Should BU withdraw the job offer?

[ChocolateReignRemix]

I don't see anything wrong with giving jobs to prisoners.  It bugs the unions because they aren't making union dues off those jobs.  Maybe they should unionize the prison population.

 

Surprise, surprise, WalMart is one of the companies mentioned repeatedly in those articles.  The Unions' favorite scapegoat.

 

I don't find it odd that a large employer which someone manages to make huge profits while paying low enough wages that FT employees qualify for food stamps and Medicaid gets singled out for criticism.  The good folks at Wal Mart also have a history of "encouraging" small manufacturers in the US to outsource their manufacturing to companies overseas to allow WM to purchase at a lower price and earn higher margins.

 

'Murica! Hell yeah!

[MSNative]

I thought this was a timely and interesting take on civility vs demanding civil rights. Given all the discussion on honey vs vinegar I thought it could add to the thread.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/give-michelle-obama-a-break-1432076369

 

"Here we have the essential, abiding question for black politics facing a white majority: Which is better, the civil-rights strategy of anger and agitation or the quiet, composed policy of pursuing American happiness like everyone else, if with fewer advantages? The first can lead to rioting, the second to accusations of being an Uncle Tom."

 

It certainly doesn't answer the question but is an interesting jumping off point.

[MSNative]

Is Fox news trolling for dirt ? You betcha.

 

Do ANGRY black women get punished for not being 'polite to whites' when they speak THEIR truth ? Oh yeah. See this entire thread.

 

Did the conversation become about a white rape victim ? Yes it did. Was the white rape victim offered up as a 'victim' of the angry black woman, in need of championing ? Yes.

 

People really need to read up on modern racism.

As I said, I deleted that part of the post because it came across as snarky and I didn't intend that.

 

With regard to this post, we will have to agree to disagree that people are upset with her for not being polite. I think there is a huge difference between not being polite and being prejudiced. Many other posters and I have said both she and the Duke prof have no business in the classroom because they publicly broadcast their biases which put in doubt their ability to evaluate all students fairly.

 

As far as the fb rant I felt that the discussion was about how demeaning and insensitive her posts were even after the other woman tried to exit the discussion. I didn't see that as searching for a white victim. Instead I saw it as another example of her posting in an inflammatory and demeaning way.

 

I do think I understand your overall point though. Since you do not find anything wrong with her tweets but rather see them as speaking incovenient truths, it only follows that those who are upset by the tweets must be upset because they don't want to acknowledge those truths. Also since you don't see anything wrong with her fb post, then those who do must just be looking for a way to sabotage her. Does that sound right? If so, then I think I understand your pov. I disagree but I think I see why you feel that way.

[MSNative]

What possible defense could there be?

 

"I know a black guy, and he's not lazy. His name is Jim, not Jamaal, so we know his mother brought him up right. So, see? They're not all like that."

 

0.o

 

To be clear, I was not suggesting anyone ought to defend him. I was explaining that I only looked up bu policies because people are defending the bu prof.

[poppy]

With regard to this post, we will have to agree to disagree that people are upset with her for not being polite. I think there is a huge difference between not being polite and being prejudiced.

 

The comment was "Do ANGRY black women get punished for not being 'polite to whites' when they speak THEIR truth ? Oh yeah."  We've talked so much in this thread  about how black women are castigated when they talk about race; the subject  turns to the woman's character, not the content of her speech.   It's not about being polite in the "please and thank you" sense.  

 

And if talking about race in sometimes uncomfortable ways makes a professor unqualified to evaluate students fairly, then many social science departments should be canned. And for goodness sake, stop all those freshman lit courses that cover Ntozake Shange. bell hooks certainly  made a  career of "publicly broadcast her biases", let's get her out of academia fast.  I'm being a bit facetious here, since I do not think this professor, whose name I can't even recall, is a scholar on hooks' level. But my point is, if you fire professors with "bias" you will have very quiet campuses full of..... I don't know. Business and biology majors? And a whole lot of silenced cultural critics.  Which is not good for people in academia or outside of it.

 

Oh wait....

 

 

I do think I understand your overall point though. Since you do not find anything wrong with her tweets but rather see them as speaking incovenient truths, it only follows that those who are upset by the tweets must be upset because they don't want to acknowledge those truths. Also since you don't see anything wrong with her fb post, then those who do must just be looking for a way to sabotage her. Does that sound right? If so, then I think I understand your pov. I disagree but I think I see why you feel that way.

 

I think this was added after I saw the post? It is 1:35 am here, I need to go, but I want to acknowledge this - I think it is a fair reading, basically.  I could certainly quibble with it, but, I won't- I appreciate the palm branch. Is that the right term?  Metaphor for gesture of mutual understanding? I am tired, I hope I am making sense.  Good night :)

[SKL]

I don't think there is "one" problem with her tweets and facebook posts.  I think there are multiple problems.

 

And each of these would be attacked by the above supporters if she was a white person and her subject was non-white people, problems, etc.

 

Her "facts" - some of them are arguable, some are right, but others are demonstrably wrong.  And she is a teacher in this field.

Her tone - yes, an obnoxious tone is offensive, and in the racial context it doesn't fly in this day - if you are white.

Personally attacking individuals for their weaknesses, beliefs, characteristics - ignorance [about Grundy's focus of interest], being emotional, being Republican, whatever.

The net effect on public discourse about race - negative.

And she should know better.

 

If you really believe this is just about a black woman not being extra polite to whites, then please show me a similar (recent) string of statements about blacks by a white professor or prominent white person that was considered perfectly acceptable by mainstream white people.

[MSNative]

Oh wait....

 

I think this was added after I saw the post? It is 1:35 am here, I need to go, but I want to acknowledge this - I think it is a fair reading, basically. I could certainly quibble with it, but, I won't- I appreciate the palm branch. Is that the right term? Metaphor for gesture of mutual understanding? I am tired, I hope I am making sense. Good night :)

Yes it was added after. I must have been editing my post while you were posting. I think we must live in the same time zone. Insomniacs unite. ;) I'm so glad you saw it and appreciate your response. So often in threads like this one feels like one is banging their head on a wall feeling like the other person is not getting it. I just wanted to save your head. ;) Though I disagree with your take on the posts, I appreciate the discussion.

[MSNative]

I don't think you could keep business majors on in a bias free school! Mathematicians...maybe ?

 

Regarding her tweets and FB post, none of these were 'responsibilities undertaken on the University's behalf'. She didn't use a university twitter address or FB page - so far as I know. And we have no idea so far what kind of atmosphere she creates in her classes...we only have assumptions ( on both sides, to be fair). Some of her students may find her classes invigorating, challenging, some of them may find her classes hostile - or hey, maybe not. We don't know.

 

I question how fair any assessment of her classroom environment will be, given the pressure being put on the University.

 

 

A professor here was recently sacked for emails in which he called indigenous Australians 'filthy Abos living on garbage dumps' and worse but he used his University email account to do so and so clearly broke their social media rules.

 

This is a separate issue, but I do think what people tweet/email/broadcast on social media on their own time and not as an employee, should, if it is legal speech, not automatically impact on their employment.

 

A sports journalist here was recently sacked by a public broadcaster for tweeting on his own Twitter feed ( not his employer's) a contrary view of Anzac Day.

 

These are the things that happen if we allow employers to own the public speech of employees 24/7.

 

Sort of a tangent, but not really.

Lol! Your comment got me searching hot debates in mathematics.

 

I agree that we are all making assumptions about the classroom environment. I also agree with your point that the university shouldn't fire someone based solely on assumptions. I think in this case there is a preponderance of evidence about her judgement and demeanor towards others to make a decision that woudl be based on more than just assumptions.

 

Regarding your example of the professor who was fired where you are for using his school computer account to post slurs against indigenous Australians, would you support him if he had used his private account? Do you think indegenous Australian students would think that he respected them and evaluated them fairly?

 

I came across this example of a professor who had his job offer rescinded from U of I for posting reuse tweets against Isreal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/09/steven-salaita-university-of-illinois_n_5793370.html

Here is one of the tweets, "You may be too refined to say it, but I’m not: I wish all the f**king West Bank settlers would go missing.’ Dr. Salaita continued to post this comment even after the three teens were found murdered later that month.â€"

This is an article about the lawsuit he filed against the university. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/30/steven-salaitas-long-anticipated-lawsuit-against-u-illinois-includes-twist

So there is precedent here for a university to withdraw a job offer if it feels that a professor's social media posts are offensive.

 

I agree with your point that we don't want to stifle academic freedom or freedom of speech. I disagree that these cases have been about academic freedom. Imo they are about personal bias and animosity against certain groups.

[Reefgazer]

If other professors are allowed to make these comments about other races and genders, than this one should be allowed to also. But if other professors were fired for similar comments, then she should be also. If other professors are allowed to make this comment about other races and genders, than this one should be allowed to also. I personally think professors like this are not capable of being impartial, regardless of who their targets are.

[Bluegoat]

African cultrual groups (Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, etc...) were and are by far the numerical majority in South Africa, but somehow apartheid wasn't "solved.  It is possible to be a political or social "minority" even though your numbers are officially larger than the group that holds power. In the case of BU, it is entirely possible that the ethos, traditions, policies and environment still preferences men, and most probably white men who are the traditional group for whom the institution was built. It takes years and decades to turn institutions around - it may be that BU still has the vestiges of that privileged treatment of white male students, particularly those who are wealthy and heterosexual. That's not a particularly shocking or controversial revelation.

 

 

That was an unfortunate thing to say and I do wish he would have worded it differently, but why did it scare you? What did you think was going to happen? There IS often an imbalanced sense of understanding the lives of African Americans, people of color more generally, race or racism among white individuals because they are less likely to have to think about or deal it directly on a regular basis. Our high school history classes ARE pretty dismal in their effectiveness in teaching the basics of civil rights history. Many (though not all) black parents make up for that by ensuring their kids are taught that history elsewhere. The same doesn't seem to be happening any where nearly as much in white homes -- so kids aren't getting it at home and aren't getting it at school -- and then a big black scary professor comes along... (I'm being tongue in cheek).  Sure, you can catch more flies with honey -- but your college professor isn't there to ensure everyone has a "kumbuya" moment around race.  And our racial history isn't particularly a "Sunday picnic" -- you do have to be in a place to decide you will wrestle with it and face some of our historical and societal demons -- and what it means for TODAY to learn and grow from it. 

 

But, yes, you are right -- perhaps a different entry point would have been helpful, but it is doing students no intellectual favors to make sure they are always feeling comfortable at all moments in time in discussing difficult topics. In my social work classes, I've done an exercise on the beginning to explore the idea of "comfort" because a lot of what we will discuss in class is not comfortable -- I do agree with helping students to feel like they can stick with the class and will be graded and treated fairly. But your comfort, I can't guarantee.

 

Also, I'm curious - your situation happened over 30 years ago... and "now we have some BU professor tweeting..." That seems like a pretty big gulf between incidents - a lot of history has gone down between your experience back then and today, don't you think?  Can you allow these both to be individuals who handled communications poorly but perhaps not indicative of "what you'll get when you take those kinds of classes" -- because we're all about seeing people only as individuals on this thread, right? ;-)  Not lumping together professors who teach those classes into a group of folks looking to scare white students, right?

 

 

Twitter is an unfortunate communications format, IMO. I really don't get it - but I digress. I wanted to inquire about the "ignorant, predictable, and shallow" comment. I get how someone could come to deem the comments as "ignorant" (though I don't totally agree) and "shallow" (it's Twitter, for goodness sake - it's a shallow medium, how many deep thoughts do you think come from Twitter?), but "predictable" is a bit of a button-pusher. Predictable only makes sense if you have prior experience with or some preconceived notion of the individual in question. And how could you possibly have had a preconceived notion of her as AN INDIVIDUAL since you did not know of her existence before this thread (unless you happen to have been her college roommate). So that only leaves the possibility of her being "predictable" based on -- wait for it -- her status as a member of a group, as in "those people are so predictable." And which group would that be? Hmm? Shouldn't someone insisting that we should all be viewed as individuals stay away from "predictable" as a descriptor of her comments?  Just be a bit more careful with your own words -- advice you were wanting the professor to heed. 

 By predictable, no, I wasn't suggesting that it was a particular racial group that is predicable particularly, about this. (Though, lots of things are fairly culturally predictable, that's why demographic studies and profiling and such can work.)   

 

More that she seems to have embraced a particular sort of narrative about the nature of society and culture which makes her subsequent comments pretty predictable or even inevitable.  My impression is not that she has engaged with them thoughtfully - she has too many generalizations and factual errors for me to think that she has.  Her view, the way it is structured, is found IME in academia in a few different fields, and in people outside of academia who are influenced by that particular narrative.  It does get applied regularly to  African-American interpretations of culture and history but I don't think that is ubiquitous, there are plenty of blacks with different perspectives on those things, and lots of non-blacks groups who accept that narrative. 

 

I think though that it is characteristic of those groups that they tend to almost ignore the views of those who they are identifying - African Americans in this case - with but who seem to disagree with their assessment of the situation.  There is I think an implied cultural unity there much greater than anything I would say exists.  So if it seems that I am suggesting she is predictable about this because of her race, it might be because she seems to be suggesting that my disagreement would be due to my race - that is how her narrative is set up.

 

I don't think its a very insightful, or coherent, narrative, therefore uninteresting and shallow - and I think that there is a kind of group-speak there that actually disallows opposing viewpoints by immediately labeling them as  evidence that the narrative is correct. So the set of ideas she expressed, including in the expanded list of comments, seems entirely predictable to me.  It's kind of a set-piece.