i’m not sure i see how that would help anything. if the university excluded students of color from her classes she would have only white students in her classes. white students to whom she could continue to impart the message that her particular brand of racism is okay. seriously, how would that ameliorate the damage being caused by her racism?
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That point is so important. Racism harms all of us. inflicting her poison only on white students doesn’t neutralize the poison. It spreads it.
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White students, especially from largely white and privileged backgrounds are the ones that this kind of rhetoric does the MOST damage for society. It’s certainly traumatic for POC to have to constantly negotiate institutions that are still steeped in racism, and that’s more than reason enough to ensure it’s eliminated from university curriculum, but we’ve seen the damage caused by people who are already privileged and get a steady diet of that kind of language.
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too true, besides which, it seems like excluding students of color from her classes would reinvent an old and little-lamented institution called segregation. in my opinion, we can do without that.
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Different racist rant.
At least it would prevent her from having her racist views directly affect student success.
ETA: my wording above was sloppy. I don’t mean that only white students should be allowed in her classes. I think she shouldn’t be permitted to teach required classes. Possibly any classes, though I know some faculty would view that as a reward.
I know the history. In previous examples, she pushed up to and across the line, but the most recent one was so far across the line that there is no way any reputable institution can ignore it. Like I wrote in my addendum above, if she remains employed there, they become tacitly a party of her bad behavior, which as it becomes increasingly erratic, threatens her students and coworkers physical and mental well-being.
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The small college where I did undergrad was an overwhelmingly awesome institution. But they maintained certain ratios of students. 40% Black americans, 40% other Americans, 20% international students, or something around there. Might’ve been 45/45/10.
They also maintained around 50/50 male/female.
While I was there, they had to lower admission standards for one gender to maintain the 50/50 ratio. Give you two guesses which one.
I wonder how this lady would feel if someone said that, as a class of people, men did not deserve to be there…
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I’m sure she believes that that’s what affirmative action has done - unfairly barred white men from what they are entitled to by them being who they are…
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Again, I don’t disagree. The question – for Penn admin, for Penn faculty, and for the courts – is how to handle this without abrogating employment protections for people who actually need them.
Unfortunately, she’s high-profile and well-enough-credentialed that they could sack her ass tomorrow and she’ll still be platformed.
That’s really not rocket science. Don’t act like a racist fool on TV. You won’t get fired. The idea that we have to bend over backward to protect the fee-fees of bigots really needs to die. And let’s face it -we hear about people who aren’t protected by the tenets of tenure and academic freedom who should be all the time. It’s not like those concepts are magically all-powerful and perfect. They fail us on the regular. Getting rid of one bigot isn’t going to make them crumble.
So, allow her to keep one platform because she has others? I don’t think so. Knock her off of today’s platform because it’s the right thing to do. Knock her off or tomorrows once she’s climbed up there. It’s more efficient that way.
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Don’t have to play Whack-A-Mole if you take the racist out properly the first time.
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I’ve worked closely with (and against) enough administrators to not trust them with too much authority. On balance I favor employment protections, even though in some cases, like this one, they can protect bad people.
The argument admin can make is that she shouldn’t be allowed in the classroom, but as teaching is her primary job, she can no longer carry out her responsibilities; tenure is not usually a protection against that. However, they could also make a similar claim in firing anyone with extreme views. Wax would certainly take them to court, and drag things out for years.
What I think will happen, in part because of her age, is that she will be paid off to retire. Whether part of that payoff will be a condition that she no longer use a Penn affiliation (eg, as emeritus) I can’t predict.
Just like with free speech, it’s a false dichotomy to say we have to put up with some bigots in order to protect everyone else. We don’t. And if the last 5 years have taught us anything, pandering to bigots does nothing to protect the people they target. Zero, zilch, nada.
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Well that’s the problem, iddin it. Those constituencies are waaaaay down the Ladder of Concern for university presidents, boards of trustees and so on.
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What the last 5 years gave taught me is that it is hard to get rid of bigots. You think their population is dying down, you turn over a rock and suddenly you have more than ever.
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Because we all started acting like warmed over eugenics BS was a normal part of the discourse since the end of the fairness doctrine.
This shit has a history, it didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. 
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So give up? Nah, not my style.
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