for saying (in a Latin American politics class) that "Mexican migrants in the United States are sometimes referred to pejoratively as 'wetbacks'"? That's what the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reports, though pointing out that Brandeis hasn't even explicitly said exactly what speech of his was found to be "racial[ly] harass[ing]." FIRE (which I've found to be consistently factually credible) also points to Brandeis faculty committees that strongly condemn the procedures that the university has used, and argue — quite correctly, if the facts are as they are described — that this is a serious violation of academic freedom.
I should note that I'm not as hostile as the faculty committees are to the administration's decision to place a monitor in the professor's class. It seems to me that people who pay one's salary to teach are entitled to know what one is teaching. And if the monitor was looking for, say, targeted personal insults of individual students (if that were the allegation), that would be a plausible thing for the monitor to do (though my view is that recording the class would be a less disruptive way of doing that). Likewise, if there were simply reports that the professor was teaching in a confusing and ineffective way, the administration should be entitled to look in on the classes and see whether they can offer the professor constructive advice, or perhaps evaluate the teaching to see if the professor falls below minimum tenure standards (or perhaps should be reassigned to teaching some other class in which he does better).
The trouble is that the administration seems to be using a vague and potentially extremely broad definition of what the professor is not supposed to be saying — it's not just the monitoring, but monitoring coupled with (1) the threat of punishment for speech for which a professor ought not be punished, (2) a finding of racial harassment based on the earlier statements, and (3) seemingly serious procedural failings in the process the administration has used. Looks like very bad stuff, given the facts reported on the FIRE site and the documents to which it links.
UPDATE: Prof. Margaret Soltan (at George Washington University) blogged several weeks ago about the controversy (and also here); I haven't read all the details, but I thought I'd forward the link. Thanks to reader Cactus Jack for the pointer.
FURTHER UPDATE: I have more about the facts, and the problems with Brandeis' actions, here.
Related Posts (on one page):
- ACLU of Massachusetts Condemns Brandeis University
- Better Not Denigrate Religions / Disabilities / Veteran Status / Sexual Orientation / Etc. at Your University:
- Calling Brandeis Professors and Students:
- Saying "Jehovah" at Brandeis?
- Don't Say This, I Won't Tell You What:
- Brandeis University Trying To Discipline Professor
"Mexican migrants in the United States are sometimes referred to pejoratively as 'wetbacks'"
is logically equivalent to this sentence:
"The word 'wetback' is sometimes used to refer perjoratively to Mexican migrants in the United States."
Maybe the administrators ought to head over to the philosophy department for a tutorial on the distinction.
At Brandeis, I couldn't talk about this case?!
Arkady has suggested some basic philosophy-of-language training for the administration. I would add a lesson on Wittgensteinian language theory. Specifically, they might find interesting his conclusion that NO WORD has meaning outside of the context of its use. 4My Merriam-Webster's Dictionary prints the word "nigger," and now so do I in this post. The use of the word in both contexts, howeever, reveals its meaning *within those contextts,* namely, to discuss the word. Not to insult any person or group of people.
The Brandeis professor seems to have used "wetback" in a similar context: He was referring to the word, not to the people whom the word insults. (Wasn't "meta" the hot prefix of the early '00s?)
The difference between a meta-reference and a reference seems rather big in this case. Along the order of the difference between having a magazine article about Nicole Kidman and having Nicole Kidman.
I don't think the problem is not understanding the distinction. The problem is that the administration either (a) believes that anything that offends anyone is a crime or (b) is afraid of the bad publicity that would result in crossing those members of the academic community that believe that anything that offends anyone is a crime. Philosophy education will help with neither problem.
When my kid was in high school, her history teacher was a lunatic. I wanted her to tape her classes so I could hear what was going on. Teacher said no tape recorders.
I would have given up my time to transcribe her class and put it on the Internet. Parents would have been appalled at what is taught in some schools.
I'm also wondering if the Brandeis library system has a copy of Randall Kennedy's book, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word and, if so, whether any faculty member ever assigns it, or even refers to it, and how its existence is referenced by Brandeis library staff, without running afoul of the same administrators.
Did this really happen? A niggard is a stingy person...
Wikipedia counts as evidence, right?
I have two questions.
1. What does David Bernstein think of this. Isn't he an alumnus of the place?
2. Can Enclish departments teach the famous novel by Conrad set on the ship Narcissus?
Unfortunately yes. here is a CNN story on it.
According to this story he did get his job back eventually.
Surely that is a spoof paper of satire, like the onion? I mean, how could Brandeis even accept a student as (insensitive remark)stupid(/insensitive remark) as that. People need to stop believing that using the right words makes all the difference. Words may matter, but they matter far less than actions, context, and people. Stopping words like "wetback" does nothing to address the reasons for its use and existence. Bradeis, if this is true, is truly pathetic.
In Blackboard Jungle, the principal rips into Glenn Ford for using a series of racial slurs in class -- except in the film, the student who made the anonymous complaint deliberately failed to mention that Ford used them as examples of names that ought not to be used. When Ford explained, the principal at least had the decency to apologize. Brandeis seems to believe that context is no defense.
Which recalls the stoning scene in Life of Brian. The judge reads the writ of execution against a man who was convicted of saying Jehovah. As the judge reads tht part of the writ, the crowd then starts throwing stones at the Judge -- for having said Jehovah.
A few years back, a group of parents protested over assigning Huck Finn, period.
Now, suppose the assignment was to read Dick Gregory's autobiography?
I took it as a compliment to my fluency in Spanish. Perhaps the Brandeis administration could have found me an attorney to initiate a defamatory lawsuit against them for calling me "mojado."
That is not quite as presented by FIRE, but on the other hand, the Administration has been slow to provide specific examples of his inappropriate speech to the prof.
Anyyway, I've lost the thread of my thoughts. I'm sure that I had something to say that would have convinced every ccommenter on this site, not to mention the originators of this thread, of the perfect wisdom of my thought, but it will just have to pass for now.
My reaction is pretty strongly offended, in the the 19th century the usage was not perjorative (for the most part) but a commonplace descriptive like African-American. There was no shortage of perjorative terms for vaious human subgroups in the 19th century including African-Americans, but the common N- words were not used insultingly, merely descriptely as the word b---k was formerly considered a non-perjporative term for African-Americans, indeed the word b---k is still used by the PC impaired African-Americans who inhabit Africa to refer to themselves.
In other words, she found it racist that the prof passed along someone's first hand account of having experienced racism.
One of many: Your knowledge of history appears lacking. In the 19th century US, the N-word (as it's now called) was definitely a perjorative, although its use was commonplace. The Draft Riots in New York City during the Civil War also show that the N-word was negatively emotion laden. "We're not going to fight Lincoln's [N-word] war" inspired lynchings, not endearment.
So, would your feeling offended stem from the fact that the statement would be an accurate statement of 19th century America (Twain writing accurately the language used at that time and accurately reflecting attitudes of the time) or, as a 21st century person, that someone today would accurately repeat certain facts of 19th century America?
The N-word is also used early on in "The Grapes of Wrath". Some kid (IIRC a white kid) in my high school senior English class, 1979, shouted out "I'm offended!" at that and the teacher was ready to address it, but the kid said he was only joking and we went on. (That is, in the late 70s we knew the word was offensive, we could still say it in school in appropriate contexts, and students knew that feigned offendedness was already getting silly.)