When we last left furiously virtue-signaling Georgetown University Law Center it had fired veteran adjunct professor Sandra Sellers last week for discussing frankly but inadvertently over Zoom a situation that everyone connected with the Law Center knows to be real. GULC had also suspended her co-instructor David Batson for barely nodding his head during Sellers’ statement of frustration that black students too often end up at the bottom of her grading curve. Dean Treanor, in his statement declaring the intended private discussion as “reprehensible,” darkly insinuated that Batson had failed a “bystander responsibility.”
Now Batson has also resigned, in a letter sent to the Washington Post, saying,
“In the moment, my heartfelt response was to point the discussion toward what I believe is our personal responsibility — to be aware of and respond to potential unconscious bias in all our undertakings I understand, however, that I missed the chance to respond in a more direct manner to address the inappropriate content of those remarks.”
The content of Sellers statement was not inappropriate, since it was based on fact. There was no “bias” suggested in Sellers’ comments at all. How would Batson have addressed her reflections in a “more direct manner”? “You know, Sandra, while we all know that admitting black students with credentials that would not get them into Georgetown if they were white means that they are at a disadvantage from the moment they start classes, we can’t say that, admit that, or even think that.”
Was that what he missed a chance to say?
Batson is a groveling coward, another of many we are seeing enable the suffocation of open discourse in the U.S. as censorious bullies take charge. What he really missed a chance to say was something akin to,
The treatment of my colleague Sandra Sanders by this institution, particularly the unfair and unsupported insinuation that she was racially biased because she made a factual observation, was, to use one of Dean Treanor’s unjust adjectives, abhorrent. I thought this was school that appreciated, indeed honored, academic freedom and open discourse regarding all topics, no matter how difficult. Obviously, I was wrong. Georgetown Law Center is set on a dangerous course along with much of academia. I do not intend to travel that route with it, and urge other professors and lawyers of integrity and respect for our profession to make the same resolution.
Weenie.
Ethics Alarms 
Why a weenie? He defended a colleague who made a simple statement of fact.
OK, I miss the sarcasm emoji. You know he threw her under the bus,right?
Yeah, for sure.
Somewhere between Sellers’ angst over the performance results of some of her Black students and Batson’s concern about unconscious bias, the administration concluded they both were racists who had to go.
I, perhaps blinded by my own unconscious bias, don’t see how Sellers’ comments show she is biased. As an aside, I’m still waiting for Still Spartan to elaborate on and justify the assertion that Sellers is a racist.
Meanwhile, I looked at what John McWhorter, well versed in language and racism had to say. (The entire piece is worth reading.) https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/so-there-was-a-law-professor-at-georgetown
He examines some ways that what Sellers said could be considered racist and finds those possibilities lacking.
He says, “And note that in the eyes of many, here I am just asking too many questions. I just don’t “get it” – but if I ask what I don’t “get,” the response is suspiciously dominated by buzzwords unsupported by fact, statistics diagonally related to the topic, and in live interaction, impatient, appalled half-sentences you can’t help wondering the person could actually complete in a convincing way.
Our national discussion of matters like these is crabbed and fake.”
So, how about it? Exactly what makes Sellers comments racist? Absent a clear, convincing explanation of that, Batson’s statement is garbage.
It’s not debatable, remember? It is known.
I am still waiting for SS to elaborate as well. That was a hit and run comment.
They are groveling because they hope they can be redeemed with reeducation and can find another job. If they fight, if they stand up for the idea that what they did ‘wrong’ was speak the ugly truth, they will be unemployable anywhere in ‘polite’ society. I mean, maybe they can pass the bar and find a job in Wyoming or Kansas. If they try to work in DC after resisting, they will be picketed, firebombed, etc by the ‘good’ people.
The freedoms we have enjoyed in the past that are being so easily relinquished in the current social climate will not be easily recaptured. I imagine the cost will be bloodshed in one form or another.