The Professor’s thinking about how much she hates your guts, White Boy. Good luck with that paper!
Saida Grundy, a newly hired assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies who is scheduled to begin her tenure at Boston University on July 1, tweeted this query: “Why is white America so reluctant to identify white college males as a problem population?” In another tweet, she announced that “Every MLK week I commit myself to not spending a dime in white-owned businesses. And every year I find it nearly impossible.” She’s a racist, sexist, anti-white bigot, and Boston University should fire her immediately, just as it would fire a professor who announced that black females were a problem population and that he would like to avoid patronizing black-owned businesses. If it doesn’t, alumni should withhold their contributions until the college is reduced to the status of a roadside stand. If it doesn’t responsible parents should pull their white, male children out of the place and send them somewhere that isn’t actively recruiting professors who hate them Even if BU does fire her, the school’s recruitment and hiring practices need to be thoroughly investigated and over-hauled. Saida Grundy is also a fool who thinks her future students are fools. Her “explanation” for the social media outbursts was this:
“I regret that my personal passion about issues surrounding these events led me to speak about them indelicately. I deprived them of the nuance and complexity that such subjects always deserve.”
Huh? What is the nuanced way to write that a gender and race are a blight on academia, and that one discriminates against white business owners? her statement simply means “I’m sorry that I wrote what I really think.” Her dishonest reaction mirrors the other absurd and intellectually indefensible responses on the campus. First the University told the media that she was “exercising her right to free speech and we respect her right to do so.” Then, after being deluged by angry letters and emails from alumni, BU President Robert Brown sent a weasel word tour de force to BU faculty, students, and staff acknowledging Grundy’s right to hold and express her opinions—yes, David Duke has that same right, and Pamela Geller: is BU hiring them for the faculty?–but added they “stereotyped and condemned other people.”
Not “other people”: men and whites.
“We are disappointed and concerned by statements that reduce individuals to stereotypes on the basis of a broad category such as sex, race, or ethnicity,” Brown wrote. “I believe Dr. Grundy’s remarks fit this characterization.”
By characterization, you mean “racist” and “sexist,” right? Why can’t you say so?
Then Brown concluded by saying his comments should not be interpreted as a lack of support for his new employee! Wait—so he supports racist, sexist professors? What does this letter mean? I know, in fact. It means he’s a coward. This is a double standard, undeniably, and an unsustainable one.
Adding to the sickening display of supposed scholars denying the undeniable was sociology professor Nancy Ammerman, who served on the incompetent committee that chose Grundy, who said,
“Twitter’s hard, and many of us who are in the academy are trying to exercise some voice in social media and Twitter, but we all know that it’s very difficult to make a nuanced argument in 140 characters. And we know that the words we use can often be taken the wrong way when they’re out in such a very public kind of forum.”
If a professor can’t say what she means to say in any forum, then she has no business teaching anyone. The problem that Ammerman is trying to spin, deceitfully, is that she said exactly what she meant to say, and her own ethics alarms are so rotted by ideology and bias that she didn’t even realize that what she wrote would be offensive. Tell me, professor, what is the right way for a white male to take those tweets?
Then there’s African American student Jaimee McGruder, a member of the People of Color Coalition at BU, who said, “And we really, really hope that Professor Grundy can come to BU and hopefully, maybe educate the largely white population, if they decide to take her class and learn more about these issues and why her tweets were not racist.”
A tweet saying that whites are a problem population isn’t racist! Wow, that’s good to know! Will she also teach that the sky is down and the ground is up, that hello means goodbye and birds can swim?
Law Professor Jonathan Turley offers this…
“The school must be prepared to show the same tolerance for the next professor who makes what are viewed as racist or sexist comments of a different kind. The concern is that colleges and universities are engaging in selective enforcement and content-based regulation of speech. Ironically, Grundy may lay the foundation for a future lawsuit at the school if it proceeds against a white racist or a sexist professor. Her retention would be evidence that could be used in a case of disparate treatment.”
Ya think?
Announced racists and sexists cannot be teachers, because they cannot be trusted to be fair to the students belonging to the groups they have expressed contempt and animus towards. Such attitudes, and the words are merely evidence of those attitudes, are antithetical to a liberal education. Racist African Americans, whether they are academics like Grundy, activists like Al Sharpton, or pundits like Melissa Harris Perry, help embed racism further into the culture, validate it, and invite more of it. The same is true of sexists: Grundy is both.
Academic freedom doesn’t apply to teachers who haven’t begun teaching yet. BU should be thankful that this terrible hire exposed her bigotry now, before July 1, and allow some school that doesn’t have its quota of racists to hire her.
_________________________
Pointer: Res Ipsa Loquitur
Facts: Fox, Boston Globe, AP, WBUR
Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts, and seek written permission when appropriate. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work or property was used in any way without proper attribution, credit or permission, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at jamproethics@verizon.net.
Ethics Alarms 
One shouldn’t be surprised. Boston University (my alma mater) gave Howard Zinn a comfy berth for more than a generation.
I actually signed up for a class with him – and withdrew after two sessions. He was a nasty man – condescending, arrogant, full of himself and possessed of so much pre-loaded bias that even my then left-leaning self couldn’t stand the thought of a whole semester with him.
So it surprises me not one whit that BU would hire (and defend) this gal. There is precedent.
I wouldn’t have been able to resist taking a course with Zinn myself. I love BU, but it would have ruined me…I would have spent every night and weekend in Fenway Park.
She probably buys into the redefinition of racism as structural advantages accruing to the group in power, as highlighted by Elizabeth Price Foley on Instapundit here.
The attempt to redefine a word with a common usage in this way is simply dishonest. It makes it impossible to have a rational discussion with these people, because they inhabit their own reality distortion field that removes anything they don’t want to acknowledge.
It’s very Orwellian. The “structural advantage” definition absolves any individual responsibility. They can do anything they want, nobody is allowed to complain because it’s not personal or even racism or bigotry as such. It’s structural. And besides, don’t you *want* to help correct the unbalanced structure?
It really tells you how far things have gone that she saw nothing wrong with making statements like that in a public forum. This wasn’t even a private conversation serendipitously overheard, this is Twitter. She WANTED people to know she thought this and wanted others to follow her example. I find this similar to the Chris Cuomo topic earlier. Neither of them realized that there are still that many people who haven’t drunk the Kool Aid.
The fact that the University tried to defend this tells you all you need to know about how fairly you are about to be treated if you are a white male at BU. The Jaimee McGruder statement, the Nancy Ammerman statement, and the professor’s Twitter posts make it clear there are academic areas on campus where whites and white males are not allowed. These areas of study are just like the Women’s Study classes where male students aren’t allowed to speak because it would intimidate the female students.
Because of white privilege, saying the same things about blacks isn’t equivalent…. at least according to the social justice theorists. Even though by definition a black female professor has power over her white male students. But that’s an individual consideration, and they only care about groups.
This falls under the sauce for the goose argument. If the we flipped the nouns/adjectives to their opposite and a male white professor said the same about his black students the reaction to such mean would be very different. Then the outrage would be at him for being racist. It’s racist if she says it, it’s racist of he says it, it’s racist if the big green Pattevinny from the Orion nebula says it. The words count more than the speaker once they are set loose to improve or ruin the people who hear them. Blanket insults do not help anyone.
NAAWP RESPONSES:
1) BOYCOTT BOSTON UNIVERSITY until this PROFESSOR is relieved of her DUTIES!
2) AMERICAN JAILS are CHOCKEDFUL of YOUNG BLACK THUGS, HIP HOPPERS, RAP CRAPPERS, STICKUP GUYS, CRACKHEADS, GANGBANGERS, AFRICAN QUEENS and ENTITLEMENTERS, but WHITE MEN are the PROBLEM!
Black professorapologizes for claiming that white men are ‘THE problem for America’s colleges’and saying she tries not to buy from white-owned businesses
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3078860/Boston-University-criticizes-black-professors-racial-tweets.html#ixzz3a3hEJv00
A Boston University professor who called ‘white college males’ a ‘problem population’
has said she regrets making the remarks.
Incoming black sociology professor Saida Grundy, whose comments were criticized by university
president Robert A. Brown, had declared on her now-private Twitter account that ‘white masculinity is THE problem for America’s colleges,’ among other anti-white tweets.
Ms Grundy said events in the United States over the past year have made ‘the inconvenient
matter of race’ an unavoidable topic, but she expressed remorse over what she
had said.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3078860/Boston-University-criticizes-black-professors-racial-tweets.html#ixzz3a3hkltrV
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION for the ADVANCEMENT of WHITE PEOPLE – 2015
https://www.facebook.com/MarkAnthonyTraina
Ah, nuance. This lady is exactly like the humorless proglodytes I went to grad school with — except that their go-to excuse was always “context.”
white ppl, you need to chill. what’s the big deal? how does it affect your life on the daily? ask yourselves the same bs questions you pose when non-whites point out your racism. also, white females – thanks for once again showing that you will align yourselves by race over gender anytime these issues are discussed.
What kind of an argument is THAT? The only misconduct that we should care about is that which effects us personally? You can’t possibly believe that. Ted Bundy’s murders had no impact or potential impact on me at all. Neither does the chaos in Syria, or girls being kidnapped and sold into slavery in Nigeria. The IRS harassing tea party groups and getting away with it is unlikely to effect me, and neither does football players getting brain injured. By that logic, why should any white citizen care about racism if he or she lives in a white area? Unethical conduct that is tolerated and encouraged in institutions eventually harm everyone because they warp and degrade the culture, and corrupt society.
Whatever color you are, you’re an idiot, and wouldn’t understand an ethical principle if it was sitting on your head.
If anyone points out my racism, I know he knows nothing about me and is treating me in the abstract because he’s a bigot and a race-baiter. I know he or she is part of the baggage stopping African-Americans from getting out of a cultural rut.
The post isn’t even primarily about race. It’s about incompetent, untrustworthy professors and the negligent school administrators who inflict them on students.
I appreciate the reply from the Department Chair of the African-American Studies program. You made all my points for me. Thank you.
So I guess black people should not be bothered by racism.
“Problem population”? well, at least she stopped short of calling for our extermination. Other “professors” haven’t been so lenient.