Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Well, there's something called professionalism, and some seem to be missing the point as per usual. I'm no fan of 'woke' culture either, but that doesn't mean every single situation in life is cookie cutter and the same.
The professor may have been pointing out what is 'factual' in her own classes and experience, but that doesn't mean she had to in the first place. When I looked at the video, the way she spoke it's almost like you could see her rolling her eyes and sighing, with exaggerated motions and laughing at spots. Almost like it's mocking the students. I'm not saying that was her intention, but first impressions are everything.
If she wanted to have a serious discussion about why Black students are doing so poorly in her classes, that's something that needed to be handled in a professional roundtable with administration and others. Some people just cannot seem to grasp when to keep their mouths shut and when to keep things professional and respectful towards all people.
I agree with what you are saying here.
Even if her true motive was genuine concern and frustration over the performance of the Black students, and her desire to see an improvement in those outcomes, she did not frame it well at all.
Again, it goes with my earlier post that throughout my life I have seen that often people with a lot of intellect, sometimes just don't have basic common sense skills to go with it.
In our current climate, she could have chosen a more empathetic, better thought out way to express the same exact thing, in a more professional arena as you said, and she probably would have been alright.
Sounds like the professor was simply concerned and wanted to brainstorm with a colleague about how to help her black students do better. Now she's branded a "reprehensible" racist, her career ruined permanently.
It sounds like the professor is just stating fact.
Well, there's something called professionalism, and some seem to be missing the point as per usual. I'm no fan of 'woke' culture either, but that doesn't mean every single situation in life is cookie cutter and the same.
The professor may have been pointing out what is 'factual' in her own classes and experience, but that doesn't mean she had to in the first place. When I looked at the video, the way she spoke it's almost like you could see her rolling her eyes and sighing, with exaggerated motions and laughing at spots. Almost like it's mocking the students. I'm not saying that was her intention, but first impressions are everything.
If she wanted to have a serious discussion about why Black students are doing so poorly in her classes, that's something that needed to be handled in a professional roundtable with administration and others. Some people just cannot seem to grasp when to keep their mouths shut and when to keep things professional and respectful towards all people.
It wasn't meant to be public though. She thought she was having a private conversation with one other colleague. Of course, if it had been a professional roundtable with administration and others, she would have spoken in a more measured, professional tone. But it isn't reasonable to expect people to always speak that way.
Every year where I worked we had to do a skills assessment on our teams and departments. Every year the results were predictable.
Operational skills were solid but the mechanical skills were the opportunity. The reason the mechanical skills were always lacking was due to team design. The teams with the most men tended to be skills heavy when it came to the mechanical .
How were these skills measured you ask? We all have criteria to satisfy. That criteria must be satisfied knowledge and performance. The women weren't for what ever reason pursuing their mechanical criteria.
The company instead of addressing why women weren't pursuing the mechanical criteria, instead lowered the bar for mechanical skills.
Calling out what is deficient shouldn't be punished. It should be addressed and steps taken to solve the problem. In the case of the professors? Lack of discretion got them in hack. Try to act a little more professional. The students not being able to hack it? Don't lower the bar, fix the students. Remedial help is needed. For what people pay for a college education those schools should be able to cough up some tutors.
If the students still tank, then its on them, Burger King is always hiring.
It wasn't meant to be public though. She thought she was having a private conversation with one other colleague. Of course, if it had been a professional roundtable with administration and others, she would have spoken in a more measured, professional tone. But it isn't reasonable to expect people to always speak that way.
In this day and age? Unless it is a face to face in a private home I would never assume privacy. I think there are 7 states with laws requiring that all parties be aware that they are being recorded. They should make it all 50 states. It comes under anti-wire tapping.
In this day and age? Unless it is a face to face in a private home I would never assume privacy. I think there are 7 states with laws requiring that all parties be aware that they are being recorded. They should make it all 50 states. It comes under anti-wire tapping.
Of course it's always possible for some bad actor to make what should have been a private conversation public. Reasonable people take that into account when judging what was said. Do you want to live in a society where everyone must always speak as if the whole world is listening?
I agree. It does not benefit the black students with a 3.2 to end up in a highly competitive program with students averaging 3.8 and 3.9. The lower-scoring students would be better off if race were not a factor in admission, and thus they ended up in a decent, but not necessarily top-tier, state university with other B students.
But I don’t blame the black students. It’s the fault of the affirmative action system in thinking the students are better served by being put in a university where the average student is much more academically capable (as demonstrated through GPA and test scores) when in fact everyone would be better off in a school better matched to their academic ability.
Shame students that are simply qualified, regardless of race, don't get to fill those slots.
Let the poor performing students suffer in silence.
lest being called racist. Wait and see if the backlash
for non involvement become a center of discussion.
How was she racist by just stating fact and reality?
It's a sensitive situation. There was a rigorous debate about it at Harvard by Richard Sander. He has done extensive research on the "mismatch" theory - an argument against using racial preferences in affirmative action. As a minority (indigenous from a reservation), I have often observed other minority students dropout of rigorous STEM programs with low grades. These are generally the students who got in with affirmative action. For example, let's say the average ACT in an engineering class was 28. And the average engineering student had one year of AP calculus, AP physics, AP English, and AP chemistry with some advanced credit earned. By contrast, a minority from a rural area or impoverished school district of an inner city likely did not have any AP courses and only had a score of 22 on the ACT. This is the "mismatch" - the impoverished, socioeconomically oppressed conditions of the school district led to a formula for dropout of STEM - no AP programs and a low ACT score. Let's label these minority students category A.
By contrast, I also observed minorities who were not socioeconomically oppressed and lived in an affluent area with very good school districts. These are the minorities who do come in with good ACT scores and have multiple AP courses in HS. Hence, these minorities would likely still get admitted without affirmative action. In terms of proportion, the sample size per class is generally small. But they are there. For the sake of continuing the discussion, let's label these minority students category B. So, proportion(A) > proportion(B) for the freshman year in STEM but by the senior year it flips - proportion(B)>proportion(A).
So, affirmative action does three things - (1) it puts minority students from category A into a mismatch with low chance of surviving a rigorous STEM program or professional program like a JD or MD. (2) Affirmative action stigmatizes the minority students who do well from category B. As I said, these students most likely would have still gotten in without affirmative action. But they are perceived as "not merit based" for admission even though that is not true. Third, the policy often creates resentment among white and Asian students. Claims of reverse racism are very common. One of the nicest, non-racist medical students I met was a white guy named Chuck. But even he complained that he felt like he had to get unnecessarily high MCAT scores to even get considered for admission. So, the policy is a mess.
The Georgetown professor appeared to be talking about the two categories of African American students from A (unprepared) and B (prepared and could be admitted without affirmative action). The solution is simple - cancel affirmative action and the bulk of minorities will come in from category B. This means there won't be as many minorities on campus but their success rates in rigorous programs will be much higher. Meanwhile, the white and Asian students will feel admission is more merit-based and stop protesting against Affirmative Action. In general, the student body is more inclusive without the tension and social stigamization. Florida outlawed affirmative action in 2000, and the minority students I saw there were mostly from category B - they had good standardized test scores and AP courses comparable with the rest of the class. Hence, sucess rates are high. It was great to witness it. I loved doing well on a campus where affirmative action was outlawed. I know how it feels to get the highest score on a midterm in FL which outlawed the policy in 2000. That type of academic victory is like Custer losing at the Little Bighorn - lol.
By contrast, it appears that Georgetown still has affirmative action and admits unprepared minority students who dropout or perform poorly from category A. But if they remove affirmative action, the superachieving minority students from category B can still get admitted and do well because they have comparable LSAT scores and preparation courses dating back to HS.
My opinion is that the professor was simply observing the two categories above - the unprepared minorities who struggle and got admitted with affirmative action. But there are star minority students who don't need affirmative action. She noted they exist too.
I saw a lot of minority students dropout of STEM when I was an undergraduate. It was heartbreaking to see them go back to the reservation, inner cities, or rural communities without a degree. In hindsight, they should have (1) gone to a community college first to make up for a lousy HS curriculum, (2) transfer to an in-state university if they do well, then (3) go to an elite program for graduate school or law/MD only after they carefully completed the undergraduate degree with high grades and scores.
The mismatch theory is real. I saw it in action badly. I've seen the resentment it creates among white students too. They are usually accused of being racist. But to me, a lot of them are simply complaining about the policy. In those cases, they just want a merit-based approach.
Realistically, there are racist students who genuinely believe minorities are intellectually inferior and can only get admitted with affirmative action. The roots of the policy go back to President Nixon who did indeed harbor such racist beliefs. Ostensibly, he promoted racial preferences and affirmative action in the Philadelphia Project to help minorities. But he was actually using affirmative action as a form of social control to stop the anti-racism riots of the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement. Ironically, many minorities unquestionably cling to the AA policy without knowing its true intensions - covert social control rooted in racism from Nixon's time decades ago. Why should minorities hold on to a flawed policy created by a bigoted white man born in the early 1900s when society was blatantly segregated with lychings commonplace?
So one can't say anything at all even true that isn't flattering and complimentary about black or non-white persons? But everyone is free to say false and negative things about whites as they please? There's you're real institutionalized racism.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
