Georgetown Law professor is fired after saying black students are bottom of her class almost every semester

[TSwizzle]

A LOL moment;

Georgetown Law has fired one white professor and placed another on administrative leave after a video of their discussion about a black student was condemned on social media. Dean Bill Treanor anounced on Thursday that the school had ended its relationship with Professor Sandra Sellers, 62, after the video showed her complaining on Zoom that black students were predominantly at the bottom of her class.

DailyMail

 

[Trausti]

And yet it moves.

 

[Metaphor]

The fired professor made a statement: that black students were often near the bottom of her class.

That's a claim of fact, and it's a claim of fact that somebody could verify.

All the speculation that followed: that the teacher was biased against black students, that she deliberately or unconsciously marked them down, etc, etc does not follow.

During my law degree (I dropped law after two years), not a single person marking my essays and exams would be able to express prejudice against me in that marking, unless they were so prejudiced that they would go to the effort of looking up my student ID (a letter and a jumble of numbers) just to single me out. Names were not put on essays and exams.

I expect that the professor's social media and everything she has ever uttered that is recorded will now be combed forensically for evidence of her 'bias'. Or perhaps her immediate firing was enough.

 

[Trausti]

The fired professor made a statement: that black students were often near the bottom of her class.

That's a claim of fact, and it's a claim of fact that somebody could verify.

All the speculation that followed: that the teacher was biased against black students, that she deliberately or unconsciously marked them down, etc, etc does not follow.

During my law degree (I dropped law after two years), not a single person marking my essays and exams would be able to express prejudice against me in that marking, unless they were so prejudiced that they would go to the effort of looking up my student ID (a letter and a jumble of numbers) just to single me out. Names were not put on essays and exams.

I expect that the professor's social media and everything she has ever uttered that is recorded will now be combed forensically for evidence of her 'bias'. Or perhaps her immediate firing was enough.

Right. Unless things have changed since the early aughts, your bluebook is assigned a number. Your identity is unknown to the reviewer. Just like with the Bar. But our new religion will brook no heresies.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

First four posts all ignored. Must be an alt-right spank fest.

 

[Trausti]

First four posts all ignored. Must be an alt-right spank fest.

Thanks joining the spank!

 

[Derec]

This is getting ridiculous. So is the professor fired for noticing a pattern or for not adjusting black students' grades as some form of post-admission "affirmative action"?

After all, if you admit people to your school based on race (and Georgetown most likely does) then it can't come as a surprise that they will tend to underperform.

 

[Jarhyn]

First four posts all ignored. Must be an alt-right spank fest.

Like, how hard is it to accept that while certain demographics MAY perform in particular ways, complaining about the demographic itself rather than underperforming individuals indicates instructor bias against the demographic rather than the individuals?

Then, it's coming from The Daily Mail, so I don't expect a reasonable discussion of it in either the whinges of it's readers or it's own treatment of the subject.

 

[Trausti]

This is getting ridiculous. So is the professor fired for noticing a pattern or for not adjusting black students' grades as some form of post-admission "affirmative action"?

After all, if you admit people to your school based on race (and Georgetown most likely does) then it can't come as a surprise that they will tend to underperform.

And if those people take on heavy loans they’ll never be able to payoff because they dropout or fail the Bar, it’s social justice.

 

[TSwizzle]

This is getting ridiculous. So is the professor fired for noticing a pattern or for not adjusting black students' grades as some form of post-admission "affirmative action"?

After all, if you admit people to your school based on race (and Georgetown most likely does) then it can't come as a surprise that they will tend to underperform.

It's the retreat of reason.

 

[laughing dog]

I realize the tendency to jump to ideologically driven conclusions based on immediate and partial information. I seriously doubt that OP article has all the relevant or pertinent information.

This report https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/03/georgetown-law-professor-racist-remarks-sandra-sellers-black-students.html is a bit more in depth.

It may seem that Treanor took swift action to address Sellers’ remarks. But multiple GULC students with firsthand knowledge told Slate that a student discovered the video on Sunday night and reported it to the administration on Monday morning. The administration did not publicly address it until after it was widely shared on Twitter, and after the Black Law Students Association released a statement calling on GULC to immediately fire Sellers. The BLSA also urged the administration to demand a public apology from Batson, improve its “subjective grading system,” audit Sellers’ “past grading and student evaluations,” and hire more Black professors. .....Another third-year student pointed out that Sellers and Batson’s class was a participation-based course, “making Black students particularly susceptible to biased grading” given Sellers’ racist views. A quarter of the final grade is based on “pure class participation,” a highly subjective criterion that gives professors broad latitude to inject their personal prejudices into the grading process. Alarmingly, Sellers made her statement while she and Batson were evaluating a Black student’s performance in class.

I believe the quick dismissal may have a chilling effect on free speech at the law school. I think a better approach would have been a suspension and an investigation. But I also wonder what more information will surface.
1)

 

[Metaphor]

Another third-year student pointed out that Sellers and Batson’s class was a participation-based course, “making Black students particularly susceptible to biased grading” given Sellers’ racist views. A quarter of the final grade is based on “pure class participation,” a highly subjective criterion that gives professors broad latitude to inject their personal prejudices into the grading process.

It has not been established that Seller has racist views (unless observations of fact count as 'racist').

However, if Georgetown alters (reduces) its emphasis on 'class participation', that would be a welcome change. My law courses (not any of my other courses in any other subject area) often had a "class participation" aspect worth around 10%, which I hated at the time and think is nearly completely subjective, unnecessarily zero-sum, rewards certain personality types, and ultimately pointless. If a teacher did have prejudices of any kind, the class participation mark is where they could easily exercise that prejudice.

 

[steve_bank]

Regardless of the validity to be cortical of any collective black behavior is suppressed, however factual and objective.

While a lot is made of police abuse of power regarding blacks, little if anything is ever said a black is more likely to be killed by another black then by police.

Back in the 80s/90s there were academic criticisms of a growling number of black PHDs in black studies questioning the rigor. Especially from HBC.

 

[TSwizzle]

First four posts all ignored. Must be an alt-right spank fest.

Like you wouldn’t be rubbing one out if it was a MAGA hat wearing redneck.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Regardless of the validity to be cortical of any collective black behavior is suppressed, however factual and objective.

While a lot is made of police abuse of power regarding blacks, little if anything is ever said a black is more likely to be killed by another black then by police.

Just because you aren’t aware of it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

 

[Jarhyn]

Regardless of the validity to be cortical of any collective black behavior is suppressed, however factual and objective.

While a lot is made of police abuse of power regarding blacks, little if anything is ever said a black is more likely to be killed by another black then by police.

Just because you aren’t aware of it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

And just because someone is aware some group trends exist makes it no less racist to fucking bang on about it. If anyone wants any modicum of respect from me, or for that matter anyone who tries to be better than they were yesterday, you still have to treat every person you meet as an individual, without respect to what other people who are not them have done.

 

[Valjean]

First four posts all ignored. Must be an alt-right spank fest.

Like, how hard is it to accept that while certain demographics MAY perform in particular ways, complaining about the demographic itself rather than underperforming individuals indicates instructor bias against the demographic rather than the individuals?

Then, it's coming from The Daily Mail, so I don't expect a reasonable discussion of it in either the whinges of it's readers or it's own treatment of the subject.

Let's not jump to conclusions.

Was the instructor complaining, or just mentioning a true observation?
If complaining, was the complaint against the race, against the discrepancy, against the system that led to the discrepancy, against her own teaching competence, or against racism in general?

Are we simply assuming the instructor believes the lower marks were the result of racial inferiority?

 

[Jarhyn]

First four posts all ignored. Must be an alt-right spank fest.

Like, how hard is it to accept that while certain demographics MAY perform in particular ways, complaining about the demographic itself rather than underperforming individuals indicates instructor bias against the demographic rather than the individuals?

Then, it's coming from The Daily Mail, so I don't expect a reasonable discussion of it in either the whinges of it's readers or it's own treatment of the subject.

Let's not jump to conclusions.

Was the instructor complaining, or just mentioning a true observation?
If complaining, was the complaint against the race, against the discrepancy, against the system that led to the discrepancy, against her own teaching competence, or against racism in general?

Are we simply assuming the instructor believes the lower marks were the result of racial inferiority?

She is first and foremost a professor, in this context. That is who she is expected to be. A professor at a university has an obligation to not accept those observations as worthy of mention. They serve no purpose but to reinforce "biases against", because the shape of that statement is very much a "bias against". It is a liability as an institution to allow the appearance of a failure of ethics because, and I don't understand why any conservative business minded person wouldn't understand using business ethics for the business of education, which people are trying to privatize anyway, is that the appearance of a failure in ethics IS a failure of business ethics.

 

[steve_bank]

The narrative is that because of slavery and Jim Crow there is to be no criticism of blacks.

We do not hear black successes. A few years back I watched the boat races from a black friend's brother's house over looking Lake Washington. A gated house with security guard at the gate for the party.

His brother was an entrepreneur. His other brother rose to fire dept captain. They all came to Seattle as teens to live with relatives because of Jim Crow Louisiana. Not to say there was no racism in Seattle, there was and is.

As my friend liked to say, there was always work in Seattle for anybody that wanted to work. He had his own words for fellow blacks who did not make the effort.

In the 90s I heard a statistic that Caribbean immigrant blacks do better than native born blacks. Colin Powell's parents were immigrants.

Here in Seattle Ethiopian immigrants do well. They collected into a neighborhood of new houses.

American blacks may need to do some soul searching and introspection.

 

[Jarhyn]

The narrative is that because of slavery and Jim Crow there is to be no criticism of blacks.

We do not hear black successes. A few years back I watched the boat races from a black friend's brother's house over looking Lake Washington. A gated house with security guard at the gate for the party.

His brother was an entrepreneur. His other brother rose to fire dept captain. They all came to Seattle as teens to live with relatives because of Jim Crow Louisiana. Not to say there was no racism in Seattle, there was and is.

As my friend liked to say, there was always work in Seattle for anybody that wanted to work. He had his own words for fellow blacks who did not make the effort.

In the 90s I heard a statistic that Caribbean immigrant blacks do better than native born blacks. Colin Powell's parents were immigrants.

Here in Seattle Ethiopian immigrants do well. They collected into a neighborhood of new houses.

American blacks may need to do some soul searching and introspection.

Steve, it's not hard to have a bias against "people who don't participate" rather than "people who are black".

There isn't to be any criticism of "blacks". Criticize individuals all you want for what they do or don't achieve.

"American blacks" need to do no such thing. Some americans definitely need to do some soul searching. Some of those people happen to be black. One of those persons is apparently you.