• Welcome to OGBoards 10.0, keep in mind that we will be making LOTS of changes to smooth out the experience here and make it as close as possible functionally to the old software, but feel free to drop suggestions or requests in the Tech Support subforum!

Cancel culture & Wingate Hall

I feel like you've missed a lot of the discussion.

My point is that the participation component was one part of the grade.

So is it possible that she had angst that there was a trend based on the blind grades portion of the tests? And where the participation component could have improved that grade it wasn’t justified based on the level of participation?

I don’t know because I haven’t seen the full video and can’t find it. The number of times you talk is 100 percent a metric used and it’s stupid.
 
Having taught my entire career at state schools and a community college, I've dealt with lots of underprepared students, especially at the lower level. It's not their fault, of course, that they're coming from backgrounds and high schools that haven't adequately prepared them for what they will face in college.

There are important conversations to be had about the problems they face and the extra attention they require from faculty and staff. But they are there for a reason and studies show that with a little extra attention (especially from focused programs for first-gen or minority students) these students succeed at an impressive rate.

Again, I think there's a legitimate conversation to be had about students showing up to law school underprepared for coursework, but a professor that's willing to dismiss all students of a particular background or level of experience is not doing so out of a desire to help these students.

Can you link to the full video? I've watched every clip I can find and I don't see anything that indicates she was "willing to dismiss all students of a particular background." In the videos I saw, she was lamenting the fact that a lot of her Black students are at the bottom of the class, an observation that, by the way, tracks nationwide data in what is largely a blind grading regime. (See my earlier post in this thread.)

Thanks in advance.
 
This is apparently the full transcript (I haven't checked the full video to confirm it's accurate):

Sellers: They were a bit jumbled.

Batson: Yeah.

Sellers: That’s the best way I could put it. It’s like, ‘Okay, let me reason through that, what you just said,’ kind of thing.

Batson: Right, right.

Sellers: Yeah, unfortunately. You know what? I hate to say this. I end up having this, you know, angst, every semester that a lot of my lower ones are blacks. Happens almost every semester.

Batson: Mmhmm.

Sellers: And it’s like, ‘Oh come on.’ You know, you get some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.

Batson: Yep. And…

Sellers: So, I feel bad.

Batson: And what drives me crazy is, you know, the concept of how that plays out. And whether that is, you know, my own perceptions playing in here and with certain people.

Sellers: Yeah.

Batson: My own, you know, my own unconscious biases playing out in this scheme of things, you know.

Sellers: Yeah. Well that’s why, I mean, I think we’ve done a good job of keeping track of, ‘Did they open their mouths?’ [laughs]

Batson: Exactly. Right?

I had not realized that they actually discussed unconscious bias. Isn't that the kind of conversation that people need to be having in as open and honest a way as possible? What bothers me is that she appears hesitant to even bring it up. Maybe she had a sense that she was not going to be able to express herself properly on the fly, but she felt that she needed to address the issue of black students underperforming (in her opinion) so she took the risk. And the response was to gently suggest that unconscious bias might be playing into it. That sounds like a productive step toward maybe improving her teaching methods or getting some extra help for students who are not participating in class. What's sad is that the next person in her situation would be wise to just not bring it up.

(I still think that the university probably had plenty of reason to do what it did, as she's probably been saying racially insensitive/ignorant stuff for years, biasing her grading decisions, etc. But the video by itself is not worthy of the reaction it's getting, in my opinion.)
 
Nope, they were supposed to ignore it and never talk about it and any time someone accuses someone else of racism you have to take the accusers word for it.
 
This is apparently the full transcript (I haven't checked the full video to confirm it's accurate):

Thank you. For the record, my request for Phan to post the full video was simply my way of making fun of his assertion that Sellers was "willing to dismiss" her Black students based on her comments in the video.
 
I had not realized that they actually discussed unconscious bias. Isn't that the kind of conversation that people need to be having in as open and honest a way as possible? What bothers me is that she appears hesitant to even bring it up. Maybe she had a sense that she was not going to be able to express herself properly on the fly, but she felt that she needed to address the issue of black students underperforming (in her opinion) so she took the risk. And the response was to gently suggest that unconscious bias might be playing into it. That sounds like a productive step toward maybe improving her teaching methods or getting some extra help for students who are not participating in class. What's sad is that the next person in her situation would be wise to just not bring it up.

Some might call it a "cancel" culture.
 
I would love for you guys to be videotaped talking about black people that you work with as a monolith that underperforms (when discussing the one black person you are currently working with) and saying there are "some really good ones", knowing full well that it was being recorded and played for those black people, and then seeing the reaction of your employer to that (hint: you would be fired). Some serious whitesplaining on this thread. I mean, if Anus, Junebug and JH are on your side....
 
Last edited:
This is apparently the full transcript (I haven't checked the full video to confirm it's accurate):

Sellers: They were a bit jumbled.

Batson: Yeah.

Sellers: That’s the best way I could put it. It’s like, ‘Okay, let me reason through that, what you just said,’ kind of thing.

Batson: Right, right.

Sellers: Yeah, unfortunately. You know what? I hate to say this. I end up having this, you know, angst, every semester that a lot of my lower ones are blacks. Happens almost every semester.

Batson: Mmhmm.

Sellers: And it’s like, ‘Oh come on.’ You know, you get some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.

Batson: Yep. And…

Sellers: So, I feel bad.

Batson: And what drives me crazy is, you know, the concept of how that plays out. And whether that is, you know, my own perceptions playing in here and with certain people.

Sellers: Yeah.

Batson: My own, you know, my own unconscious biases playing out in this scheme of things, you know.

Sellers: Yeah. Well that’s why, I mean, I think we’ve done a good job of keeping track of, ‘Did they open their mouths?’ [laughs]

Batson: Exactly. Right?

I had not realized that they actually discussed unconscious bias. Isn't that the kind of conversation that people need to be having in as open and honest a way as possible? What bothers me is that she appears hesitant to even bring it up. Maybe she had a sense that she was not going to be able to express herself properly on the fly, but she felt that she needed to address the issue of black students underperforming (in her opinion) so she took the risk. And the response was to gently suggest that unconscious bias might be playing into it. That sounds like a productive step toward maybe improving her teaching methods or getting some extra help for students who are not participating in class. What's sad is that the next person in her situation would be wise to just not bring it up.

(I still think that the university probably had plenty of reason to do what it did, as she's probably been saying racially insensitive/ignorant stuff for years, biasing her grading decisions, etc. But the video by itself is not worthy of the reaction it's getting, in my opinion.)

I can't imagine why.
 
I would love for you guys to be videotaped talking about black people that you work with as a monolith that underperforms (when discussing the one black person you are currently working with) and saying there are "some really good ones", knowing full well that it was being recorded and played for those black people, and then seeing the reaction of your employer to that (hint: you would be fired). Some serious whitesplaining on this thread. I mean, if Anus, Junebug and JH are on your side....

I did not know the video was being made for the students. That might change my opinion. I had assumed it was a leaked private conversation.
 
I did not know the video was being made for the students. That might change my opinion. I had assumed it was a leaked private conversation.

From the article I posted earlier: "Two professors at the Georgetown University Law Center had a racist conversation about the allegedly poor performance of “Blacks” in their class, a negotiations seminar, which was recorded and uploaded for those same students to view."
 
I did not know the video was being made for the students. That might change my opinion. I had assumed it was a leaked private conversation.

"Shoosh" is the sound the discussion makes as it goes over his head. The video was not being made for students. It was the tail end of an online class, students had left, and the professors thought they were having a private conversation.
 
Last edited:
Thanks Shoo. I've never heard of students being evaluated on video for all of the other students to see. Sounds like a terrible idea. But yeah, sorry. It's an appropriate conversation to have privately with your colleagues to find solutions, not to broadcast to your whole class and thereby belittle particular students in public. That's terrible behavior worthy of termination.
 
"Shoosh" is the sound the discussion makes as it goes over his head. The video was not being made for students. It was the tail end of an online class, students had left, and the professors thought they were having a private conversation.

Was the video recorded and uploaded for the students to view or not?

I'll change my prior post:

I would love for you guys to be videotaped in a work meeting talking about black people that you work with as a monolith that underperforms (when discussing the one black person you are currently working with) and saying there are "some really good ones", knowing full well that the work meeting was being recorded for those black people, but being complete fucking idiots and making racist statements thinking the recording had stopped, and then seeing the reaction of your employer to that (hint: you would be fired). Some serious whitesplaining on this thread. I mean, if Anus, Junebug and JH are on your side....
 
Having taught my entire career at state schools and a community college, I've dealt with lots of underprepared students, especially at the lower level. It's not their fault, of course, that they're coming from backgrounds and high schools that haven't adequately prepared them for what they will face in college.

There are important conversations to be had about the problems they face and the extra attention they require from faculty and staff. But they are there for a reason and studies show that with a little extra attention (especially from focused programs for first-gen or minority students) these students succeed at an impressive rate.

Again, I think there's a legitimate conversation to be had about students showing up to law school underprepared for coursework, but a professor that's willing to dismiss all students of a particular background or level of experience is not doing so out of a desire to help these students.

I think this is right with one important clarification.

I teach similar populations of students (I think?) and I have never made in-class participation count more than 10% on a syllabus. And even so, I am very lenient with students who aren't comfortable with lecture participation but who regularly attend office hours. A student who doesn't know how to take up too much space in class shouldn't be penalized for not doing so. Never mind the fact that there are a lot of documented disabilities that make "traditional" modes of participation difficult.

What stands out to me in this example beyond the obvious racism and pathetic pedagogy is that a syllabus that puts 25% of a student's grade in the hands of a professors' subjective evaluation of participation is pretty messed up from a pedagogical perspective. In this rubric, a quarter of your grade has nothing to do with the work that you do, but rather how a professor, with their own biases, evaluates your performance. It's barely accountable and pretty gross. It's even grosser that the professors identified a broader problematic trend and didn't look inwards about how they might be contributing to that trend in their subjective evaluations of black students' performances.

Regardless of whether or not you find the process through which their contracts were not renewed (they're adjuncts, not tenured, so I'm pretty sure they weren't fired, but were just not "renewed"), they should not be teaching students anywhere.
 
I would love for you guys to be videotaped talking about black people that you work with as a monolith that underperforms (when discussing the one black person you are currently working with) and saying there are "some really good ones", knowing full well that it was being recorded and played for those black people, and then seeing the reaction of your employer to that (hint: you would be fired). Some serious whitesplaining on this thread. I mean, if Anus, Junebug and JH are on your side....

What handles are JH and Junebug posting behind these days?
 
You don't know whether it was subjective, or the extent to which grades were subjective. I think you're making an assumption because it's the only way this can fit your narrative. The transcript indicates that the professors were tracking "did they open their mouths." That is objective. We've discussed sterotype threat, which would fit that scenario as a reasonable explanation.

We've explained several times that the two professors had this conversation while grading a specific Black student on a specific assignment that makes up 25% of the total grade. Clearly this is not a "blind" and objective grading process. On top of that, the professors admit they may be biased.

[insert Eric Andre meme here]

It's like standing over a dead body with a smoking gun and saying, "I may have killed them."

Thanks Shoo. I've never heard of students being evaluated on video for all of the other students to see. Sounds like a terrible idea. But yeah, sorry. It's an appropriate conversation to have privately with your colleagues to find solutions, not to broadcast to your whole class and thereby belittle particular students in public. That's terrible behavior worthy of termination.

Thank you. wakelaw, junebug, jhmd, Cav, and others seem to be ignoring the basic facts in order to fit their narrative.
 
We've explained several times that the two professors had this conversation while grading a specific Black student on a specific assignment that makes up 25% of the total grade. Clearly this is not a "blind" and objective grading process. On top of that, the professors admit they may be biased.

[insert Eric Andre meme here]

It's like standing over a dead body with a smoking gun and saying, "I may have killed them."



Thank you. wakelaw, junebug, jhmd, Cav, and others seem to be ignoring the basic facts in order to fit their narrative.


It's amusing reading this discussion where the participants cannot agree on the basic facts.
 
I think this is right with one important clarification.

I teach similar populations of students (I think?) and I have never made in-class participation count more than 10% on a syllabus. And even so, I am very lenient with students who aren't comfortable with lecture participation but who regularly attend office hours. A student who doesn't know how to take up too much space in class shouldn't be penalized for not doing so. Never mind the fact that there are a lot of documented disabilities that make "traditional" modes of participation difficult.

What stands out to me in this example beyond the obvious racism and pathetic pedagogy is that a syllabus that puts 25% of a student's grade in the hands of a professors' subjective evaluation of participation is pretty messed up from a pedagogical perspective. In this rubric, a quarter of your grade has nothing to do with the work that you do, but rather how a professor, with their own biases, evaluates your performance. It's barely accountable and pretty gross. It's even grosser that the professors identified a broader problematic trend and didn't look inwards about how they might be contributing to that trend in their subjective evaluations of black students' performances.

Regardless of whether or not you find the process through which their contracts were not renewed (they're adjuncts, not tenured, so I'm pretty sure they weren't fired, but were just not "renewed"), they should not be teaching students anywhere.


Good post. Class participation is 5% of the grade (50 points) in my classes. I include a description of my expectations in the syllabus, a rubric, and a paragraph that explains why encourage and grade class participation. I read all of those on the first day of class. I only give less than 30 to students who I barely remember being in the class. In a standard 55 student class, about 10-15 students get a 50. The only extra credits I give are to students who I can count on to make comments every class. I give maybe one 60 out of 50 a year.

I had one intro class with two students, a Black woman and a white man, who spoke up every class and made really insightful comments. The last day of class, they were the last ones to leave and I thanked them for their participation. The Black woman was a second semester freshman. She told me she's normally extremely shy and never speaks up in class. But when I explained my class participation policy on the first day of class, she decided to challenge herself and make a comment in every class. She started speaking up in my class and then started speaking up in her other classes. It was one of my prouder moments.
 
Cancel culture & Wingate Hall

It's amusing reading this discussion where the participants cannot agree on the basic facts.

It's depressing because at least three of them are lawyers. I wonder how often they've ignored the facts of a case in order to fit their preconceived notions.

We can’t even get wakelaw to admit that the professors assign grades and are therefore responsible for the grades. Any lawyer would love to have a case where someone admitted to having done something in the past while doing it again followed by admitting their culpability in doing it.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top