable, overt racism in academia. If anything, after the myriad diversity training sessions, anti-racist / anti-sexist video tutorials, Fora debates and campus discussions, I have witnessed a near hysteria for racial justice.

It took me about five seconds on google scholar to find real, quantifiable evidence of racism in academia.

In terms of grading:
Experimental Evidence on Teachers' Racial Bias in Student Evaluation: The Role of Grading Scales,
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

Teaching evaluations (with obvious implications for tenure):
Exploring Bias in Student Evaluations: Gender, Race, and Ethnicity, PS: Political Science & Politics

And t&p itself:
Tenure and Promotion Outcomes at Four Large Land Grant Universities: Examining the Role of Gender, Race, and Academic Discipline, Research in Higher Education

Some people have let anecdotes that get amplified by the media convince them that the real racism in academia is against whites and in favor of minorities, but the studies I've seen don't support this narrative.

[Wahoo Redux]

Anyone who has been in the adjunct trenches knows about the foibles of the student eval, including race and gender discrimination.  If anything, your citations illustrate exactly what I have been saying.

But before I post more (because that was not really what I was trying to get at) I wish someone would address a simple question which I have posted twice already:

If AA students at Georgetown Law School DO struggle more than other demographics, and we have evidence of this, are the profs in question still "racists?"

[waterboy]

Simple answer - no.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Anyone who has been in the adjunct trenches knows about the foibles of the student eval, including race and gender discrimination. If anything, your citations illustrate exactly what I have been saying.

But before I post more (because that was not really what I was trying to get at) I wish someone would address a simple question which I have posted twice already:

If AA students at Georgetown Law School DO struggle more than other demographics, and we have evidence of this, are the profs in question still "racists?"

Re: Bolded. Great, then you know that there actually is quantifiable evidence of racism in academics, contrary to what you said in your last post. 

Re: Your question. The possibility that evidence could ultimately emerge that supports this professor's statement does not exonerate them from having made an ignorant and ill advised comment. To use another example, if I say that undocumented immigrants are flooding our cities with crime, despite having no credible evidence to back this up, then I am speaking from an ignorant and perhaps racist place, even if a subsequent analysis shows that undocumented immigrants commit more crimes on average*.

* Data suggests this is not the case, btw.

[marshwiggle]

If AA students at Georgetown Law School DO struggle more than other demographics, and we have evidence of this, are the profs in question still "racists?"

In the past, it used to be conservatives were more known for slippery-slope arguments, such as legalizing marijuana would lead to prevalence of harder drugs, etc.

More recently, the extreme progressives are using lots of slippery-slope arguments. For instance:

The possibility that evidence could ultimately emerge that supports this professor's statement does not exonerate them from having made an ignorant and ill advised comment.

Why is a statement which might actually be true considered "ignorant and ill-advised"? Because it might be used by someone to promote racist ideas.

Just about any fact or true statement can be used by someone for nefarious purposes. On the other hand, if those same people say "silence is violence", then the only things which are acceptable to say are those which completely express the correct ideological narrative.

As the saying goes "Everything which isn't forbidden is mandatory".

[Sun_Worshiper]

If AA students at Georgetown Law School DO struggle more than other demographics, and we have evidence of this, are the profs in question still "racists?"

In the past, it used to be conservatives were more known for slippery-slope arguments, such as legalizing marijuana would lead to prevalence of harder drugs, etc.

More recently, the extreme progressives are using lots of slippery-slope arguments. For instance:

The possibility that evidence could ultimately emerge that supports this professor's statement does not exonerate them from having made an ignorant and ill advised comment.

Why is a statement which might actually be true considered "ignorant and ill-advised"? Because it might be used by someone to promote racist ideas.

Just about any fact or true statement can be used by someone for nefarious purposes. On the other hand, if those same people say "silence is violence", then the only things which are acceptable to say are those which completely express the correct ideological narrative.

As the saying goes "Everything which isn't forbidden is mandatory".

I'm saying that when people make assertions in the absence of evidence, that assertion has come from a place of ignorance. If down the line that ignorant statement is shown to line up with actual data that the speaker was unaware of, then the speaker nevertheless has still made a statement from a place of ignorance. This is true whether the statement comes from an "extreme progressive" or a conservative.

And this assumes that the professors statement actually lines up with some data, and nobody has provided evidence that it does. So putting the hypothetical scenario aside in which her statement finds support from data at a future date, the reality is that she did not state a "fact" or make a "true statement," she made a generalization of black students based on her memory of the past (in other words, based on nothing that anyone who deals with data or evidence would consider credible).

I'm also not sure how this is a slippery slope argument. Feel free to explain what the slope is that parallels "legal marijuana will lead to the prevalence of harder drugs."

[mahagonny]

What I said is that I have yet to see quantifiable, overt racism in academia.

If you were on our campus i could easily show it to you. We have a professor who proclaims that 'the ruling class has brainwashed the white working class to think they are better than black people.'