"Measured" is not on the list of possible response options, sorry. Neither is "reasonable."
Let me see if I've got this straight. A professor at Brandeis with 47 years of experience attempts to define a racial slur thusly:
"When Mexicans come north as illegal immigrants, we call them wetbacks," he told the Brandeis student newspaper, the Justice, in describing his comments. He says he wasn't saying that's what they should be called, but what many Americans do call them.
So two students didn't see it that way, and complained. Then what happened? A meeting? An attempt to discern what actually happened in the classroom, facilitated by administrators?
Not exactly.
Cue sanctions and classroom monitoring, lest this obviously crazed racist do something else, like read the definition of "niggardly" aloud in class! Good God.
Via.
And a follow-up, here.
"When Mexicans come north as illegal immigrants, we call them wetbacks," he told the Brandeis student newspaper, the Justice, in describing his comments. He says he wasn't saying that's what they should be called, but what many Americans do call them.
So two students didn't see it that way, and complained. Then what happened? A meeting? An attempt to discern what actually happened in the classroom, facilitated by administrators?
Not exactly.
Cue sanctions and classroom monitoring, lest this obviously crazed racist do something else, like read the definition of "niggardly" aloud in class! Good God.
Via.
And a follow-up, here.
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Dare I say, he deserves it.
He deserves it for this fake-guilt handwringing smear-my-neighbor mea culpa:
"we call them wetbacks"
I don't call anybody a wetback, and neither does any other well-behaved person. Speak for yourself, buddy, and if you personally don't call anybody a wetback either then you shouldn't have said such a stupid thing.
He should take the opportunity to reoffend the offended. It's good for their skin.
If he said it in the context of "we means me," then yes, he does deserve censure. However, it's also quite possible that he honestly used the "we" in the context of "Racist Americans who say that sort of thing," or that he simply got tongue-tied and misspoke.
The problem is that no one--neither students nor administrators--bothered to ask for that simple clarification from the professor before kicking it up the chain and starting the disciplinary process.
Try teaching "Huckleberry Finn" in that sort of atmosphere--it'll be a really short class. And possibly a really short academic career as well.