
USC Prof Removed After Students Said Chinese Word Affected Their Mental Health - fortran77
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/usc-professor-placed-on-leave-after-black-students-complained-his-pronunciation-of-a-chinese-word-affected-their-mental-health/
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fortran77
I withheld an opinion until I saw the recording of the zoom recording. There
have been cases where people are being wise-asses (like using the word
"nigardly" in front of a black audience, when the word doesn't appear in
modern conversational English.)

After watching the zoom recording, seeing and hearing the context he used it,
and the pronunciation (both vowels are different from the slur, and it's
missing the final "r" sound) I don't think the professor did anything wrong,
either intentionally or unintentionally. It's a shame the school
administrators don't have enough of a backbone to stand up for the professor.

------
smt88
Additional context:

\- Patton was temporarily removed from a single class, not fired.

\- MBA students pay an outrageous price. They're customers. Customers are
often irrational and wrong, but we all do what they want us to do anyway.

\- There's no ideological component to this. The prof is not being suspended
for having an unorthodox opinion. He's being suspended for using a poorly-
chosen example, being asked by students to stop, and then using it again.

From another source:

> _The students said some of them had voiced their concern to Patton during
> his lecture, but that he’d used the word in following class sections anyway.
> They also said they’d reached out to fellow Chinese students, who “confirmed
> that the pronunciation of this word is much different than what Professor
> Patton described in class. The word is most commonly used with a pause in
> between both syllables.”_ [1]

1\. [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-
sus...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/09/08/professor-suspended-
saying-chinese-word-sounds-english-slur)

~~~
fortran77
\- I've heard otherwise from native Chinese speakers. Pronunciation varies
widely from north to south.

\- MBA programs need to meet certain standards for the accreditation. It's not
simply what the customers want.

\- I think its disingenuous to think there's no ideological component to this.
The memories of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were invoked. (Both cases
were, IMO, an outrageous abuse of police force.)

~~~
smt88
> _I 've heard otherwise from native Chinese speakers. Pronunciation varies
> widely from north to south._

This may be true. I have no idea. But perhaps this was the wrong quote for me
to fixate on.

The point the students made (and I agree with) is that there are tens of
thousands of Chinese words that don't sound like racial slurs. After being
informed that he sounded like he was using a racial slur, he could have chosen
any other. He did not.

The lesson itself is also of dubious value. If you removed that part of his
lecture, I don't think anyone would be worse off. It's not like lectures are
what MBAs are really paying for, anyway.

> _MBA programs need to meet certain standards for the accreditation. It 's
> not simply what the customers want._

That's true for curriculum content, but the contentious part of his lecture
had nothing to do with anything academic. It could not have any effect on
accreditation.

> _I think its disingenuous to think there 's no ideological component to
> this._

I was saying that the professor was not being ideological. He was just being
an idiot. I believe professors should not be punished for ideology, but they
should be punished for stubbornly sticking to a pointless "lesson" that
sounded like a racial slur.

I agree that the students clearly were being ideological.

