We recently discussed the case of Saida Grundy, an incoming assistant professor of sociology and African-American studies at Boston University who released a series of tweets denounced by many as racist and sexist, including calling white males the main problem on college campuses and admitting how she tries not to buy anything from white people. While many called for Grundy to be fired, some of us defended her racist and sexist comments as an exercise of free speech done outside of her teaching responsibilities. However at the time, I noted “a series of tweets denounced by many as racist and sexist. “White masculinity isn’t a problem for america’s colleges, white masculinity is THE problem for america’s colleges.” Now we have such a case and it does appear to confirm some of our concerns that the same standard is not applied to those with opposing views. Duke University professor Jerry Hough has reportedly been placed on leave after posting comments online that were also denounced as racist. While Grundy was allowed to apologize for “indelicate” comments about whites, Hough is facing calls for termination and has reportedly been put on leave. [UPDATE: there are some stories indicating that Hough may have been on academic leave rather than “put on” academic leave. It is not clear from various reports.]
Hough was commenting on a New York Times editorial titled “How Racism Doomed Baltimore” and included an observation that Asian Americans don’t riot because “they didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.” He also wrote that “every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration” compared to “every Asian student [who] has a very simple old American first name.” Just as with Grundy’s comments, it is not necessary to debate the merits of such comments. What is at issue is the right to voice such views outside of the classroom and off campus as a matter of free speech. As with Grundy, these views may also be part of Hough’s academic views as political science teacher. His bio states that “his current research centers on the establishment of the state, identity, markets, and democracy in the United States.”
He later defended his comments and said that “Martin Luther King was my hero” and insisting he is “strongly against the toleration of racial discrimination.”
Duke Vice President for Public Affairs and Government Affairs Michael Schoenfeld released a statement quickly that said that “The comments were noxious, offensive, and have no place in civil discourse.” Boston University was right to treat Grundy’s comments as an exercise of free speech. If Hough has been put on leave, Duke has positioned itself on the other side of the free speech divide and has decided that it will now impose disciplinary action for academics who espouse offensive or obnoxious views outside of the class room. The problem is a lack of a standard that explains where this line. It is not simply a question of what speech will be considered permissible outside of the classroom but how the school will limit principles of academic freedom and free expression under such a standard in both academic writings and classrooms. It is a dangerous and slippery slope. The greatest problem is that the uncertain standard creates a chilling effect on academics, particularly untenured academics in what views will be tolerated. In the academic world, such uncertainty can be devastating and strikes at the very heart of the academic mission.
Here are Hough’s full original comments:
“This editorial is what is wrong. The Democrats are an alliance of Westchester and Harlem, of Montgomery County and intercity Baltimore. Westchester and Montgomery get a Citigroup asset stimulus policy that triples the market. The blacks get a decline in wages after inflation.
But the blacks get symbolic recognition in an utterly incompetent mayor who handled this so badly from beginning to end that her resignation would be demanded if she were white. The blacks get awful editorials like this that tell them to feel sorry for themselves.
In 1965 the Asians were discriminated against as least as badly as blacks. That was reflected in the word “colored.” The racism against what even Eleanor Roosevelt called the yellow races was at least as bad.
So where are the editorials that say racism doomed the Asian-Americans. They didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.
I am a professor at Duke University. Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration. The amount of Asian-white dating is enormous and so surely will be the intermarriage. Black-white dating is almost non-existent because of the ostracism by blacks of anyone who dates a white.
It was appropriate that a Chinese design won the competition for the Martin Luther King state. King helped them overcome. The blacks followed Malcolm X.”
This is a typical case of reverse discrimination. The point is Professor Grundy is right and he’s being criticized for speaking the truth.
When are we American’s going to take off the blinders and speak the truth courageously?
The discrimination against the Irish, Germans, and Italian’s is gone…and so is slavery, so stop making blacks victims of slavery–it’s been over and done with for over a hundred years. The problem is no family unification, no jobs, lack of education. Let’s tackle the problems without putting labels on people themselves.
Interesting comment, Paladin. Sorry for your troubles. http://www.TheFire.org is where you can keep tabs on the Constitutional coup being undertaken on campuses everywhere.
BU was not defending free speech. The administration was protecting a black woman professor, probably hired under an affirmative action program that cannot be allowed to fail.
DU was not attacking free speech. The administration is sending a message to older white male baby boomers–retire now. We don’t want you around.
I was a professor who was fired on the front pages of the national media and will never work again. I know of what I speak. That’s how the system works. My tormenter was a Mexican university president who is a “Mexicano Supremacist,” replacing several non-Mexicans with members of his Master Race, which he calls La Raza, the race destined to rule the Americas from the Arctic Circle to Antarctica.
Racial politics are burning hot on campus now and will be for the next 50 years or more until all whites have been race replaced.
Paul, and how does that affect race relations in THIS country?
Irish, German, European ancestry, all are white. Their plight in this country is not on equal footing with black Americans. Get real.
Darn autocorrect. *the past offenses*
Paul, people are not as concerned with past offenses against Irish people in the U.S. today
because they are not STILL being discriminated against, there us no longer a disparity in treatment of the Irish here. That cannot be said for black Americans. For you to constantly bring up The are blush offenses against the Irish, has little to do with what black Americans have experienced in the history of the U.S.
Inga – what the hell do you think is going on in Northern Ireland? The British are still oppressing the Irish.
Well said, Annie. As someone who chose to immigrate here, vs someone like Paul who had no say in his being American, I dare say I have more say in the affairs of this country than he does.
Paul, you amaze me. I suggest you drop the muslim brotherhood and cair related comments, they make you seem much less smart than you are 🙂
Again, we are solving the black issue right now, we’ll move to the Irish once we solve this.
Po – we are dealing with slavery and everybody gets included. You don’t get to decide the parameters. If the Muslim Brotherhood would move their people out of the White House and CAIR would quit setting people up, I would quit talking about them and their connections to current events.
Karen says:
People who can afford to move, do, when a neighborhood crime rate begins to increase and property values decline. At least nowadays, people don’t move because someone black moves next door. They move when they feel the neighborhood is beginning to unsafe or declining.
Okay, Karen, what caused the crime rate to go up? Perhaps you ought to click on the link rather than keep guessing, it’s all in there.
Po – she was discriminated against because she was German.
To the same extent as Blacks were?
So SFR zoning is racist? If a neighborhood does not have apartment buildings, then it’s whites keeping blacks down?
That’s all you got from a approved study that shows the source of much black economic and social distress?
And yes, Karen, we weren’t having a contest in ancestral misery until you made it one. I was speaking solely of black americans’ experience in the US, you brought up your grandma, native tribes, africans and everyone else.
meanwhile, my points still stand and you are unable to discount them.
The English vs. the Irish is not the concern of Americans. We have our own shameful history to contend with.
Po has every bit as much say in the matter as you do Paul. If Po is a citizen, you do NOT have a right to tell him he has no say, well you can say it, but it’s simply bloviating. And your paranoia about Obama and the Muslim brotherhood is ridiculous conspiracy theory. The whitewashing of American history won’t be tolerated by those who know history.
Inga – your grasp of American history is poor. Why do you think the Irish came to the US and why do you think they were discriminated against when they got here? It was because of over 800 years (at that time) of oppression by the British.
Po:
From your article:
“The conventional explanation adds that African Americans moved to a few places like Ferguson, not the suburbs generally, because prejudiced real estate agents steered black homebuyers away from other white suburbs. And in any event, those other suburbs were able to preserve their almost entirely white, upper-middle-class environments by enacting zoning rules that required only expensive single family homes, the thinking goes.”
So SFR zoning is racist? If a neighborhood does not have apartment buildings, then it’s whites keeping blacks down?
Sorry, but poor people of any race move to the cheapest housing available. Neighborhoods with high property values are not inherently racist. I cannot afford any house I would like, but I’m not demanding that they lower property values or build me something I can afford in a tony neighborhood to accommodate me. And real estate agents steering black homebuyers away is called redlining, and it’s been illegal for many years.
Po:
“Are you to dare compare woman’s suffrage to what black people went through? Really?”
I didn’t know we were having a contest in ancestral misery.
What about entire tribes being wiped out by rival Native American tribes? What about the Africans who sold their enemies to the slave trade? Who wins that misery contest? What if a black person immigrates here today who is descended from those who sold thousands of people into slavery? Should he benefit from Affirmative Action?
If we can be judged by the sins of our great, great grandparents, or even our cousins 5 times removed, is there a point system for anachronistic judging? What about the 15 year old girls forced to marry 50 year old men? What about the maid servants raped by their masters and then dismissed when they were pregnant and then unable to find word because they were fallen women, so they became prostitutes? What about those forcibly sterilized under the little known eugenics policy of the US many decades ago? If a girl snuck out at night to kiss a boy, she could be sent to a girls home where she would be sterilized. Unwed mothers could have their babies sold for adoption without the mothers’ consent.
Is African American slavery inexcusably horrendous? Yes it is. Is it the worst sin humankind has ever done? I don’t know. The Ancient Egyptians treated their slaves pretty badly, and they had rather nightmarish torture techniques.
Po – she was discriminated against because she was German.
“White flight certainly existed, and racial prejudice was certainly behind it, but not racial prejudice alone”
People who can afford to move, do, when a neighborhood crime rate begins to increase and property values decline. At least nowadays, people don’t move because someone black moves next door. They move when they feel the neighborhood is beginning to unsafe or declining.
The neighborhood where my mother grew up used to be a nice suburb. By the time my grandparents moved in with my parents, Grandpa had to put bars on the windows, there were helicopter spotlights shining in their backyard where fugitives were hiding or running through, people were parking cars on lawns, Illegal aliens were cramming 25 people into the single family residence next door, and there was a drug dealer across the street.
It would be neither noble for them to stay, nor racist when they left. It was about safety and the neighborhood declining.
Karen S
1, May 18, 2015 at 10:58 pm
Po – one of the reasons that I think government housing was a failed idea is that it concentrated the poor, and the crime that went along with it. Integrated low income housing addresses this, although there is some debate. This is another example of failed Liberal policies that did more harm than good.
The redlining and active segregation your article referred to was outlawed decades ago.
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Karen, the article highlights EXACTLY why the government housing you talk about was targeted towards concentrating blacks away from whites, and its origins are more conservative than they are liberal.
And the article highlights exactly how the consequences of such racist policies are STILL affecting black people.
What are you saying, paul, who was slave and who wasn’t?
Karen
You are not answering my point, all you doing is pointing at someone who went through a great less then say…what about him, what about her…
All the examples you give actually make my point.
You want to talk about police and crime and rioting, yet want to overlook the DOCUMENTED and historical reasons that lead for the high crime, the police abuse and the rioting.
You talk about women, imagine your grandma came and was discriminated because her skin tone? Imagine she was told she could only drink from a segregated fountain? Imagine she was told she could live where other white people weren’t? Imagine she could not be hired because of the stigma of her ethnicity…
I am sure she, at least, would have understood the plight of black people.
Are you to dare compare woman’s suffrage to what black people went through? Really?
Are you saying that have your family torn apart by slavery and then by the prison industry system is akin to not having the vote?
And why compare your evils to others? Do you discount the evils done to black people in your name? Are you saying that none of that happened?
Po – one of the reasons that I think government housing was a failed idea is that it concentrated the poor, and the crime that went along with it. Integrated low income housing addresses this, although there is some debate. This is another example of failed Liberal policies that did more harm than good.
The redlining and active segregation your article referred to was outlawed decades ago.
Paul C. Schulte says:
1, May 18, 2015 at 10:32 pm
Po – let’s talk about the dehumanization of the Irish. The English have spent 1000 years enslaving them. Can you say the same about the English and blacks?
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Nope, Paul, let’s not!
Let’s not distract ourselves. Let’s finish addressing this point, then we’ll move to the Irish vs the English 🙂
po – the English vs. the Irish is a longer battle than blacks vs. whites.