Current and former students in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies expressed their support for professor emeritus Val Rust following a demonstration in one of his graduate classes last Thursday.
Student demonstrators alleged that there is a “toxic” racial climate in the graduate school, including in Rust’s classroom. Organizers told the Daily Bruin last week that they decided to host the demonstration after a recent report examining racial discrimination among the university’s faculty stated that UCLA’s policies and procedures do not sufficiently address racially motivated instances of discrimination.
After Thursday’s sit-in, several current and former students said they did not believe there was a problem with racial discrimination in Rust’s class.
[UDPATED at 1 a.m.: In a letter sent to colleagues in the department after the sit-in, Rust said students in the demonstration described grammar and spelling corrections he made on their dissertation proposals as a form of “micro-aggression.”
“I have attempted to be rather thorough on the papers and am particularly concerned that they do a good job with their bibliographies and citations, and these students apparently don’t feel that is appropriate,” Rust said in the letter.
He said the protesters were also responding to a conversation in class between two students about critical race theory that he allowed to take place by not stopping the discussion.
Rust added he thought the department should organize a town hall meeting later in the month to begin a dialogue.]
“Many of (the demonstrators’) individual stories were very touching and I feel something ought to be done to address their concerns,” he said in the letter.
Rust, who is giving a series of lectures in China this week, could not be reached for additional comment.
Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, the dean of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, said in a letter to the school’s department of education Tuesday that he expects all members of the graduate school community to be respectful, and that acts of discrimination are not tolerated in the school.
“I expect of the entire GSE&IS; family – including faculty, students, and staff – to embody an ethos and practice based on respect, rigor and reflexivity,” he said in the letter.
Suárez-Orozco said the graduate school encourages safe spaces for debate.
“Acts of intolerance, discrimination, bullying, and overt and covert bias stand in complete opposition to the spirit that animates the (graduate school),” he said.
The demonstration’s organizers said they are aware of several examples in the graduate school where minority students claimed they faced challenges and “micro-aggressions” from professors.
Suárez-Orozco told the Bruin Tuesday that his office is working to establish basic facts of past incidents by reaching out to all parties involved.
“First we need to get the facts; we’ll proceed from there,” Suárez-Orozco said.
Nora Cisneros, a graduate student who participated in the sit-in, said the group chose to hold their protest because they feel Rust’s class does not encourage a climate where students of color can discuss issues of race openly.
Emily Le, a graduate student in the school who has known Rust for about 10 years, said she thought it was unjust for sit-in participants to accuse Rust of being part of a hostile environment because he is a supporter of intercultural learning and collaboration.
“It is disturbing that students would make such unfounded accusations based on misperceptions of what they believe as racism,” Le said.
Le said she thought the demonstrators should not have claimed to represent all students of color.
“If they were trying to create a bigger dialogue for the community to discuss, they would have chosen the town hall (meeting) we have once a quarter, or talked to the dean to discuss their issues,” Le said.
Le said the sit-in organizers should have emailed the entire department, so other minority students could choose whether to participate instead of being grouped as in support of the protest because they are students of color.
Kenjus Watson, a graduate student who participated in the sit-in, said he thinks incidents of racial profiling have taken place in the school for several decades, and that students who report incidents using traditional methods are often disregarded.
Watson said the protesters never stated that they represented all students of color in the division, but that the 25 protesters represent a significant portion of the minority population.
“Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging charges … the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying (the) charges have no merit,” Watson said.
Some students said they thought Thursday’s protest was focused more on humiliating a single professor than starting dialogue.
“I think the most unsettling thing was that it was in the name of a larger, legitimate cause, but it was so targeted at very specific people,” said Stephanie Kim, a graduate student who has worked with Rust for several years.
Kim said she thought the organizers should have reached out to the rest of the department in forums such as town hall meetings instead of planning the sit-in.
“Maybe (the demonstrators) do have legitimate grievances … but the way they chose to address their issues was by very aggressively showing up in one targeted professor’s class and using him as a scapegoat for much larger issues,” she said.
Cisneros and Watson said they thought the sit-in was warranted because of similar alleged incidents of racial discrimination over the past 20 years.
“The conversations and remedies we’ve had to take … we’ve tried to address (incidents of discrimination) in class,” Watson said. “This was the next logical step.”
In an emailed statement, Weiling Deng, a graduate student who worked with Rust on her master’s thesis, said she does not want conflicts to begin in the graduate school as a result of the sit-in.
Deng said Rust has demonstrated support for students of color throughout his time as a professor.
“I felt after reading the (Daily Bruin story) and knowing about the protest … that I was so innocent in thinking that all students in the department are friendly,” Deng said in a telephone interview. “Not only I was shocked, all students of (Rust) were shocked and most of his colleagues were shocked.”
Deng wrote in an email Monday that she wants the mood in the department to remain peaceful and scholarly.
“Voluntary supporters of Val Rust … don’t want to see and undergo an upgraded conflict in and out of our beloved department and university,” she wrote.
Sigh………….losers. Just losers…Only in the shallow cosseted environment of the university could something so trivial and self indulgent get so much attention. Stay in school, kids. There is no place for people like you in the real world.
As Kate McMillan says, “What’s the opposite of Diversity? …. University.”
There must be NO variance of opinion in many, if not most universities. You must adhere to party-line ideology in speech and behaviour about “victim” groups or face the wrath and censure of administrators & hot-house-flower students.
A pox on them all.
What is the opposite of “pro”gress,? “con”gress. Especially on the senate side of congress. Unfortunately, these same “Sigh”…….losers vote for other losers.
Just a bunch of takers that can not make the grade fairly 🙂
I must disagree with you on that. There are many students from all races and ethnic groups who are not college or university material. But Black students who are college material can and do make the grade.
However, we only hear about students like the ones in this story who exhibit this kind of attitude. I was one of two Black students in my undergrad school and I must tell you, over the four years that I was there over half of the new entering students dropped out every semester because the rigor was too much for them.
I attended two different universities (and graduated from both) and both universities were predominantly White, again, there were many students who did not graduate because they could not make the grade. So, it’s a bit unfair to say that Black students are takers and can’t make the grade.
You can’t reasonably sympathize with this kind of lunacy? I can’t imagine anything more racist than not holding black students to the same standards as everyone else.
I am not sympathizing with these students. I was responding to rangerider’s comment. I believe in education and I believe that all students should be held to the same academic standards. I’ve posted several comments on this article and I have made it clear what I think, and, how I feel about this whole issue. You may want to read them, and you will see that I do not sympathize with this kind of thinking and practice.
Universities are devoted to free speech, from the Left . The farther Left the freer the speech. If you wish to see abundant examples of the fascist Left, just hang around a university for awhile.
Or better, don’t go to these schools in the first place. Get a job & you won’t be at such high risk of mistaking yourself for a special snowflake.
Grammar and spelling corrections are a form of ” micro-agression”? Good lord, the world has gone mad. Political correctness will be the end of us.
Grammar and spelling are racist!
Never forget that numbers are racist too.
Not all numbers are racist. Only proportions and statistics.
And apparently the letters PB&J when used in that order are racist, too.
And unpaid bills.
And if you don’t get free stuff, burn down your Section 8 building, then demand a free home in Beverly Hills. Also, blame the cops for the fire.
Grades are racist. Have you ever notice that the letters, A, B and C are in the word, “black” but not in the word, “white”? Think about it.
And why is it always “‘White’ Christmas?”
Because snow is racist by being white.
Isn’t “black ice” racist?
“Black Friday?”
“Blackberry” wines?
“Blackboards?”
“Black holes?”
“Blacksburg, Va.?”
I couldn’t agree with you more.
It’s not always a White Christmas, Only when It’s Snowing or there’s snow on the ground. This year wasn’t a white Christmas for the North East coastline. That’s the stupidest comment I’ve ever seen and race has nothing to do with It.
Dude, Danny. That was sarcasm. Masked Avatar and CPO C Ryback were having a little fun.
Does Danny think Richard Pryor (RIP) was a racist for helping write the script for “Blazing Saddles?”
Gad, there are so many morons today.
Nah, you’re stupider (D).
Way to go, moron (D).
CLASSIC RED FOXX
White police officer: “were the burglars ‘colored,’ Fred?”
Fred Sanford/Red Foxx: (annoyed, picks up white-china tea cup, holds next to officer’s face: “Yeah — WHITE.”
Dang, Red Foxx loved to get money from white honky hetereo-normative non-handicapped non-Democrats.
Kelsey “Grammar” and Tori “Spelling” are racist!
😉
What a hoot!!!
So are exams.
According to another story today, Peanut Butter and Jam sandwhiches are also racist; of so sayeth the head of Education in the State of Oregon.
Whoever, or whateve started Political Correctness and the current wave of false racist claims should be horse whipped.
Then call them a racist name just so they feel justified on their way out of America.
“Political Correctness” was first instituted in Russia in the 1920’s by the Communists. It was used as a convenient means to purge party members.
Also those who can use math accurately.
Don’t you mean: ” Grammer; and spelling are rascist?”
Mayor Marion Barry claimed all laws were racist – including the Law of Gravity.
Haven’t you wondered how someone who graduated college could say “They was there…” or “I seen them…. “? Now you know.
Just aks them!
What’s for breffix?
As an English teacher who freely used the red pencil for marking errors, I am thankful to be retired. I would never make it in this PC environment.
My sister is now a professor in the state CA system; while a TA, she told me she never used red pen to correct papers as it was considered too “aggressive”. LOL! I nearly pissed myself – as a paralegal that drafted documents for lawyers….I would bust my hump writing several pages, thinking it was pretty good – only to have it returned to me a sea of red edits! Her students would not last 2 days in a law firm, a place where confidence and a thick skin are requirements, and incessant editing and wordsmithing are part of the culture.
When my daughter was in CA public schools we were told the same thing. Her teacher was instructed at a seminar to use “purple” because it was calming, Red was aggressive.” No kidding. We pulled her out and put her in private school. Reality and Leftist thinking do not go well hand in hand.
why would a law firm want them? Pity their clients
Yes! But the government can sponsor their medical to become new obamacare drs 🙂
I actually use a red for corrections, AND I also use a green pen to write in the grade. I use green for their math but red is for Spelling and grammar. It is a combination to satisfy the administration AND get my point across. The red pen is very aggressive. Someone need to be aggressively taking control of our children’s poor standing when it comes to their education.
I hate the kids sensitive nature today. They have someone wrapped around their little fingers.
I say make the little buggers understand what they’re in school for. Use all the red ink you want, as long as they get the message. Maybe by the time they get to 13th grade (as The Sanity Inspector said in a post just above this one) they will understand what they’re expected to do in college because they’ve been washed in the “blood” of your red pen.
NYC teachers are also told not to use red for the same reason.
I use blue ink pens to send my paralegal revisions, as I find it much more soothing then red ink…actually it’s because I have a blue pen in my hand and don’t have time to go digging through my desk for a red one!
The trouble is that nowadays “college is for everyone”, and so it isn’t college anymore. It’s 13th Grade. Joe Sobran once observed that over the course of 100 years we went from teaching Greek and Latin in high school to teaching remedial reading in college. Seems like it’s only gotten worse in these days.
Not everyone benefits from college. Strong backs are terrible things to waste.
“The world needs more ditch diggers too, Danny” Hon. Judge Smails
A little late to the party here…13th grade? That sums it up perfectly.
Have you not been told – red pen/pencil is aggressive and must not be used.
I am a retired teacher who continues to Substitute teach. Most High School Kids CANNOT write in CURSIVE. Most High School Students write like a second grader. IT IS SO very sad to see the dumbing down of our kids. Most High School Kids Don’t capitalize their I…..A typical sentence would be ” i said the guy told him we mite b to late fur the party. I just cannot be expected to teach someone who has come all of the way through Elementary school and still writes this way?
Engineering PhD student here. Cursive in today’s world is a waste of time and energy unless you want to be a tattoo artist. Teaching young students grammar and writing skills is important; teaching them cursive is not. But since that was the BIGGEST point you decided to make, my guess is that you are biased when you say “Most High School Kids…X”
The US lags behind other countries academically… sort of. Average test scores may not be what # 1 America wants to see; but a highly diverse country with varying standards and a large population will do that. The US still produces many of the brightest students in the world.
How is POOdy being biased? Since you think (as many are claiming now-a-days) cursive writing is not important, what about basic writing skills? Are you of the opinion that one of our biggest forms of communication should become unintelligible?
Yes, America is still made up of a many different groups of people from all over the world. But that is no reason not to teach all Americans Standard English and all of it’s conventions. Are you suggesting that we become multiple Countries within one Country?
If that is the case then I suppose America will become one of those Countries that so many people are fleeing because of the lack of resources that they claim they want in this Country. They claim that they want to come here for a better life. Well, being well educated is an important vehicle in attaining that better life.
I’m happy that you said you’re an Engineering PhD student instead an Education PhD student, because if you were in charge of setting the learning standards and setting education policy for our students, this Country would really be on the decline in the World wide educational ranking.
I’m normally not the type to correct others online, due to the topic I think it’s appropriate to point out that “country” is not a proper noun and shouldn’t be capitalized. This is English not German.
Well thank you FreedomFromIgnorance!
Nein?
I’ve changed my mind about your point. Teaching cursive is an important value in learning how to write (unless the student has a computer available to him). The problem is this: the point of writing is communication, but what would be the point if a reader cannot decipher the text? I welcome the resurgence of teaching handwriting if for no other reason than doing so celebrates respect for the reader. Students who do not know cursive are, generally, poor printers as well, and, in general, have difficulty communicating any thought of an abstract nature. They face the challenge of even thinking abstractly, because they just don’t have the words. Nor do they have the grammatical knowledge of English required to express much more than concrete-bound sensations.
Over 90% of all writing is on a keyboard. Many school districts no longer teach cursive, it’s horse and buggy. But writing skills should be taught.
I agree. I have a young friend who is attending the local community college. From time to time she will send me an email which is totally unintelligible. I have returned them to her to ask her to “tell me in English” because I cannot decipher more than two out of every five words.
Let me preface this by saying that I am truly sorry that your posting happens to contain the nit I am going to pick; I understand that you are using the word in question to mean precisely what your were taught it meant. The word cursive simply means slanted or oblique. Italics are cursive; Aldus Manutius derived his original italic typeface (which is nearly identical to the italics in the modern Palatino font) from a script style called Chancery cursive, in which the letters were (mostly) separate (sigla, or scribal abbreviations, were often ligated). The word for running or “joined-up” writing is current (from the French courant, which literally means running). Your use of cursive seems to be a characteristically American usage, and appears so often I have to assume it was introduced into the educators’ vocabulary somewhere in the deep mists of the past — but I have to say that it drives non-American typography and calligraphy nerds bananas.
I hope he wasn’t eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when he was grading those papers…
LOL. Simply hilarious.
“Will be”?
It worse than that….the issue seemed to be focused on citations and bibliographies! Oh no – it is just plain racist to expect students to be clear on who they got information from.
Why? I don’t have to tell you where I got my information from, besides I got it from my own head. You just worry about where you got your information from. Now leave me along because you’re just being racist!
SARCASM-SARCASM
http://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/spelling-and-grammar/
You’re so right! Political correctness has ruined the country. Idiot whites fear being labeled racist more than they’d fear being labeled a murderer!
Funny!
Another story showing that liberalism is a mental disorder.
Do you see a lot of liberals on your wing of the mental hospital?
I am glad this issue is finally coming to the forefront. As a student of
color in Moore Hall, I have never experienced more racism in my life.
The irony is that the racism comes from other students of color. CRT
students are the biggest bullies in Moore Hall. If you are a (non-white)
student who doesn’t subscribe to CRT, you are considered ignorant, even
if that framework is not relevant to your research abroad. There is
room for different research perspectives. Let passion and curiosity guide our
research, not dogma.
Suck it up, Buttercup. You’ll never get anywhere in life “Boo hooing” about how unfair life is and how mean the bullies are. Don’t condemn yourself to a lifetime of victimhood. Change your behavior now before you become one of those pathetic adults who never seems to be able to make it on his own and blames it all on other people. You won’t be respected unless you do.
BTW – What the hell is CRT? Cathode Ray Tube? 😉
“critical race theory”…
it appears “student” is trying to escape the crab bucket: unfortunately, they picked the school of education to do it in, which is ONE PLACE where CRT *really* has a hold.
Student, you’re correct. CRT and White Privilege are nonsensical concepts used by retro-hippies and black racists to get funding and political supremacy over others.
what a sad bunch of clowns, I can not handle the work, so now it must be micro aggressions.( I love that new term)
liberalism is a mental disorder at best.
Oh the world you poor children are going to live in. Just sad. On another front, I truly feel for the future bosses of Watson and Cisneros. The tap dancing that will have to be done on those employee reviews…
Hey White People
WAKE UP
You’re being conned by a bunch of hustlers
It doesn’t stop, look at South Africa. There will be a Rawanda-style genocide against White people within 5 years.
Civil violence.
The Knockout Game stops everywhere people can easily get concealed weapons carry permits. The Knockout Game dirtbags are afraid someone will be carrying and wax their asses.
This sort of nonsense is why I don’t give any more money to UCLA. A once-great university brought to its knees because some students have their panties in a bunch when their grammar and spelling are corrected? You can’t make this stuff up.
how dare a professor correct grammar in the education department…oh the horror.
And educrats wonder why we don’t take “education” departments and those who have degrees in “education” seriously….
When went to parent-teacher conferences and had to call a school teacher or administrator “Dr.” because of a degree from some school of education, I’d choke on that word. But I did as otherwise my kids would have been on that person’s S list.
Go to a university and read some of the dissertations these people write.
I am suspicious of anyone other than a physician who goes around flaunting the title doctor. People with genuine academic achievement don’t do it.
Minority PhDs insist on being respected as doctor.
Sigh. The better the degree, typically the less standing on ceremony. The use of “doctor” for non-medicos is an almost infallible class indicator….
Haha Hubs is a double biology + genetics doctorate. The thought of him asking someone to call him Dr.XX is a giggle.
My feelings exactly!
I’ll reply generally to both TimBones and charlesrwilliams:
I am reminded of the time, as a college freshman or sophomore (I don’t recall which) I called an English professor “doctor”. He looked at me a bit askance and said it would be appropriate to call him “Professor”, “Professor X” or “Mister X”, but “doctor” was reserved for medical doctors.
Superintendents of Schools usually hold EdDs or PhD’s in education, and often insist on being called “doctor”. When I have dealings with them (as in local politics and community affairs), I always demur and address them as “Mister” or “Superintendent.” I used to invite them to call me “doctor”, but too many of them didn’t get the point and did!
I told the alumni fundraising callers to take me off of their call list as long as radical Marxists were allowed to drag students down the rabbit hole of liberalism.
Liberalism and Marxism are incompatible ideologies.
They’re making that relationship work, though.
What are now known as liberals are not really liberal, they are authoritarian.
So are conservatives. Doesn’t make them Marxists either.
Letting people choose their own insurance is not authoritarian. Forcing them to buy insurance and dictating what the policy must contain is. See the difference?
The old system was bankrupting us. And if your proposition is true that means every industrialized country is authoritarian, which might undermine the use of the term. If we want to talk authoritarianism, let’s talk about the NSA, Patriot Act, passing legislation defining a social institution like marriage, the death penalty and mass incarceration etc etc
I won’t give to my alma maters either, and it’s because they have African-American Studies depts., which is a total waste of money. Also, until affirmative action is discontinued and a merit system is instituted instead, I’ll never again donate to a college or university. I’ve told the fundraisers that, too.
I won’t give to my alma maters either, and it’s because they have African-American Studies depts., which is a total waste of money. Also, until affirmative action is discontinued and a merit system is instituted instead, I’ll never again donate to a college or university.
Hey you guys, if I want to say “is we ’bout to go?” or “they was when i seen them” ; that’s my business and not yours. Now leave me along ’cause you just being racist anyway!! SARCASM SARCASM
As a national institution, advanced education is dead. Colleges are simply daycare facilities for older children.
We shouldn’t paint all of higher education with the this nonsense that almost always comes from the social sciences. Scientific and technical programs are quite worthwhile.
Aside from being aware that I needed to argue non-liberal points in general education courses particularly well due to largely unintentional (and also not very consequential) bias in grading, politics have never played any role in my university education (in mathematics).
You’re right. You can’t fake a knowledge of math or ‘hard’ sciences, but the other subjects are lost causes. And what about degrees in African-American Studies. What a joke.
No, FransSusan; African American Studies is not a joke. In fact, it’s a shame that people who think like you don’t, or, can’t value and appreciate the study of Black people in America. Perhaps if you did you would be able to think and talk more informatively and intelligently on the subject of “African”Americans. Too bad that and intelligent an well educated person (such as yourself) doesn’t see and understand that.
Isn’t Obamacare a form of micro-aggression?
Macro-.
If a professor is kind enough to take the time to correct your piss-poor grammar in a DOCTORAL program, then thank whatever deity you worship that the prof cares enough about your future to prevent you from looking like an illiterate idiot.
Exactly. “Micro-aggressions” — pffft.
We endured “micro-aggressions” when I was college too, only we didn’t call it that. We called it “life”.
As a white guy who had his grammar corrected repeatedly in college, I never knew it was racial. I simply thought it was because I was lazy in my writing. Dang. I should have protested. Oh well…… you live and learn.
I had been in writing classes with numerous black dudes. They acted like adults. They had similar life experiences to me, mostly working crappy low paying jobs.
Grades are racist.
I guess these students don’t want to be accused of “acting white” so they don’t want to use proper grammar and spelling. http://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/spelling-and-grammar/
This is such a ridiculous story that I thought it was joke when I read it in another place. So I Googled it and what do you know, it’s factual and not a joke. What on Earth do these so-called students think the words education and college mean? No one feels good when his or her paper is returned with corrections written in red all over it. But instead of getting angry, they should understand that the professor his doing his/her job and learn from it. When I was in college I felt embarrassed when I made errors in my writing but I got over it and learned how to write correctly. Sure, I still made and make writing errors, but not because I don’t care if I’m right or wrong. I have to wonder how these students even qualified for admittance in a doctoral program. Whomever recommended them to the program should be called into question’ or, did they bully their way into the program? I’m highly appalled by this juvenile act on the part of these twenty-five students. We have a hard enough time proving that we are qualified for most things anyway and they have the gall to demand that this professor not do his job and correct their papers! If they want to remain uneducated and dumb they should just stay at home and not waste the university and professor’s time trying teach them when they are opposed to learning. I’m pretty ticked off because I am a Black person who worked hard, studies hard, and tried hard to meet the rigors of college and university curricular. In addition to that, I still spend much of my time learning because I believe education is a lifelong pursuit. Kick’em out! Now!
“I have to wonder how these students even qualified for admittance into a doctoral program.” You should know why. Welcome to the world of multikulti/affirmative action – the dominant ideology of current welfare state
I should know why? No, I should not know why; and if you read my post you would understand that.
Affirmative Action undermines the claim of any affected groups to have achieved on their own. Affirmative Action today is seen by non-black groups as a form of unearned favoritism based on race.
I’m story but your reply dies not explain why should know why” these students git into a doctoral program. You gave me your personal opinion on
Are you trying to be funny by misspelling almost everything in your post?
Affirmative action. Are you dim?
Since Affirmative Action was outlawed by the UC system almost 2 decades ago, it is highly unlikely that any of these students benefited from such a program to any degree at all. Though it is possible of some of the older students, I think your entire argument to be far less than plausible. In fact, minority admissions to the undergraduate and graduate programs at these schools have been dropping precipitously ever since that change in policy. Those 25 students represent some of the brightest minds of their generation, and there opinions should have the merit their stature as accomplished scholars should otherwise award them. These are scholars and survivors. They may actually know what they are talking about.
It is exactly 100% impossible that any one of these 25 should have the moniker attached — “lazy.” They are the antithesis.
“…there opinions”? Where opinions? Here’s my opinion, if they were truly “accomplished scholars” they would already know how to spell by the time they reached graduate school.
No one has contended that they cannot spell. I’m wondering what article you read? This article is about mistakes, not lack of ability.
They may be the “brightest”, but they’re going to be completely shocked when they’re out in the real world and discover that they’re not always right, and that their bosses will be correcting them when they’re wrong. If they spend the rest of their lives thinking that the only reason they’re corrected is because they are people “of color” they’re going to be very unhappy people.
I cannot refute any of your arguments. However, your arguments do not refute any of my claims, either. We seem to be arguing about two different things. English is not a barometer of ability or intelligence or future success. Though, as you point out, lack of proficiency in the *native* tongue can hamper future success. Though, that hindrance is far less likely in this country. A large percentage of successful professionals in this country have only a working grasp of the English language.
Wait… were these demonstrators from another country, and English is their second language? If so, they should be grateful that he corrected their grammar and syntax. If not, by the time they’re in a graduate study they certainly should be a lot more proficient and they still should be grateful for having their grammar corrected. I’m not sure where you got your information about the percentage of successful professionals in this country with only a working grasp of the English language… perhaps you could cite it for me. However, this thread was really more about the increasingly ridiculous claims of racism. By all accounts, Professor Rust is anything but racist, and he was doing his job… correcting papers.
Yes, some successful people do not know how to write, but they would be much more successful if they did.
These babies, yes, crybabies nothing more, have been coddled their whole lives. They probably have a shelf full of ‘participation trophies’ and certificates of achievement (which are really just certificates of attendance). They are the reason America is failing. They cannot take (correct) criticism or attempts to help them improve.
The “racism” card is pathetic. If their writing is incorrect, it is incorrect.
What a bunch of crybabies. They should all be flunked.
You actually have to have an argument for someone to refute it. All you are doing is putting forth ill-considered assertions.
Lack of proficiency in the language in common use in the country hampers success.
In the USA, in most areas, English is still the common language.
(There are some immigrant areas that use foreign languages, but still the business language, and the common communication language with anyone not in the immigrant area, is English.)
Except, a boss will not correct their errors. He will fire them and find someone who does not make errors in grammar.
You assume the “boss” knows grammar.
If these “25 students represent some of the brightest minds of their generation…” our future seems grim. They are “accomplished scholars”? They are “survivors”. One can only hope that their carriers in education will take place in publishing where they will fall under the guidance of very qualified editors rather than appear in the front of classes.
There is that hope. Though, my grammar is exemplary, my spelling is atrocious. I’ve been bolstered by spell check for nearly my entire career. It has not hampered me in either of my careers; Physics teacher or Computer Programmer.
Your grammar is exemplary? Then how come the comma after “Though”? And the semi-colon after “careers”? And the capitalization of Physics, Computer and Programmer? (Your spelling was exemplary, though 🙂
Comma and semi-colon transposed, unfortunately. Should have capitalized Teacher to remain consistent. Spell check has my back, though (both being job titles, when used as such, can be capitalized).
Hi Robert…I hope you realized that I included the smile previously to let you know I wasn’t really being critical. Heck, you’ve been disagreeing with people so pleasantly, how *could* I be critical, rather than just disagreeing with you 🙂
As an aside…I really wonder if, when referring to “either of my careers”, either “physics teacher” or “computer programmer” should be capitalized. But that’s a pointless argument for another day 🙂
I sort of realized it. Though, subtleties in subtext are often hard to discern on the internet. Just so that you know, my grasp of grammar and public speaking came at a high price. I used to be a person that stuttered so severely that only my mother could understand me. Starting in Jr. High she and I worked very hard for me to overcome that. For most of the week, my stutter is completely gone, though Fridays are tough and it creeps back in. 😉
I now see grammar errors, mistakes and faux pas everywhere. To my eye, its like listening to a symphony filled with missed notes, or the visual equivalent to fingernails on a chalkboard. Yet, none of these people seem to be negatively effected by their lack of proficiency. In fact, some of the worst offenders I get to call boss.
So, I have to come off my high horse. I guess if I was a college professor, I could afford to stay perched on my steed. Alas! My life did not take that direction. (Notice, I did not capitalize college professor. I think the rule in this case that whatever you decide to do, be consistent.)
I do apologize for the reply to your comment so long after fact. The conversation has probably been forgotten by now so all context of what you were talking about and how it fits the conversation is lost. If you want to ignore a reply so far after the fact, no worries. Again, my apologies for the really late comment. Came to this discussion just today.
job titles (names) are sometimes capitalized
They object to having their grammar errors corrected. That puts them in the category of folks who do not belong in a graduate program.
If these are the brightest minds shouldn’t they be completely aware that a professor correcting errors on a paper is absolutely not racism in any format? If the brightest minds don’t know that, what shape is the country actually in? These people who were part of the sit-in should be ostracized for drumming up the potential for racial tension. They should not at all be applauded or anyone attempting to explain away their actions as anything less than that.
Except not. It was outlawed yes, but all the schools have worked around that. They are not scholars, they are not survivors. They are weak, spoiled brats incapable of dealing with reality.
fact remains their English grammar and spelling stinks. The best if the best will just have to try harder now wont they
Bright minds do not make grammar errors at the Doctoral level. To me, without a doubt, to write a report to a new employer filled with grammar and spelling errors would make me want to hang myself. Where’s the pride? Better a bit of embarrassment in school than on the job. Sorry Robert, I just disagree.
If those students represented “the brightest minds of their generation,” then they wouldn’t need to have their grammar corrected.
And affirmative action did not end in the UC system, it just went underground.
All a student had to do was claim he or she was a student of color in an admissions essay in order to get favorable treatment.
And let’s see….this is the school of education.
I am reminded of Gourman’s rating of schools of education in the U.S., including Stanford and Harvard.
Under “Schools of education not meeting minimal standards of quality,” he listed every school of education in the country.
Looks like nothing has changed in that regard….
“Scholars” indeed!
and rightly so
First off, proficiency in the use of the English language, in any way, shape, or form has little or nothing to do with one’s proficiency in any subject taught in this particular graduate school. So, its no wonder “how [they] even qualified.” “They” were obviously proficient in the particular subject for which they are enrolled. In fact, proficiency in English has little or nothing to do about future success in any such field as is taught in this particular graduate school. Nor, is said proficiency, or level thereof, a future indicator or predictor — to any degree — of just what type of career these students will have upon graduation.
Your argument has exactly no merit whatsoever.
So, in this particular graduate school, a person who is illiterate can gain admission?
Is that really a good way to run a School of Education?
Your argument only applies to students who are in fact illiterate. None of these 25 qualify. Unless, you have a different definition of the term?
It may not play a role as to your proficiency in a subject, but does play very important role as to whether you will progress in a career. If you cannot communicate your ideas clearly – and in many cases concisely – then you will be ignored, while others who can will move past you. This is why the students should be thankful that a professor takes the time to point out their grammar errors, rather than playing the race card.
You may very well be correct. My argument was to refute the contention that these were “lazy” students, or somehow otherwise not qualified for being where they are.
“In fact, proficiency in English has little or nothing to do about future success in any such field ”
This argument has no merit whatsoever.
You’re making some silly assumptions about these students and the professor.
When will it occur to self loathing white progressives that not holding black students to the same standards is completely racist.
The SATs have several different sections to them, English and essay writing being one of them.
English and Essay Writing are *two* of the sections. Those two sections have already been proven to not be very good predictors of students’ graduation rates nor career successes. Hence the trend of technical schools largely ignoring those scores of late.
The evidence just isn’t backing up those who want to criticize these 25 based on any traditional criteria. This is probably why; 1) the administration had previously ignored their grievances, and 2) they felt the need to take their grievances public with the sit-in type protest.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/09/20/many_colleges_ignore_sat_writing_test/?page=full
In the interest of full disclosure, I was a very accomplished SAT tutor for over 20 years.
But why target this professor? I think these protesting students are going to have a hard time in the “real” world.
Are you actually trying to sound stupid? English and grammar are still important. You have to communicate with other people to work with them.
I don’t know each of these students’ chosen fields of study, however, the ability to communicate ideas effectively is paramount in any career field. Poorly used grammar and spelling reflects negatively on your ability and understanding of the subject matter, regardless of your actual proficiency with the subject matter. Grammar corrections are not nearly as troubling as the citation issues on a grad level thesis. Those types of issues are disastrous with respect to your credibility for producing a scholarly work. I’m an attorney, so proficiency with the English language and proper citation is of paramount importance. However, in any career field it at the very least makes you look unprofessional and lacking in attention to detail.
In your career field, proficiency in English is paramount. That is true. However, in the sciences and engineering fields, not so much. More often than not, as long as you can “get the point across,” you are considered proficient enough.
As a person who is accused of being a “grammar Nazi,” I wish this wasn’t true. But, sadly, it is. Those of us who study and practice good grammar may not wish for this to be true, but that desire doesn’t actually reflect reality.
In any case, lack of citation skills is troubling, and potentially career threatening, depending on the circumstances. What is also troubling is how these concerns have been raised for multiple years without really any acknowledgements from those in power. You don’t always have to change things, but you do have to periodically at least let people know you are listening to their concerns. Without that, the eventual outcome is predictable.
He could have simply said, “this is the way I correct your papers and my intention is to help protect your future careers from the calamity that may befall you if you do not learn how to effectively cite your sources.”
Apparently, no one thought to do that or anything similar.
Please keep in mind that this occurred in the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies where degrees are not awarded in the sciences and engineering fields.
Also, based on the article, we actually don’t know whether previous claims have been any more legitimate than the only one presented here, i.e. that the professor corrected a single word because “indigenous” is an adjective and, therefore, not capitalized unless its the first word of a sentence. If this is their only example of “micro-aggression”, how can their claims of racism and “micro-aggression” be taken with the weight they appear to be demanding.
My gosh…”Cisneros and Watson said they thought the sit-in was warranted because of similar alleged incidents of racial discrimination over the past 20 years.” Correcting a single word is racial discrimination???
We’re also told here that “He [the professor] said the protesters were also responding to a conversation in class between two students about critical race theory that he allowed to take place by not stopping the discussion.”
In another article, it described this conversation as “he allowed a discussion/argument to take place in his class between a white student and a black student. The black student told the white woman that she had no right to feel oppressed, and Rust did not express agreement either way.”
Think about *that* one. A white woman has no right to feel oppressed…as if there’s no such thing as sexism in America. Only racism counts. Yeesh.
Re: “…not capitalized unless its the first word of a sentence…”
And there’s that pesky “its” again. You meant to use the contraction of “it is”, which is “it’s”, rather than the possessive “its”.
Are you just now getting emails from this old thread, too?
I just received one that was posted by someone else a year ago! So I decided to skim through the thread and found your comment to me. Oddly, though, I have NOT received *your* comment from an hour ago! I wonder what’s going on.
P.S. I know better than to leave out the apostrophe when appropriate in “it’s”. But, as so often happens with, I think, most of us, I type quickly and don’t always catch typos…and, yes, I think many errors are just typos…before posting.
They are in education.
With all due respect, I must disagree with you on this issue. Education is supposed to make people better, not worse or leave them the same as they were before being “educated.” Why would anyone waste their time going to a school of higher learning if they don’t want to learn? A doctoral program is not a trade school or a career oriented program.
There really is no reasonable excuse for a student in an education doctoral program to not know the correct rules of grammar and spelling. And there really is no excuse for becoming angry to the point of protesting because a professor does his or her job.
But on the other hand, I should not be surprised because I personally know several people who hold an Ed.D. degree. What I find in common with each person is their lack of vocabulary and word knowledge; and their lack of correct grammar usage skills.
For example, they use the word “they” for the word “their”: “Make sure your group have ‘they’ passports before they leave.” This I find true with other ED.D. holders, as well, when I’ve been in professional settings with them. Believe me, people do pay attention and will often express their dissatisfaction on evaluation an assessment forms rating the person(s)’s presentation.
It really doesn’t matter what a person’s field of study is, if they claim to have a doctoral degree they’re expected to speak and write the language (whatever it may be) correctly. Sorry my friend, but your argument has no merit.
Maggie,
My argument pertains to fields of study that are not directly related to a person’s use of English. Not language. Your argument is against a premise that is not mine. Nowhere in my statement do I assert that these people are not proficient in any language.
However, it is true that in this country, people are allowed to be the heads of their fields even with English skills that might be lacking, especially (as I clearly pointed out) when English is their second language. But, even then, other dialects of English, some of which have ignored and/or abandoned whole subsections of rules of grammar, seem to be allowed, likewise, to be the heads of their fields as well. Southern and Cajun dialects come immediately to mind. We even elected as President several men whose command of standard American English was suspect. If you mean to tell me that only those whose dialect is from the inner cities of America carry that particular stigma that you illustrate, then that would be patently hypocritical.
In all fairness, you cannot have it both ways.
In either case, education is supposed to make people better *in their field of study.* Not in every aspect of life. We must pick and choose, because we aren’t afforded the time to learn everything there is to know.
Robert,
Your first paragraph is a bit unclear to me. What do you think English is if not a language? Following along with your (seemingly) line of thinking, if speaking and writing the American Standard English isn’t that important and in fact, unnecessary, perhaps we don’t need to teach it in our schools of higher learning. Right? Right.
Your thesis lacks rational thought because the article does not state or even imply that these twenty-five protesting students are ESL. Their complaint had nothing to do with them growing up in a multi-language home which would, in part, account for their incorrect use of the American form of Standard English. There was nothing mentioned in the article that any of these students have learning disabilities that would require intervention. Nothing was mentioned about these students “dialect” being a cause for their protest. It seems to me that you’re making unfounded assumptions about this event.
These students took issue with the professor doing his job. He did what any teacher, instructor, professor, etc. would naturally do, read his students’ assigned written work. In the process of reading the paper, he looks for many things; correct use of the English Language is one of those things. This is true for all subjects or disciplines, whether it be mathematics or English Literature. All written work (especially assigned written work) must follow specific guidelines and consequently the student is graded on his/her adherence to those guidelines.
It’s one thing to speak in regional dialects or use “home language” within the ‘home’ base, but it’s another thing to speak ones home language outside of that community. It’s important to learn how to ‘code switch’ when in “Rome.” Apparently these students didn’t /don’t understand this whole concept. These students do not need to be supported in their irrational thinking about the need to speak and write the English language correctly; using the rules of writing, punctuation, spelling and grammar. Instead, they need to be told without fear that they are setting themselves up for failure, and they’re encouraging other African American students to fail as well.
You are still conflating “English” and “language.” English is but a tiny subset of language. American English practitioners commonly elevate its importance beyond the tool by which two people in America exchange ideas. Unless (my common and oft-stated caveat) your field of study deals at least peripherally with English, or at least language. As a computer engineer, an aficionado of American Standard English and a Black man who grew up in South Central Los Angeles (the “‘hood,” or the inner city as its more colloquially known), I happen to have particular and specific insight into each and every facet I have spoken to. English is the only common thread among my colleagues. However, that thread is very ephemeral at best. My superior grasp of the language has afforded me some special recognition, but lack of same has not, not, NOT been a detriment to any others that I routinely work with.
As I have said in no uncertain terms, the value of your command of the English language in particular is heavily dependent of the field for which you base your career. The one department on the entire campus where English proficiency may be the least important of all the academic factors for which students are graded happens to be the engineering department.
Please note, once again you are arguing a point I never made. You did not hear me say that English was not important at all — yet you continue to argue against that premise. That premise is not mine. I’m merely putting English proficiency in context to the field of study.
However, I’m curious as to why you are trying to convince me of the overall importance of one’s command of written English when I obviously possess such command myself?
What I have said several times is that you must have command of language, whether it be English or some other tongue to the extent that you can get your ideas across *in certain fields.* Unlike yourself, I made no blanket statement either in support or against yours or my arguments. Sometimes it matters more, sometimes less, sometimes it matters supremely, and sometimes not at all.
Robert,
It’s clear to me that “what we have here is failure to communicate.” That being said, have a great evening sir.
“In fact, proficiency in English has little or nothing to do about future success in any such field ”
You keep pushing this argument, yet take the time to ensure that your own english usage is exemplary. You even admit that your spelling is atrocious and you rely heavily in spell check. If, as you contend, english proficiency isn’t needed, then why do you go through all the trouble of making sure your comments are grammatically correct? It all seems rather ironic to me and perhaps even a bit hypocritical.
Hypocritical, or may defeatest. I’ve seen the lay of the land, I’m coming towards the end of my career and I’ve seen the value of my meticulous usage of the English language. Speaking proper English has never helped me prove that I am a better programmer. Speaking proper English has only helped me prove I’m a better Black. I never said I like or prefer the position I’ve stated. I’ve only said that it is reality. It is the truth.
Also, the hypocrisy that I point out is that if Affirmative Action is not needed, then a person’s grasp of English shouldn’t matter as much as long as their chosen field of study isn’t related to English itself.
No, I’m upset that more people don’t spend the effort on speaking that I do. But, I’m realistic enough to know that they are ultimately correct to not care.
Not happy, but not blind, either.
Actually, what the woman got upset about was the apparent correction of how she WROTE one word. And, as a (former?) computer programmer, you know that a single ‘not quite accurate’ keystroke can have a negative impact. And, as a (former?) physics teacher, you also know that a single minor writing error in a formula can have a negative impact as well. So accuracy in writing is *not* less important because it’s not “related to English itself”.
And, since you were talking more about spoken language, this applies to spoken language as well. Language is used to communicate. Sure. No one knows if, in her mind, she capitalized “indigenous” so, had she spoken that word aloud, there would have been no harm, no foul.
But you also have to remember that “It’s not what you tell them…it’s what they hear.”
In your own case, while you may be correct in stating that “Speaking proper English has never helped me prove that I am a better programmer”, your explanation, for example, of something actually may very well have done just that…or, at least, led someone to believe, say, that you had the potential to be an outstanding programmer.
In other words, while *you* may think your use of proper English hasn’t accomplished something, what someone else “heard” may have very well done so.
So I hope you’ll rethink your opinion that “the hypocrisy that I point out is that if Affirmative Action is not needed, then a person’s grasp of English shouldn’t matter as much as long as their chosen field of study isn’t related to English itself”. I mean, the purpose of language is to communicate…while the purpose of affirmative action has never been to only help people who don’t speak “proper English”.
Actually, your argument has no merit whatsoever. The article does not address employment. The article addresses students annoyed at having their papers corrected staging a sit-in and claiming the corrections are because of racism. Comments posted note that students will deal with corrections from their managers when they’re employees. Claims of racism will not allow them to slide. You then went completely off track arguing English and grammar are unimportant in a career. You completely missed the point being made which is, quite simply, even when you believe your boss is incorrect you need to suck it up.
It is clearly stated that Val Rust is a professor of education and information, a field heavily influenced by language. While there are fields where the utmost proficiency in any (spoken) language is unnecessary this doesn’t seem like one of them.
I think that these kids (and they are children no matter the age) were embarrassed by the corrections and just used the current ”buzz” about racism to try to cover for themselves. It is stupid, it is childish, but it is not unheard of.
Overheard in my college library…”If I had known I would be expected to read so much, I never would have started college”…..lol pfffft
A common complaint from my college experience. My undergrad school was not the kind of campus that attracted African American students because of the rigorous curriculum and the size of the school (small). The program consisted of reading, reading, reading, writing, writing, writing, discussion, discussion, discussion, and more of the same for the entire four-years. It just so happened that I was the only African American student on campus for the first year and a half. Another Black girl came and only stayed for a semester and a couple of weeks into the next semester. When she left I was back to being the only one again. In my third year another Black girl came and she remained until we graduated.
However, the school lost students all the time because of all the reading and writing requirements. They complained that they didn’t know they had to read and write so much. Now if anyone is assuming that I was given a free pass because I was their only four-year long Black student, you are wrong. I worked very hard to learn and to meet the requirements of the college. Was it hard at times? You’d better believe it was. Did I ever complain about the rigorousness? No I did not, because I wanted to learn and I appreciated being given the opportunity to do just that. This is why I’m so disappointed in these twenty-five African American women that complained about this professor because he was doing his job. How dare they say through their unwise actions and behavior that African Americans shouldn’t be held to the same learning standards as other race and ethnic groups. Do these women have no shame?
these are wicked people.
I read Graduate program so it could and probably is for a MA Ed…..like we really want people with bad grammar and poor spelling teaching our kids
” the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying (the) charges have no merit”
If the charges are things like correcting grammar errors, they are without merit.
Any “degrees” from UCLA are worthless with crap like this going on. How pathetic.
when *everything* and anything is racist, nothing is racist…
sorry gang, but your race card is over limit & i’m not buying what you’re selling. ‘sides which, i gotta axe if maybe peeps that be larnin to be edcaters but doan wanna write “white” might not be raycis themownselves and be what be wrong wit da skools too.
‘now what i’m sayin’, homes?
That’s disrespectful! Sherlock Homes was part of a racist justice system that put black men in prison for doing nothing wrong! How dare you mock a black man by calling him “homes”. The letter “G” and the word “youths” are the only words acceptable to call POC.
“Teens” is also used in crime reports to identify black men as old as thirty.
Umm… People of what race invented the term Holmes? That’s right, you guessed it.
From reading your post I get the impression that you feel justified in mocking and criticizing the lack of correct grammar skills ofsome Black people. Yet, you demonstrated your poor writing skills too.
However, since I’m an African American, I suppose I wouldn’t know that. Right? Please keep in mind that this story does not represent all Black college/university students.
I’ve posted several comments on this thread about this story; and I’ve clearly stated my objections to what this “small” group of students did. Just as I object to their actions, I, too, object to posters including “all” Blacks in their criticism of these particular students.
Congratulations, liberals. Thanks for dumbing down America on the collegiate level, and punishing anyone who speaks out against it by using an red pen…I’m sorry, I mean a Native-American pen. ..
Better to be safe than sorry. Simply review resumes to identify those who might have participated in the sit in over correcting grammar errors in college and DO NOT HIRE THEM. These are people who would ruin your business if they do not get their way. DO NOT HIRE UCLA Graduates.
Yes, the private sector can decide not to hire as long as it is done with no hint of a racial/sex,gender/anti-illegal immigrant/inter species bias/etc. Then these illiterate & radical agenda types get jobs in government, move to the top of management and set rules for all of us to obey.
As an alumnus, I am not surprised that the university students of today are as stupid as they are. They are taught by radical, Marxist racists to be lock-step activists instead of to think critically.
These kids spend more time shouting down others than listening and learning. They are soporific and infantile. And I am referring to the professors, as well.
‘Taught by radical, Marxist racists’?? You do realize that these students are criticizing their professor, right? And you realize that this is far from typical? You have a very un-nuanced view of American Higher Education.
swr22, I apologize for not being clear in my writing.
I am criticizing those students who spend all of their time at university agitating and marching, rather than sitting in class learning.
While I was at UCLA, I was accosted by MeCHA students, who would take grapes off of my lunch tray, telling me that I should support my “brothers and sisters in the fields.”
I also had to endure insipid liberal instructors who were only interested in pushing their agenda. It wasn’t until I started writing my assignments with a liberal slant that I started getting A grades.
I am sorry to hear that. I know USC rather better than UCLA but professors and students who are truly interested in pushing a political agenda, of either left or right, are in a distinct minority in the few institutions I know well (of both more conservative and liberal student bodies). You seemed to have had a pretty bad personal experience, but I am happy to say that it is far from typical. The whole ‘tenured radicals’ thing is very, very overplayed, and our students are increasingly apathetic and don’t really want to change the world but chase the few jobs that will secure them a level of pay that will let them pay off their loans.
Then you need to marginalize people like the ones described in the article before they ruin your university’s standards completely, because it’s very clear that the university administration is listening to them, not to you.
There are no conservative points of view at your university.
Ummm…. What? Yes, clearly there are.
“The whole ‘tenured radicals’ thing is very, very overplayed…”
You’re lying.
No, I am really not.
Most students are left wing malcontents and re7ards. Unfortunately, most professors groom them as such
This article goes on and on and on – but never really explains what EXACTLY the huff is about.
Can’t say I’m surprised.
Was noticing that too. Was a bit of an elliptical read.
““Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging charges … the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying (the) charges have no merit,” Watson said.”
Leveraging charges? No more calls, I think we have a winner.
Not wishing to miss the forest for the trees, I would simply point out that a PHD in education is as big of a waste of time and money as a Doctor Of Divinity. Seriously, you are pissing away your parents’ and the government’s money on a degree that has no use whatsoever in the real world.
A few disgruntled black and brown students’ views do not represent the majority of how other students of color at UCLA’s education department feel. Most of us (students of color) use critical feedback to improve our research, some use racism as a cloak for their failures or inability to think critically about anything beyond their “personal” experiences. Many students of color in our department fit the former and not the latter; but as we all may have experienced, the crazies are sometimes the loudest. So please don’t generalize the actions of a few to represent all the students of color in the education department. Students at the sit-in are an embarrassment to the department and most come from the SSCE division (we have many divisions) of our department.
Who takes anyone with an Education degree seriously? Whenever I see someone using Ed. D. I realize they are neither wise nor in possession of any common sense. Usually they also get the drink order wrong or forget the fries.
You probably need to make it clearer that these jackasses don’t speak for you. The university is clearly operating under the assumption that they do, and if they get their way your education is going to suffer.
It would be racist to mark papers less critically for people of color.
Thanks for lecturing whites. It’s not like whites don’t get lectured enough about “racism.”
Here’s an idea – why don’t you go fck off and lecture Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, NAACP, La Raza, ADL, $PLC, Tim Wise, David Sirota, and the laundry list of anti-whites?
Just another excuse for failure to learn. If you cannot do it or learn it then call it racist. So because of your race you cannot learn proper grammar and spelling?? Seems to be that would be an argument for white supremacists to make, lol.
If their grammar is that bad by the time they reach that age, no doubt there’s been an educational failure somewhere along the way. It’s called social promotion; though these students probably don’t know it by that name, they’re likely used to it, expect it to continue when they arrive in academia but are shocked when it doesn’t.
Elementary teacher here. The “passing” benchmark for the state tests is currently 55. Teachers try to fail students, but “she’s too tall to be held back”, “he’s a twin”, “it will hurt her self-image”, etc. Social promotions are the norm.
Exactly.
F*cking stupid losers.
Yeah, God forbid “students of color” should be expected to hand in papers with correct spelling and grammar. Why don’t schools just hand them masters degrees without even attending class, it would seem that this is really what they are after, degrees without really learning anything putting out any effort. And the nonsense they invent to justify this garbage is truly amazing, “micro-aggression”? Pulllleaze.
That is precisely what they want and what they get. Too many blacks graduate with meaningless degrees in subjects devoid of market value.
fucking lol at these faggy gen Y losers…I will enjoy raping them later
The USA needs a race war!
The way things are going these last few years, we’re gonna get one.
The once great country known as the United States of America continues to sink to new lows. It seems the very reason this troubled country came into existance is to be a dislover of all human culture, and the poluter and destroyer of all civilized communication..
American English continues to sink to new low levels. Jewish speach patterns are new the norm everywhere English is spoken, (including England), such as starting every sentence with the word “So” and starting every answer with “Well”.
Putting the word “very” in front of EVERY superlative: “Very unique”, “very catastrophic”, “very horrible”, “very huge” etc etc.
Dont forget to say the word “like” three times in each sentence. And always insert the phraze “you know” in every sentence. “uh” and “um” are the two most common words in the American English language.
Never use the word “are”. “There is a hundred people outside”.
The word “an” has beeen sucessfully banned: It is “a honour” and have “a apple” . . .
I agree with most of what you said. However, I am trying to understand your comments about the “Jewish speech patterns.” Can you provide more info?
I don’t expect he will. He’s got some good points but also a few typos and odd constructions in his own post, but I’ve got enough class not to point them out.
Ha ha ha!
Well, O.M.G! I’m a closet Jew.
Yeah, that didn’t make any sense to me, either. “Jewish” speech patterns? I’m a Jew, and I do my level best to speak as clearly and correctly as possible. Pretty sure there’s nothing in the Torah about English grammar.
Perhaps Mr. Kim meant Yiddish speech patterns and cadences when articulated in English rather than in the original? Though I have not heard the examples he gives.
If these have entered into the larger culture I would assume it is based on increased exposure via popular media. But what should I know? Me I’m just a schlep with an A.A. degree. You want an expert? Fine go find your big shot expert. It’s no skin off my nose.
Since when are those Jewish speech patterns? With thinking like yours I wish you rots or ruck.
Since when are those Jewish speech patterns? With thinking like yours I wish you rots of ruck.
What it really comes down to is the Professor calling out their papers (marking them) for grammatical and spelling errors!!! Young students today do not even have the sense to use “Spell Check!” I am presently taking a couple of classes at a university, and I see this all the time. In discussions, many young students (freshmen and sophomores) cannot even carry on an intelligent conversation, without having horrific errors in their speaking (grammatical)!
Many young students expect a good grade for extremely poor work. It’s just a part of the “entitlement generation.”
Helicopter parents will not allow teachers to fail their kids. They threaten to sue the school and teachers for bad grades.
In a university class, TRY taking a Literature class with some of these “youth.” The assignment is to read a story, or play, analyze a particular character (usually the main character), and then give your own perspective (of whatever is asked). First, students ask, “What do you mean by analyzing a character?” Then one of them will ask, “By giving my perspective—is that my opinion?”
And the writing assignments are TERRIBLE. We do “peer reviews” of each other’s essays and research papers (in another class), and I sit SHOCKED at all the errors in these papers! I can’t help but think SURELY this comes from what they were taught in middle school and high school, mostly! I mean, there is just NO EXCUSE for not learning how to read and write the English language, and how to articulate your own thoughts!
The excuse is that colleges are admitting students that don’t have the capability of doing college level work because of low I.Q. But because of political correctness and affirmative action these students get degrees that aren’t worth the paper on which they’re printed! Courses are dumbed down so minorities can pass them; passing grades are given to students who can’t actually pass the subject matter; and degrees are given to students who don’t earn them. In decades past, a college degree was an honor and an accomplishment that was earned after a rigorous course of study. Not the case any more.
College did not used to be a “right” everyone had. It was entrance by merit, only the best and the brightest got in.
Freshman English community college – papers that I would give a failing grade if turned in by a high school student are given passing grades. We are failing at educating our youth.
who is white ppl to be tellin black ppl the way they talk aint right? thats racism right there G!
This is hilarious. I’m sure none of these Leftist academics that invented and proliferated such nonsense as “White Privilege” and multiculturalism ever thought their own PC crap would come back to bite them. “Revolutions devour their own children”
I read this, and I think I can relate.
When I was a sophomore in college, about 35 years ago, I stayed up all night studying for a midterm in history. When I got to the test, I raced to put every single thing I knew into the bluebook. I figured that the TA would sort it out. The TA wrote, “This is by far the worst performance, in terms of spelling, that I’ve seen in X years of teaching.” I remember his words clearly and I can still see the pages of my bluebook with about a third of the words circled in red, indicating misspelling. I’d misspelled “Jesus,” though I’d spelled “Christ” correctly.
Was the TA being “aggressive”? Very, very likely, because otherwise he wouldn’t have spent so much time to circle so many words on so many pages just to say, “Learn to spell!” I’d certainly given him just cause to be angry. So, I went to his office hours and apologized abjectly. Ever since, I’ve used the spell checker whenever available, including for this post.
I don’t enjoy receiving criticism, but I try to understand its purpose. Somebody needs to explain this to the students complaining about being corrected.
Wonder how these students got into graduate school in the first place…lowered standards, perhaps? This is pathetic. And worse, they may be teaching our children.
Affirmative action is how.
I was wondering if they had to write an essay. I’d be interested in reading their submissions.
Correcting an individual’s poor spelling and punctuation or lack thereof is racist? Wrong. Do not correct; allow the individual to continue being stupid. The professor is not there to impart knowledge; he/she is there to coddle stupid people, make excuse for their stupidity (such as the color of their skin), and keep them on the liberal plantation. You can’t fix stupid.
Translation:
“I’m not a very good student. Therefore, it must be racism.”
Just another place where social faiIures can use the same tired, illogical excuse.
What is a student of color? What color?
As I understand it white is a color and black is the lack of color. Bet that would go over well! HaHa I guess I can then call myself a ‘woman of color’… wonder if I can get any ‘freebies’?
progs, f-ing progs.
you leftist lunatics make this behavior seem normal.
Ebonics anyone ?
Ebonics anyone ?
I recently hired about 15 electrical and software engineers. One wrong character in a software program can cause failure. One wrong symbol, number or line can produce a failed hardware product.
I don’t consider candidates that have more than 1 spelling or punctuation error in their resumes. I figure if that is the extent of their self-checking abilities then they are not going to produce work of sufficient accuracy to make quality products.
This professor was doing these students a favor, although I imagine the level of detail and accuracy needed in the Department of Education is a lot lower than in the sciences where there are real world consequences for errors.
Spot on. Check out Glen Reynolds piece in USA Today (11/25) on the Obamacare debacle, especially the last four paragraphs.
If I see even one mistake, that turns me right off.
This is no biggy. Nobody in their right mind would hire some dimwit with a degree in this drivel anyway, even if they did know grammar and punctuation.
I was in a grad school class at an exceptionally liberal college (don’t ask, I really had no choice at the time) where a few adult students were singled out for remedial English instruction before they could progress any further in the curriculum; in short, their writing samples were SO bad that, had they been allowed to finish they’d have embarrassed the school.
One of them, the sole male in his group, complained loudly on behalf of the others that if they apparently cannot write well enough to be in the program, why did the institution accept them in the first place? It was an excellent question (answer: money-grubbing liberal diploma mill that has since almost expired) but the fact remained that his grammar and that of the others was substandard for the careers they were pursuing. What happened to them after that I do not know but I think at least one of them quit in protest.
not an education gap…. not a race gap.
an IQ gap.
I teach Chinese graduate law students in China. My classes are in English. I expect perfect English from my students, and that’s the standard although not all or even most of them achieve it. My Chinese students are uniformly grateful for the minute, detailed corrections they receive on their work. They understand how time consuming it is to correct every grammatical and syntactical error, and to point out the proper form for academic citations in footnotes or bibliographies, and they appreciate the feedback. Prof. Rust’s students should be deeply grateful to him for taking the time to correct their mistakes. Many professors would just ignore the errors and “move on,” leaving their students uneducated and illiterate. UCLA is very lucky to have a professor like Prof. Rust.
The complaining students aren’t there to learn. Their purpose in being there can best be described as sabotage.
Expel every moron who protested Prof. Rust. They’ve demonstrated they are too stupid to be capable of college level work in any useful field.
What has happened if letting a discussion about critical race theory take place in class is racist and must be stopped? This is really why every degree should have calculus and hard science requirements — not “college math” and physics for poets. Weed out the morons.
What a bunch of pathetic losers. Seems to me it’s time for some remedial calculus, organic chemistry and quantum physics. No humanities except for some brutally detailed history, preferably some advanced reading of Henry Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”, specifically the perils of money printing, followed by two semesters on the evils of leftism, including several essays based on the “Gulag Archipeligo”, and ending with a full reading of The Federalist Papers, describing in detail the origins of the thoughts of the Founders and why it is that this Republic, this jewel of human history, is the finest that has ever been. Oh, and a class on spelling and grammar given by the hardest-a** nun that can be found.
o humanities except for some brutally detailed history, preferably some advanced reading of Henry Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”….
And starting with the title page might tell you that the author was Edward Gibbon.
It’s always funny how the people who want to pretend to be better educated, usually by dispensing with every field they don’t know much about (e.g. no humanities except history), usually end up proving themselves unread even on their own terms.
Remember – this is in California. Rationality, civility, self-respect and pride in achievement are all considered racist and misogynistic concepts designed to uphold the patriarchy of privileged white males.
We’re thru as a country. Finished.
“Acts of intolerance, discrimination, bullying, and overt and
covert bias stand in complete opposition to the spirit that animates the
(graduate school),” he said.”
What so few people seem to realize these days is that the expectation of proper grammar and precise composition isn’t about “micro-agressions” against minorities. It’s about ensuring that logical arguments and rational reasoning are conveyed most accurately with the least chance of misunderstanding.
Generations past, Latin was the language of academia. It wasn’t about forcing everyone to be Roman. It was about ensuring communication across borders. Whatever dialect one speaks at home, one’s academic writing has been and SHOULD be of a higher quality, even if, much like this sentence, it approaches a level of “bookishness” or jargon that the average person would never use.
There’s a meme image circulating pointing out how important this can be, since “The average American consumes more than 400 Africans.” Grammar and punctuation matter, or else there are more cannibals in the US than I thought.
People who cannot use proper grammar have no business being in college.
College isn’t what it used to be.
My mother and her brother went to a pedestrian state school and were just about murdered by English 101. The rigour of that course, as it was described to me, was terrifying.
The same course, at my more prestigious alma mater, was a cakewalk 30 years later.
Yet another reason I stopped teaching at the college level. So many came in entitled to A grades, but could not write, research, articulate a coherent argument, orally or in writing, and had no idea how to craft a basic paper with an introductory paragraph/thesis statement, body, and conclusion.
I taught history and business classes, and I learned to scrap the syllabus for the first 4-hour night and teach instead our country’s founding, structure of government, how laws are passed, the Constitution, etc. Otherwise, what they read would make no sense. Half the class would tell me later something like, “This is the first time I have ever really heard or learned this.”
And the sad fact is that many of these ignorant adults, too stupid to know how uneducated they are, are now parents raising the next generation of ignorant human beings. I have had working adult students who thought “Carter” one of the first ten presidents of the US. When I assured her he wasn’t and try again, she asked, “Kennedy?” When replied no, but how about Washington, her reply (and I swear to God this is true), “If you say so.” She worked in the insurance industry and had two kids.
Sometimes I worry our country might be like the Titanic’s watertight compartments. With four flooded compartments the ship could still float. But if five flooded, the nose went down, the water flowed into the sixth, and then the seventh, and the ships sank.
Do we have too many ignorant people today, with limited virtue and no sense of liberty and history to recover? I fear the answer is yes.
According to our local teacher’s union, 100% of the problem is that they aren’t paid more. That’s why a full-grown woman with a diploma can be dubious about our nation’s first president… It’s all about the Benjamins. <– subtle humor
Affirmative action is a huge problem with education. Ignorant, incompetent people are hired to teach and they don’t even know the subject. They have worthless degrees, though, degrees they didn’t earn but were given because of affirmative action, too.
Teachers have no say in curriculum or even how to teach. Blame politicians and other “experts” for this debacle.
If a professor privately correcting a student’s grammar is a micro-aggression, what level of aggression is it to publicly call the professor a racist aggressor?
I’m sick of bitching minorities blaming whitey for their failures
The very idea that there is such a thing as a minority is part and parcel of the scam.
Gramscian Marxism 101.
And they teach it in education programs. It’s usually called Social Justice.
Memo to self. Never hire anyone who went to this bastion of intellectual vacuity.
Obviously you can’t have an opinion about race except that any minority is oppressed and deserves a free ride or you are a hater and a racist. Believing that people of all colors have the ability to create excellent work without concessions is now considered racist. Why is it that Asian students who have parents with limited English skills often perform better than American students?
Such a ‘kindly ole cracker.’ My response would not be described as ‘micro’ anything.
Bad grades are microaggressions too. Haha, thats the end of this school..!
Its getting pretty sad when an English professor correcting a student over bad grammar and poor citations of references is considered racial aggression. This racial grievance BS is getting totally out of hand.
It got out of hand 40 years ago. That it was not smacked down back then is why this nonsense is happening now.
The end result will be the rejection of graduates from these degree programs in the professional world.
I agree its been building up for a long time, ever since conservative professors caved into leftist student groups in the 60’s and let them start running the colleges. They did it in the name of academic freedom, but of course once these leftist fascists took over they promptly ended any academic freedom, except for their fellow leftists. And you are right also that ultimately the market will rule, and both employers, parents, and young people will start refusing to pay huge prices for these worthless leftist degrees.
“That’s racist” is becoming the only card incompetent people of color have left (see the White House).
And being called a racist is carrying less and less of a sting.
What utter bullcrap. If you can’t cut it because your grammar sucks, either learn or leave.
“Nora Cisneros, a graduate student who participated in the sit-in,
said the group chose to hold their protest because they feel Rust’s
class does not encourage a climate where students of color can discuss
issues of race openly.” Translation – “we weren’t able to take over Prof. Rust’s class whenever we wanted to and turn it into a discussion of critical race theory, racism, sexism, or any other -ism we were interested in at that moment.”
Exactly. And we all know what would happen if some conservative students in a leftist teachers class wanted to discuss race openly, when it comes to the evils of affirmative action quotas, the evil of socialist dictatorship and theft masquerading as social and racial justice, and the lefts constantly phony use of the race card.
Please use apostrophes. Thank you.
I’m not in class now, where it would be appreciated.
Sloppy writing betrays sloppy thinking. And your post was incoherent with or without apostrophes. Hyperbole is a rhetorical device that has to be used with some rarity to convey genuine meaning.
Sounds like a cheap shot to me, kind of trollish. Nitpick a few minor things, which few people do when typing fast on a comment board, and never address the real argument. You never addressed the disparate treatment of conservative viewpoints, affirmative action quotas, or relabeling a socialist power grab as social justice, or the constant use of the race card. That is not hyperbole, it happens.
Lot’s of people use apostrophes, even when typing fast. Personal accountability is a good thing to demonstrate as well as lecture to others. And, no, that doesn’t happen; it IS hyperbole. You make your position look foolish by simply launching into a rather silly ideological jeremiad rather than being level-headed and analytical.
The real problem is whites need to stop thinking there’s a “human race” and they’re the source of all problems in the world. No white should ever support non-white, non-Christian immigration – ever. The goal of the Left and their immigration policies are to make whites a hated, cultureless minority with no identity in their own country.
Don’t believe me?
Try and suggest that whites need explicit and exclusive political, scholastic, and cultural groups that work in their collective self-interest. Go ahead and every moron will scream racism. You’ll have Whites lecture you on how we’re all “part of the human race.” They won’t lecture non-whites ever. A black preacher or politician can talk about “my people” but whites are forbidden. Das rassist!
Whenever you hear the word racist just know it means – I hate you because you’re white.
I don’t like your anti immigrant nativism. I support immigrants who want to assimilate, work hard, and educate themselves in American culture and language. The problem is not immigration, but the lefts opposition to programs and cultural norms that will assimilate those immigrants, and their support for programs that impede assimilation, like bilingual education, printing of official documents in multiple languages, and racial grievance theories.
Nativism?
When did your dick fall off? At what point do people like you stop sh!tting on whites?
I don’t like your stupidity and indoctrination. You’re so stupid from indoctrination you can’t figure out you’re being replaced by low-IQ, non-white, non-Christian people. You’re so unbelievably, unbearably stupid you think that, magically, your support of people who do not exist will make you a good person. Somewhere beyond the stupidity of your self-righteousness is a human being with survival instincts.
The current immigration policies of America and the Western World are anti-white and anti-Christian. You’re talking about “programs” that don’t exist. Natives (the people you hate, white people, your mother, father, and ancestors) don’t have these “programs” and in your stupidity you believe low-IQ third world rabble will magically assimilate? Name the K12 education classes for assimilation. Common Core?
The problem is you’re an indoctrinated Useful Idiot. You’re anti-White.
ThomasER916 is correct in most of his post–I also agree with your post. Immigrants that want to become American citizens should be welcomed with open arms, unfortunately most of the ‘immigrants’ we get these days could care less about becoming citizens. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if they not only don’t want citizenship but just want the ‘perks’ (for free, of course).
When I volunteered in my now 29-year-old son’s first grade classroom I was not allowed to correct the spelling of the students papers because it negatively effected their egos–the teacher told me that I shouldn’t worry, the students would learn to spell the words correctly later. To this day my son still can’t spell–he has to use spell check as he doesn’t even know when a word is misspelled, forget knowing the correct spelling. People, it’s been going on for a long time.
I agree with your post, and you make a good middle ground between us. I did not want to dump all legal imigration, as thomas appeared to want. But I agree with you that immigration without assimilation is worthless, and right now our present immigration system no longer requires or even encourages assimlation, or even legality. Until we fix that, by changing our immigration system to encourage legal immigration by those who do wish to assimilate, and making sure they do after they get here, it is not worth having immigration.
The only way to prevent these failures of assimilation is to cut off the inflow. We’ve done our part for the poor, tired, huddled masses and wretched refuse. My group is already destined to become a minority in its own homeland. That isn’t enough?
I suspect the original settlers would have said the same thing about the Germans, and they both would have said the same about the Irish, and all 3 would have said the same about the Italians and Poles. And none of them would have wanted the Chinese. And if we had followed that misguided policy, we would not be the great nation we are today.
If you cannot see a larger difference between English/German and English/Chinese, or English/Somali, or English/Mexican mestizo, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not sure what value you think we’re getting from these groups that the English settlers couldn’t have done themselves. Putting men on the moon required a melting pot, is that it? I’m sure with all the unskilled Latinos we’re not inviting in, yet are coming by the millions anyway, we’ll be on Mars in no time!
I support giving strong immigration preferences to those who speak English, and have job skills. I also support policies after that to make sure they assimilate into our culture. I also completely oppose illegal immigration, and support measures to stop it. I do not support your nativism and obvious hatred of others not like you.
I do not ‘obviously hate’ those not like me. I just want to preserve my homeland instead of turning it into a third-world, balkanized dump. Do you think the Japanese are wicked for preserving their nation for the Japanese people? Should they take in a million Mexicans or Zulus to show how openminded and multicultural they are? Why is the West, alone, obligated to take in the world? What possible benefit do we gain?
Millions no, but I expect you don’t want any of “them” at all.
‘Cause spelling and grammar be racist an shit.
Gravity, aerodynamics, physics and math are also racist. If they weren’t there would be more African American commercial pilots.
And these are future educators, coming soon to a teachers union near you.
The soft bigotry of low expectations. New and improved since now they insist on it. It is racist to expect proper spelling, grammar and citation format from minority students.
Because nothing says “hire that person” like a resume filled with spelling and grammar mistakes.
Don’t forget the recent Obamacare ad featuring college students: ” Hey, Mom, do I got insurance?”
“Grammar and spelling are racist!” But only in schools of education.
The real,problem is the Republican Party, which is full,of vermin and criminals that hate women, children, minorities, and gays. California is lucky that the Republican Party is basically non-existent. What Obama needs to do is use his Constitutional powers to declare the Republican Party a criminal organization, try them under RICO, and put them all in jail, starting with Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Boehner, McConnell, Perry, Jindal, Walker, and Palin.
Great sarc-trolling! Best I’ve seen all week!
It actually is a pretty good description of ultimate leftist goals though.
Poe’s Law.
Micro-aggression vs micro-intelligence.
If you read the article you will notice a striking dichotomy:
Asian response: Emily Le, a graduate student in the school who has known Rust for about 10 years, said she thought it was unjust for sit-in participants to accuse Rust of being part of a hostile environment because he is a supporter of intercultural learning and collaboration.
“It is disturbing that students would make such unfounded accusations based on misperceptions of what they believe as racism,” Le said.
“I think the most unsettling thing was that it was in the name of a larger, legitimate cause, but it was so targeted at very specific people,” said Stephanie Kim, a graduate student who has worked with Rust for several years.
“Maybe (the demonstrators) do have legitimate grievances … but the way they chose to address their issues was by very aggressively showing up in one targeted professor’s class and using him as a scapegoat for much larger issues,” she said.
Black and Hispanic: Kenjus Watson, a graduate student who participated in the sit-in, said he thinks incidents of racial profiling have taken place in the school for several decades, and that students who report incidents using traditional methods are often disregarded.
“Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging charges … the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying (the) charges have no merit,” Watson said.
Nora Cisneros, a graduate student who participated in the sit-in, said the group chose to hold their protest because they feel Rust’s class does not encourage a climate where students of color can discuss issues of race openly.
It’s interesting to me how Asians never seem to have a problem with the professor or the curriculum in the program, yet here we have negros/ spics complaining about perceived racial insensitivity. Blacks and Hispanics will never understand if you play the victim you will always be a victim. But it’s not because of white racism, but from their own preoccupation with unsubstantiated racism. I’m starting to believe its a real mental illness amongst these people.
“Leveraging charges,” he said? Are you sure you got that right? If so…wow.
“Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging
charges … the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying
(the) charges have no merit,” Watson said.
===
Perhaps next time Kenjus should LEVEL a complaint. But he will still be told it has no merit…because it doesn’t.
There is no possibility of educational reform short of abolishing “Departments of Education”. Universities may choose to degrade their degrees until selling them becomes a form of fraud, caveat emptor, but training incompetents to teach our children is unacceptable.
Racial discrimination? This would be a joke if it weren’t so pathetic. The inability of black students to speak grammatical English or to spell properly has always been endemic because most black college students are under equipped to perform at a college level in any case
Affirmative action.
Who, exactly, would take your PhD seriously if you can not speak proper English and your writing is full of grammar errors? What would happen is that people would laugh at you behind your back, pass around your papers with fractured grammar as a joke, and wonder if you got your PhD in a box of Cracker Jacks. And how is it that you were admitted into a PhD program when you can not write?
That would be quite bad practice in my discipline, mathematics. I see all manner of grammatical and spelling errors in articles, papers, and dissertations I read, but to reject them on this basis rather than reviewing the mathematical ideas that might be useful for my work would be rather absurd.
Treating a work as a joke due to poor packaging would be rather shallow and a joke to scholarship in itself. Errors in verb tense and spelling are of course not desirable, but they’re almost never damaging to the content of at least mathematical research.
Any one who needs his grammar and spelling corrected should not be in graduate school. Someone whose native language is not English, in particular, should get his work checked before he submits it. He should know he has a problem and he should be proactive to address it.
I knew plenty of college grads who could not write well unfortunately. When I was in USAF officer training I remember 2 candidates who had to flunk out because they could not read above 8th grade level. One was black, the other Hispanic.
So America, how did that nifty idea of ‘free/cheap labor’ turn out long term? I bet we’d all like a ‘mulligan’ on that foolish idea.
First of all, the prof is clearly a lefty, but he is also unfortunately white. Had he been black, the racist thugs would have left him alone. So, being a lefty, and encouraging racist Critical Race Theory still wasn’t enough.
Second, the students who complained about Val Rust’s corrections are unqualified, and in some cases, probably illiterate. They have no business being accepted to any UC school at any level, and their acceptance to UCLA was surely in violation of the California State Constitution’s ban on affirmative action.
Third, the notion that these students have suffered discrimination is a racial fairy tale. The only racism at schools like UCLA is anti-white racism. They’re hoaxers, and can be found in abundance at every school that practices affirmative action.
However, I guarantee you that you will find faculty members in this grad school who support “language rights,” aka “Students’ Right to Their Own Language,” which means that educators may not correct illiterate black and Hispanic students. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that some of those profs helped organize the mau-mauing of Val Rust.
Nicholas Stix, Uncensored
So these simpletons think being corrected on grammar, is racist?… Spelling?… so.. they think ignorance is a badge of honor?.. Time was, when every parent wanted their children to speak better, act more mannered.. to exhibit class…
apparently these “students” want the degree, but don’t want to sully themselves with the effort of earning it..
That is exactly right–they’re there just to be given a degree. Affirmative action requires colleges to admit students that aren’t capable of actually earning a degree, and it requires colleges to give them degrees they didn’t earn in many cases.
These are graduate students in Education who feel put upon by the educational process? How will they be able to teach effectively if they reject any notion of expecting and correcting performance on a graduate level to adults, let alone k-12?
My degree is in Elem Ed, and all the best education courses not only taught us content, but also modeled best practice.
Commas Save Lives
Let’s eat Grandma!
Let’s eat, Grandma!
Authorship unknown. My son showed me this line on a t-shirt in an airline catalogue.
Nicholas Stix, Uncensored
“Micro agression” = “I can’t take legitimate criticism”
“…and so I will accuse innocent people of being racists, destroying their reputations in the local community and their jobs in the process, all to make me into a victim of racism and worthy of an audience and their pity. Now, let me go teach your children.”
If you’re too stupid or too lazy to at least run a spelling and grammar checker on your work, then you should be asked to leave the doctoral program.
College students carrying education majors refuse to learn grammar, punctuation and spelling????
WTF?
This is insanity.
The professor didn’t say you were stupid because of your race; YOU did that, when you held the sit-in.
Wow! Even the UCLA graduate programs in Education cannot cure “stupid.”
All of this because he corrected their grammar? As he is PAID to do? I consider myself a leftist when it comes to economic matters and most social issues, but this is absolutely embarrassing.
What’s the easier path for a “minority” student these days?
1) Study hard in order to pass a course? or
2) Don’t study, but yell “racism” if the teacher flunks you, in order to intimidate the college into giving you a passing grade?
They say I ain’t got no good grammar cuz they be no good racist crackers. Now gimme my PeeAchDee.
Don’t you all see what political correctness and our obsession with race in this country has wrought?
The accusers “culture” doesn’t value proper grammar as highly as the “culture” of the one in question running things, and so to question their grammar and correct it is akin to denying them their “cultural” right to ignore the rules of English grammar.
You’re a minority student sitting in class. The professor, who doesn’t look like you, hands back a recently graded paper, and when you get yours you notice a lot of red ink (or purple or green, since education reform pushes the idea of not using red ink because of the emotional implications behind the angry, intense color of red being used to show that you made a mistake.) You look around the room, and the students who more closely resemble the teacher don’t have those same marks. Those marks that indicate that you did something wrong.
You can: Learn to rectify the mistakes, but in the process make yourself more closely resemble the professor and those other students, or you can argue that the professor only made the corrections because of their culture, and you clearly shouldn’t have to change the way you speak to resemble someone who does not look or act or speak like you. After all, you’ve been learning that all your life, thanks in part to the fact that just about every teacher and professor out there is a leftist and their programs in education teach them that their job as a teacher is to combat white racism and white privilege in our society. ( I know this because I learned it in my required Masters in Ed. class entitled Social Justice.) Oh the irony!
Those are the only two options that those students protesting considered because that’s what they’ve been taught. But because it is bad to appear white (because whites are racist, hence the protest), and because it is wrong to deny someone of their cultural right to speak and act however their culture expects, these kids sought it fit to protest and tarnish the names and jobs of those they accused rather than stoop so low as to conform.
All because their culture is just as equal as the “privileged” one and therefor immune from any criticism in our society. Not only immune from criticism, but to even point out something you deem offensive makes them an automatic racist.
You’re wrong. The problem is not “obsession with race.” The problem is denying that whites are a race, exist as a race, and have a vested interest in their past, present and future. Whites and ONLY whites are not allowed to exist. Whenever anyone talks about whites as a race some indoctrinated anti-White lectures on how we’re all “one human race.” They don’t believe it. There isn’t one human race. They’re just anti-White. These same Useful Idiots NEVER lecture non-whites. They NEVER take their self-righteousness to the NAACP or La Raza and lecture them.
Affirmative Action for the human race! – except whites
Asia for the Asians!
Africa for the Africans!
White countries for everybody!
Wake up son. This is genocide. You’re being replaced and your replacements are being trained for the next genocide. Whites are being taxed so they cannot afford to have families. Solution? Bring in Somali Bantus using white tax money and stick them in white and only white cities through the West like Lewiston Maine to make whites a hated minority.
Exactly.
I view this as just another attempt by troublemakers to use race as a cudgel to coerce the university into giving them a degree they probably have not earned.
“probably”?…
affirmative action in college on the decline? no problem, we’ll just go around school policy and agitate…when will the american people get their heads out of their posteriors and realize minorities have wielded the white guilt bat long enough? even leftist professors are not immune when they don’t continue to participate in the downward spiral of equal outcomes, no matter what the input. fools, what did you expect? at this very moment, we have a president proceeding with the same type of behavior
Wow. For starters, this is a graduate program in Education wherein correcting grammar is viewed as aggressively racist. Just think about that for a moment. These aren’t just people who can’t write in proper English; they’re college graduates who are not even literate and yet who presume to teach others how not to speak and write correctly. Beyond that bitterest irony, though, is that tragic racialism that imagines it is a favor to the minority to argue that his inability to perform isn’t the problem, the standards are. For one, it is a cornerstone of the idea that minorities are inferior, that they can’t equal whites at intellectual tasks. More insidiously, it tells the minority student that he can’t meet other people’s requirements, and it encourages him not to work harder and study but rather to protest and see himself as a victim. I saw something similar years ago at an historically black college, where everything was so remedial that no one would ever be expected to perform at a college level. One student asked, “how are we going to catch up by going slower than other students at other colleges?” Indeed.
Grammar be racist, yo.
Let’s just let it pass and recognize that there is a white/Asian PhD, a Mexican PhD and an African PhD. We will be able to then tell at sight or based on surnames which one one has and offer respect accordingly.
Where is Jason Richwine when you need him?
Did they walk into a bar?
It would be nice to see a strong counter protest against these folks. If they are too stupid to recognize they are embarrassing themselves by exposing their lack of basic education while harassing an innocent person, it would be great to see them strongly reminded of this fact…
You won’t see a counter protest as those students are too busy making sure there papers are grammatically correct.
How pathetic my alma mater has become. Throw these idiots off campus!
Did the article provide even one example of racial discrimination at the school?
In the beginning affirmative action just meant lower standards. Now, apparently, it means having no standards at all. How sad, especially when you consider that the ones hurt worst by this are minorities.
So lets send even dumber kids into the world and see how they do with reality. What an immense load of PC, asinine horse refuse!
Barack Obama did quite well – and his only qualification is being non-white and reading from a teleprompter.
So why should they need to be able to write correct English? The state forces the private sector to hire them.
Here is a view from down-under. If these students do not like their work being corrected by a professor how the hell are they going to survive in the work force? I have worked in the private and public sector and in both have had my reports edited by my managers – am I now a victim of ‘micro-aggression’? Or, perhaps, they knew better than I did! PS I understand the educational environment too as I am a doctoral student who enjoys ‘micro-aggression’ from my supervisors.
I agree.
And I wish the article provided examples of this so-called micro-aggression.
You must understand, asking for authentication is in itself a form of micro-aggression. It is only by refusing to let others define or challenge our own internal concept of micro-aggression that we can begin speaking truth to power. By demanding that examples be provided you are making a value judgment that does not take into account a person’s need for actualization independent from a cultural norm to which they are unable to conform.
They must be judged based on their own grammar and usage self identity which often falls outside of the social construct embraced by members of the elite class. Failure to do so means that you are a member of the oppressing education oligarchy even if you have never overtly committed acts of micro aggression against the underclass. Only by denouncing your Strunk and White advantage and immersing yourself in a climate of redlining can you ever understand the daily struggle these people face in a world of Oxford’s and Webster’s.
Please report to your re-education cadre immediately following morning unity meditations.
I find your sarcasm a bit overdone, yet still humorous.
Thanks, In all seriousness I have no doubt that challenging them to provide examples will be seen as an act of aggression. This is because if they are prevented from always defining the word based on their personal experience or feelings they can not seize control of the word, and thereby always be in charge of an argument where the subject is discussed. An objective definition based on agreed upon understandings would set a boundary.
This boundary means that power in a debate will go to the person who has the greatest command of the facts at hand and not to the person who can write the best “Agony Aunt” letter. More importantly perhaps, this boundary is the baseline for a BS meter. (That’s a technical term not often used in academia) Being called out for BS is the last thing these people want.
Language matters way beyond the basic grammar and spelling rules that have these students stymied. It matters because without understanding the nuances of language one cannot properly process information. It means the rules of logic become anachronisms. With the first loss you lose the ability to separate truth from propaganda. With the second loss you lose the ability to slay propaganda. If you want a population of drones this is a great beginning. If you want a free populace it should be decried loudly.
These students will never be free. Drones with a doctorate are still drones. Slaves to whatever bad idea seizes their imagination.
They survive in the work force because of affirmative action and political correctness. Competence doesn’t matter. Skin color does. There are lots of incompetent minorities in jobs they’re not capable of doing, but they can rarely be fired because of affirmative action. Furthermore, because of quotas, a certain number of minorities must be hired in each business if it’s large enough. Oh, and government hires plenty of incompetents.
How did that bunch of idiot protestors get in a doctoral program anyway? They should be out sweeping the streets instead of stinking up a college campus. That’s why the US is slipping backward in world standing.
Affirmative action! It ruins everything.
How does one get into a Doctoral program without proper use of the English Language? After reading this article, I still didn’t identify a specific complaint. All I could detect was general whining by a small group of ‘students’ who want to hijack the classroom to carry out their own agenda. Well boo, hoo, hoo. They don’t run the school. I’m suspecting that the good professor probably was correcting them for the ‘black’ conjugation of the verb ‘be’ like in, “I be, he be, they be”.
Annnd the dumbing down of America tries to continue… The correct and right thing to do is to raise people up to better themselves… but the socialist liberal agenda is to bring the people down and lower themselves…
Wow, how insane it has become… where will it end?
.
“Nora Cisneros, a graduate student who participated in the sit-in, said the group chose to hold their protest because they feel Rust’s class does not encourage a climate where students of color can discuss issues of race openly.”
.
Excuse me, where exactly in the curriculum of the ‘Graduate School of Education & Information Studies’ does it state that ‘students will openly discuss issues of race?
.
oh, right, if you are black, then EVERY class you take MUST focus on issues of race, not on the ACTUAL educational content of the course.
.
affirmative action at its best – producing the idiots of tomorrow – pathetic
.
Excellent point. I was wondering the same thing … I don’t think racial issues is meant to be part of the course.
micro aggression? sounds more like microscopic mind. an illiterate phd? why not there are probably several already
Unqualified, affirmative actions students who live lives of victimhood, whining about imaginary slights….Haven’t we all had enough of this?
““Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging charges … the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying (the) charges have no merit,” Watson said.
In other words, we are entitled to win. No matter how little merit there is to our charges, discipline and punishment should be handed out. Remember, the only way to satisfy us is to agree with us.
[And you don’t “leverage” charges. You make charges. Or perhaps levy them. But leverage? No damn wonder the professor wants to correct their grammar and English expression.]
I thinks he mean make 10% of a charge, then get a loan again it, an lever the age of it to 10 charges at Macy’s. Sumpin like that, ya know?
He was trying to ‘level’ a charge.
C. M. Kornbluth’s “The Marching Morons” taking place right before our eyes. Unfortunately, instead of marching, some are begining to double-time.
The Eurocentric crime of linguistic genocide against the struggling people of color and those of a lower strata in the socioeconomic hierarchy continues to lay waste to the glory of self expression. Demand justice now! For years we clattering few have been shamed into rejecting our intrusive “r”. We have suffered the indignity of being told that “seen” should not be used as the past tense. We have even had our very state of being called into question. Did not the great poet and playwright Shakespaur himself axe “To be or not to be”? Well I say “I be.”
I say it with pride for an avant garde grammar that refuses to be subjected to the bigoted ignorance begat of privilege and power. I say write how that wilt is the whole of the law. Take off the shackles of conformity. Celebrate your unique voice and dare, dare to put Strunk and White on the ash heap of history where it be rightly belonging. You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Now who be letting me hold a case quarter cause I gots to be making me a phone call so I can axe about a job I seen in the paper yesterday. I have an idear it be gooden for me.
I came to this article late, but better late than never when offering a well-deserved “well done.” Very nicely executed!
Drunk, stoned and STUPID is no way to go through life. It is called spell check. ?..it has been around for two decades plus. ?.Learn it. ? Use it. ? Are you really that lazy? SERIOUSLY?
Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis
Graduate students cannot write properly on dissertation proposals. SMDH. How many years does this country have left before the next civil war?
So they staged a sit-in to protest that he corrected grammar and spelling on graduate-level theses? And that somehow grammar corrections are racist? What has this world come to?
ENGLISH grammar…….ENGLISH grammar………ENGLISH grammar. UCLA is not a place where your ENGLISH grammar and writing techniques should be passed over and ignored. Are you paying for this wonderful institutions education? Then get your monies worth. Sit in class and learn. OR stay where you are and continue down the same path you were on?
Many people here are pointing out that grad students who can’t spell won’t be able to get a job. While that is true – what makes you think any of these put upon victims are headed for the for-profit world? They are training to be “educators” – they will be hired by a system very similar to the one coddling them now.
And – doesn’t word processing or any text based program (such as Disqus) correct each and every misspelling with RED UNDERLINE????
How can people endure being corrected by a machine let alone a professor?
Does this mean that Microsoft WORD is “Micro-aggressive,” since it automatically corrects spelling and grammar errors, too? As far as I know, WORD does not have an automatic feature that flags the user as “dumb ass minority,” too.
I’d bet that these “education” majors will turn in 300-page theses with the word “ur” replacing the word, “your,” throughout.
These are supposed to be graduate students?
It’s all about their feelings, the poor dears. Flunk them all out so they can find their true calling – obviously should not be inflicted on our kids in the school system with graduate degrees in education.
I’d say they probably all have sterling careers ahead of them as Community Organizers(tm).
“Dass’ Racis’!”
If I hear that obnoxious phrase “reached out” again, I think I will choke on my own vomit.
ATTN: SAM HOFF. Google “hackneyed” before you write anything again.
Because nothing screams racism like an instructor grading papers. These kids need to grow up.
This country is so screwed.
5 students participated in this “sit in.” Just flunk them all. It’s a non-story. The only real story here is how 5 jackasses like that got into a college to begin with. Yes, jackasses.
If punctuation and grammar are “micro-aggression,” I guess that makes the AP Style Guide our modern equivalent of “Mein Kampf.” Maybe we should be burning it on our campuses.
No big deal. Can’t spell? Can’t write? Prefer ebonics? Hey, there’s a do-nothing affirmative action job for you. Just sit at that desk for the next thirty years. And the ones who can spell? The ones who can write? The ones who use standard English? You get REAL jobs! Make $150,000 a year at 30 and keep going!
What a bunch of whiny fools. Get employable names. Learn to express yourselves like human beings. You’ll get somewhere in life that way.
From what I can gleam, it does seem like these students overreacted to this incident; correcting one’s grammar isn’t “racist”. But could there be more to this than it seems? We’ll have to see…..
I’m just a little more concerned with how these mentally deficient “students” got as far as they did with such pathetic English skills. Does nobody pass or fail students based on merit any more?
Congratulations, UCLA. You’ve just reminded the rest of the world why we laugh at you. Just when it seems it can’t get more ridiculous, you raise the bar.
So correcting grammar and spelling mistakes is racial discrimination. I guess these idiots could use a lesson on vocabulary as well since treating everyone the same is NOT discrimination. The way I see it, not correcting the grammar and spelling would be racist since the professor would be holding them back economically.
This article is exactly what is wrong with the youth in this country… prestige is more important than quality.
Did the professor neglect to bow and scrape upon the arrival of the divas of victimhood. I feel for the professor, graduate students who can’t write simple sentences -wow.
Micro-aggressions. That is a good one. As a tutor of adults who can neither read nor write at levels that allow them to survive and thrive in this world, I’ll have to watch myself.. That comma might be an “ma”…
Are you kidding me? White people continually back down to the Negroes on all subjects. Why can’t you guys just stand up for yourselves and instead of backing down, just call a spade and spade.
LOL. So now correcting punctuation, poor grammar and misspellings on school papers is now racism? Incredible.
These morons who probably got into school with affirmative action, instead of capitalizing on the opportunity, turn up the race card rhetoric to hide their lack of literacy. When I was in lawschool in Universtiy of FL I wandered into the wrong classroom the first week and saw all the black students in there and asked what was going on. It turns out not one black kid in law school was qualified to be there and they were there to fill the affirmative action quota and this class was a remedial class to help them not flunk out. So much for a system as described by Martin Luther King, not because he is a white man or black man but by the content of his character. Not one of these kids had the merit to be in this law school but here they were. When you put a fish above the waterline they will not thrive. Perhaps these college kids who don’t want their paper corrected should go to tech school or security gaurd school and get jobs in industries where literacy is not important, and we can respect their uniform rather than there ability.
Totally idiotic
Scat dwee-oo dwee oo’n doo wa dwee-oo dwee oo’n doowa skittle dee dee ‘n dee. Ba bee ba da doo’n dee da’n doo da, zoo za zoo zee zee zoo zee zee zee za. Skittle n’diddle n’fiddle dee dee’n’dee. Baaaa bwee doo’n doo-wa ooby dooby doo-wa be-doo wa wa shooby dooby doo: mee mee ma may moo moo.
“Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging charges … the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying (the) charges have no merit,” Watson said.
Just because one files a complaint does not mean it has merit.
Learn to speak and write like everyone else, or get your sorry butt back to the hood and let your pants drop.
Hey, he’s an emeritus Prof. That means he is essentially retired and was tenured. He was probably doing this extra gig so these students could get the class on a timely basis. This is a doctoral Level program. And they can’t spell or write a grammatically correct sentence and paragraph? They smell of affirmative action enrollees. What a bunch of dunces. Can’t use the spelling checkers or grammar guides built into every word programming program? But then spelling checkers can’t handle ghetto slang. Glad they were in a liberal artsy type program. Never make it in a hard science or engineering school. We had no time for that circle-jerking.
There has to be one or two undergrad professors out there shaking their heads at this & saying “I should’ve never passed that kid…”
Spare the Red Pen, Spoil the Master’s Degree.
This is a graduate student? How did he get this far with poor grammar?
“Affirmative action”
When something is bent, it never fully regains its true form. Rules are a good example…..when they are bent, then they no longer are a rule but a guideline and guidelines are open to interpretation, which leads to debate and ends with chaos! Once there are no rules….there is no truth!
Students claim they can vouch for 20 years of racism. Darn, how long did they spend in high school?
Just pass them all. that’s what they want really. It’s how they got where they are in the first place.
I would be interested in seeing the corrected paper on which this whole conversation hinges.
As an alumnus and former instructor at a UC campus, it is very sad and embarrassing to witness utter stupidity reaching such a stratospheric height at the University of California. These people need to grow a brain stem.
Demanding that graduate students write papers using proper grammar and punctuation is now racist? The insane have taken over the asylum.
This is the norm with blacks. It’s everyone is against me and if I put up a big enough stink I will slide by or be able to live off of someone else. Can we see all the looting that happens after court cases or whatever other reason they can use. Face it – if you are in college – grow up. If you can’t write a literate paper or business proposal and I’m your boss you are fired. Luckily for you that you just get a bad grade – not loose your livelihood. You should thank the professor for caring which many don’t but that’s a whole other issue.
They have not been receiving any criticism of their papers before college. It wasn’t allowed. So this is probably their first experience with a truthful non politically correct professor.
Sorry minorities, but “nom sayin” is still incorrect grammar. They are just grasping for straws as far as reasons to protest now and probably didn’t think for a second that the teacher is actually helping them when he corrects there grammar. Plus it’s an advanced college class, I could understand bad grammar in community college because most are recent high school grads, but this is a doctorate course. I wonder if all the other teachers throughout of the years were just letting their poor grammar slide out of fears of being accused of racism and then this teacher finally had the balls to stop it.
We have reached the stage in our development as a country that to look at a Black person, or to say anything about a Black person you are considered a racist. We are becoming at least a Plessy vs Ferguson sort of country. Separate but equal. Anyone who ever goes to any so called Black Professional must have his/her examined knowing that that person most probably was passed through professional school simply because no Professor wanted to be called a racist.
What is the purposed of graduate studies? To learn proper formatting and writing skills? Yes, I would think so (although that should have been learned in FRESHMAN English)…
Just one more demonstrative example that a university degree is meaningless. All theory and no reality.
When I was younger, my mom used to help proofread my papers. Often times, the paper was half-red-pen when she was done. If I had any questions, she would explain the problem. When I was in high school and college, teachers did the same. You know what happened? My WRITING AND SPEECH got better. By the time I finished college, many profs were amazed by my writing and I was even told (along with 3 others in a class of about 15) by my Thesis class’s prof that he really enjoyed reading and hearing the presentation (each of us gave) the most!
I was corrected numerous times over the years and I never thought it was based on race. I took the criticism and worked to meet or exceed the standards required! Maybe it is because I’m white, but never did race enter my mind in the professor’s grading… And yes, I had a multicultural faculty (not just white).
These entitled kids need to learn to take constructive-criticism and fix the problems addressed and learn from it! Most students do! Remember that MLK, Jr. said that people should be assessed and judged by merit, or “the content of their character” not by “the color of their skin.” Your race, ethnicity, sex, gender, etc. should neither oppress nor elevate you. Your merit is what is important. Stop complaining and crying about a professor correcting your paper, fix the issues, and move on. And if you do think it is because of your race, excel and prove them wrong by gaining your degree!
how can we say anything without seeing the example of the corrected papers?
all these comments yet not paper to look at we instantly make it an issue of race
What a bunch of mealy-mouthed cliches from the administration. These students should be laughed out of school.
From the article. “Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging charges … ”
It’s leveling charges, not leveraging.
“Many of us have been through the formal complaint system of leveraging charges … the letters are reviewed, and we receive responses saying (the) charges have no merit,” Could it be because the charges really did not have any merit? Heaven forbid!!
I’m sure he corrected the grammar of all his students, including white students. If that is the case, then how can it be “micro-discrimination”? Uhg… this is so exhausting.
Simple: these charges aren’t related to what the person accused actually did, but merely to the complainer’s sense of grievance. And since nobody can predict what will set another person off, control of the classroom devolves to the most oversensitive person in the room—literally, in this case, since they staged a sit-in that prevented the other students and the professor from conducting the class.
The student Watson: “…Leveraging charges…”
I’ll get this one, Professor Rust. It’s leveling charges, not “leveraging” charges. I suppose the student will feel aggrieved upon reading this.
When one of the students complaining doesn’t even go to that school… Kenjus Watson is from OCCIDENTAL College no wonder his complaints are so retarded. https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenjus-t-watson-27586756
How did they get into graduate school without
a – knowing how to write a paper, etc.
and
b – having their work corrected before?
In a course teaching business writing, I would expect the teacher to point out mistakes, so I could get better. That’s kind of their job, it’s what I hired him/her for – because s/he has knowledge that I don’t yet. (Actually, that applies to school in general.)
If only the black students’ papers were corrected, and the white students used similarly poor English, then yes, that’s a problem.
But if they’re making more mistakes & getting corrected more, that’s life. Learn & grow.
This microaggression nonsense is funny. Anyone can interpret many things as microaggression. The terms is meaningless since it only describes a person looking to twist words into offense.
Kids these days are so intellectually weak that they feel threatened by the existence of people disagreeing with them. It is sad that they so often do not understand the issues they feel so strongly about, and often seek to erode the freedoms that allowed marginalised groups to fight for rights in the first place.
I guess this means black students automatically pass because “muh racism”?
neqroes! y’all cant live wif dem an y’all cant keel dem!!! da hoe west side beez fuxated wif two many stoopid beasts – an invasive species!
How dare he hold them to a standard expected of educated human beings.
“encourages safe spaces for debate”
Yeah, that means you are not allowed to demonstrate that someone is logically and factually incorrect because you might trigger them.
“Spank” the entitled little snots: flunk them all, and send them back to grade school for basic grammar and spelling.
There can be no denying that America has been dumbed-down. In the
interests of mindless “Diversity” and “Inclusion,” unqualified
individuals have been thrust by Leftists into positions for which they
are academically and intellectually unprepared. To accomplish this
social engineering, Leftists in Business, Government, Academia, and the
Media, have “relaxed” academic, intellectual and performance standards,
if you will.
In the latest intellectual outrage, a college
professor in the UCLA School of Education has been attacked for
correcting grammar on a student’s doctoral dissertation. In more
sensible times, a student without writing skills would have been thrown
out of a graduate program and referred back to Freshman English classes.
But nowadays, Leftists would rather dumb down the entire
program and society itself. So if you hear Ph.D. holders, “Honor
Graduates,” and other “important” people who sound rather inarticulate
and mediocre, who seem to lack a grasp of language and logic, you will
understand why. And we should understand why so many Leftists in
Academia, Media, and Politics are ignorant.