BY JOHN K. WILSON
This past week, Georgetown law school fired adjunct professor Sandra Sellers (and suspended her co-instructor David Batson) for an accidentally recorded conversation about racial disparities in student grades. In the video, which was recorded in February when the taping of the class continued after all the students had left the session, and then posted on Twitter last week, Sellers said: “I hate to say this—I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks. Happens almost every semester. And it’s like, oh, come on. It’s some really good ones, but there are also usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.” Batson, who co-taught the class, nodded.
Georgetown Law School Dean Bill Treanor said he was “appalled” by the “reprehensible” statements of Sellers and added: “I informed Professor Sellers that I was terminating her relationship with Georgetown Law effective immediately.” Batson was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation, and banned from being involved in any courses while the investigation occurs.
Sellers has indicated that she is voluntarily resigning, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that the dean of the law school has directly violated the policies of Georgetown and the standards of the AAUP by dismissing a professor mid-semester without any hearing or due process.
Sellers and Batson are adjunct professors who lack the protections of tenure. But tenure only uniquely protects continuing employment. When it comes to the punishment of faculty during a semester, the rules protect tenured and non-tenured faculty equally. Georgetown has the authority to not renew the contract of an adjunct professor. But Georgetown does not have the authority to rescind the contract of any professor in the middle of a semester without following its rules of due process.
Georgetown’s Faculty Handbook does specify that the dean of the law school can make an emergency suspension of a professor in extreme cases: “If an Executive Vice President concludes that an allegation of Faculty Misconduct requires immediate action that cannot wait for normal processes of review because a faculty member’s conduct currently poses a serious risk to safety or to the effective operations of the University, the Executive Vice President may place the faculty member on administrative leave with pay.”
Obviously, “the effective operations of the University” is a vast and ill-defined territory in a very flawed policy. But it is not unlimited in its vagueness. One important caveat is that it must be the faculty member’s conduct itself that risks the effective operations of the University, not the reaction of some people to it. Otherwise, Georgetown could suspend any professor who expressed a controversial view that was protested by anyone. So it must be what Sellers said in itself, and not any reaction to it, that justifies the extreme reaction of administrative leave. In this case, there is obviously no risk to safety posed by these professors. Nor is there any risk that these professors would affect the operations of the University by engaging in racist grading for the class they are currently teaching. That’s because the grading will not happen for many weeks, and Georgetown can monitor grading to ensure fairness and, if needed, assign another faculty member to watch the class and provide grades if the instructors of record are found guilty of misconduct that would question their ability to give fair grades. Because there have been no allegations of misconduct in how the course was taught, there is no justification for suspending these professors on an emergency basis.
A suspension is a serious penalty, and even when it is done with pay, a suspension infringes upon the right of faculty to teach and the right of students to learn from the professor. That’s why colleges should never suspend people before there is a finding of guilt, unless some immediate threat to others (usually a physical one) necessitates it. Beyond the issue of fairness to the instructors, Georgetown must consider fairness to the students. It is difficult to imagine how a substitute instructor can provide equal quality of instruction as a mid-semester replacement.
Even if the suspension could be justified under this policy merely for discussing race and grading (and clearly it cannot), a summary dismissal could not. And that’s what the Law School dean openly admitted that he did. The dismissal of Sellers without an investigation is an even clearer violation of Georgetown’s policies. While a suspension with pay is allowed in extraordinary conditions pending an investigation, a dismissal is not. The dismissal here without any formal charges or faculty investigation is a clear violation of both Georgetown’s rules and AAUP guidelines. Sellers has indicated that she would have resigned anyway, but that doesn’t excuse administrators violating campus policies, which prohibit summary dismissals under any circumstances.
The appropriate response by the administration should have been to criticize these professors, to investigate any possible allegations of racism, to monitor grading in the class to assure fair treatment to all, and to determine if racial disparities in grading are substantially worse in this class than the other law classes. It is wrong to fire or suspend professors without due process, and it is wrong to punish professors for privately discussing racial disparities in their classes.
Noticing racial disparities is not always racism. In fact, noticing racial disparities can be the first step in confronting racism. What if students are being unfairly graded by racist professors? Unless we notice racial disparities based on race, law schools might never address this problem Indeed, it appears Georgetown Law School was completely unconcerned that its Black students were receiving lower grades, perhaps because of racist professors, until this video was posted on social media. If Sellers is indeed a racist who engages in racist grading, universities shouldn’t wait for professors like her to accidentally record herself before they try to do something to assure fair grading. But unless a university notices racial differences in grading, they will never address racism.
Those who assume that Sellers is a racist because of what she said ought to contemplate this question: What is the non-racist response of a professor to a situation where there are racial disparities in the grades of students? “I don’t see race”? Or “I don’t care enough to notice”? If you’re a professor and Black students are doing substantially worse in your class, you should notice this fact, and you should worry about it and you should comment on it to your co-instructors and other professors.
Black students, on average, get lower grades in law school than White students. What are the reasons? One likely answer is racist treatment by professors. One analysis of the numerous other possible factors in grades found that these could not fully account for the lower grades among racial minorities, suggesting that racism could be a factor.
One potential area for bias in grading is participation, which in the Georgetown class made up 25% of the grade. It’s possible that biased Georgetown instructors might have given Black students poor grades in this class for the same performance, or did something to discourage some Black students from participating. But it’s also possible that the participation element didn’t affect the grades of Black students, or improved their grades on average. We simply don’t know without getting the facts, since racial disparities in grading exist even in classes with blind grading.
There are obviously reasons other than racism for disparate results in grades. One is that if Black students are admitted with lower grades and LSAT scores on average (that’s what affirmative action means), it shouldn’t be surprising to find that students with lower grades who are given an opportunity in law school might, on average, continue to get lower grades. Law schools may need to have better support networks to help Black students, especially if informal networks such as study groups might also reflect racial disparities. Professors may need to do a better job of teaching to ensure that all students succeed. Another factor is financial: if Black students on average come from less wealthy backgrounds and may be more likely to work while attending law school (which leads to less focus on legal work and lower grades), then reforms to financial aid may be needed to help Black students compete on an equal basis.
While I wish Sellers had contemplated the possibility that her own actions and biases might be the causes, and had sought to do more to help solve the problem, discussing racial disparities in student grades is not a violation of professional responsibilities and is in fact one step toward fulfilling the obligation of professors not to engage in racist grading. As one analysis of this issue in 2015 noted, “If we’re serious about racial diversity in the legal profession, we need to identify the source of the racial grade gap and remedy it.”
But we can only identify the sources of the racial grade gap, and address the problems of racist treatment. if we’re allowed to talk about it when it exists.
One important fact about this discussion is that it was a private conversation after a class that was accidentally recorded and never intended for others to hear. This is not a professor declaring to a class that Black students typically get low grades. Private conversations such as this are treated like extramural utterances. The standard under AAUP guidelines ought to be whether this conversation “clearly demonstrates the faculty member’s unfitness for his or her position.” What would demonstrate unfitness? One reason certainly would be committing racial discrimination in grading, or indicating that one would do so. In fact, even being a delusional racist (for example, believing that Black students had poor grades when they didn’t in reality) could show unfitness. But discussing race is not necessarily a form of professional unfitness. Clearly, there is an enormous difference between a professor noticing racial disparities in grades and one engaging in racist grading, and there is no evidence yet presented that either instructor committed any racist discrimination in their grading.
The Chicago Statement was adopted by Georgetown University in 2017 as a formal campus policy and declares: “It is not the proper role of a university to insulate individuals from ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even deeply offensive. Deliberation or debate may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or ill conceived.” This policy applies to professors deliberating about Black students receiving lower grades, no matter how offensive some people think it is.
Due process and academic freedom apply to professors even when people might suspect them of being racist. We must protect alleged racists because without academic freedom, the anti-racists will be silenced, too. I reject the notion that the only way to end racism is to stop people from talking about racial disparities and punish those who discuss the reality of the racism around us. Instead, we must confront racism and be willing to openly discuss race without punishing those who say something offensive.
If there is evidence showing that Sellers and Batson guilty of racist grading, then they deserve to lose their jobs. But professors should not be presumed guilty without any allegations, and they should not be fired without evidence, without an investigation, and without the opportunity to defend themselves.
Thomas Sowell, Ph.D, ’68, University of Chicago (it’s first black PhD in economics), a current Stanford professor and Hoover Institute Fellow, has made this same exact observation and complaint, and said it publicly, numerous times, on mass broadcast media (Hoover’s “Uncommon Knowledge” program with Hoover Fellow and former presidential advisor Peter Robinson) and describes it more fully in his books. He refers explicitly to his experience as a teacher at Cornell and how many black students then, generally under-performed academically, and how it hurt them intellectually, and that in his view they should have been encouraged to apply to a different school. He is still employed by Stanford, and more popular than ever, worldwide. But he is black. And that is not the same as a white professor making the same observation, apparently. The Georgetown law adjuncts have an easy immediate remedy in law, and should use it. The Dean is making an unfortunate demonstration to law students and others, of non-rational judgement, and one outside objective legal standards. This is not uncommon in the current law school environment.
I strongly reject Sowell’s “mismatch” theory and support affirmative action, as I first noted 26 years ago in my book, The Myth of Political Correctness. If some Black students are admitted under affirmative action and some of them get below-average grades, that’s not necessarily bad for them. As Hans Bader notes in his article about the Georgetown case, he received special preferences (for public interest lawyers) in admission to Harvard Law School, and got below-average grades, but it certainly didn’t harm him to attend an elite institution. What colleges need to do is ensure that there is no racial bias in grading, and also seek to help support all students and enable them to succeed. Trying to ignore racial disparities won’t help us overcome them, even if some people will abuse the truth as an excuse to disparage and exclude minorities.
I heartily agree that it is not “bad” for those students who may be or wind up, lower ranked (nor bad for the professors) and I’ve known many “C-” students who outperformed the “As” over time. The larger issue is, as you note, free speech, and that Thomas Sowell still has his firm academic and employment standing for saying the exact same thing. But he’s at Hoover, and this issue is at Georgetown Law. Readers may not generally know that the ABA (American Bar Association) that regulates law schools, has gotten into the speech business, and now through their Rule Rule 8.4 (g) it “prohibits a lawyer from engaging in speech he “knows or reasonably should know” is “harmful,” “derogatory,” or “demeaning” on the basis of “race, sex, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or socioeconomic status” in any activity “related to the practice of law,” including “bar association, business or social activities.” This makes the ABA into the legal “speech police” for the law trade, possibly including law schools, although it is an interesting question as to whether they can dictate university law school labor policy, and also over-ride constitutional rights (they cannot, but will try, ironically). The Georgetown Dean is likely towing the line for the ABA and other interests. He would lose on legal doctrine.
What Thomas Sewell said and what she said isn’t the same thing. He made an observation in general. She made an observation to some degree too but she also insulted the students in class with her demeanor and words that can cause distrust among her black students. She insulted and contribute characteristics to a race and started saying “the blacks” aka the black students which I would assume is against the bar. She has biases against them already but it could be to certain black students. I personally think she isn’t a great professor. She already admitted there were some expectational black students in the class. So why point out black students vs the other ones because some will be on the top and some on the bottom? So why isn’t she giving attention to the students that are supposedly at the bottom if it happens every semester? She has clear biases against the black students on top of that Law school is subjective to some degree that makes it even easier for a Professor who have biases to give lower grades to black students. There’s probably should be a review, but I suspect she had complaints already. Keep in mind that even though students are at the bottom( like she claims well some will be at bottom) they probably are not failing These students could be getting B-‘s or C+ we do not know.
What she said was a racist comment. You can’t talk like that as a professor who teaching many different ethnic groups. Racism is contributing certain characteristics to a certain race with the belief they are inferior which she did intentionally or not. She said “the blacks” and then admitted there were expectational black students, so she is obviously bias towards a certain group of blacks. What black student would want to take a class with her if she thinks that way? No one would because she has biases which could mean she is giving preferential treatment to certain people that are not black. Now I do agree. that they should do a review on it but you can bet she had complaints before.
Marie, I see your point but my own colleagues talk disparagingly about the “dead white men” on our syllabi, and speak disparagingly about specific white male colleagues as “mansplaining” and as men “on a power trip” and so on. So should white men be afraid to be evaluated and peer reviewed by the people who speak that way about white men? And what of all the men on my campus who I hear speak about which of their women colleagues are “hot”, or at least “hot for -” (-insert their discipline)? Should each of them be fired? Members of the AAUP have often, with pride, defended comments and perspectives with which they disagreed because they have stated that faculty are entitled to their opinions and to voice their perspectives. Would you suggest that organizations like the AAUP support firing professors whose views seem racist (or at least racist against certain groups) and only defend professors they agree with politically? The AAUP even defends the professor who is a Holocaust denier. You must want him fired immediately, even though the AAUP has defended his free speech rights.
I agree with this article so much. The decisions to fire and suspend these professors were overreactions before the truth of the matter could be determined. This isn’t progress; rather, it hinders any true progress in any racial divide that may exist.
It’s good that this is being said. The next question that arises is whether the AAUP will say it, or something like it. Prof. Wilson, I gather, is speaking here in his personal capacity, and not on behalf of the Association.
My understanding is that an AAUP chapter does not exist at Georgetown, nor at any of the District of Columbia universities. Nor do I know whether Profs. Sellers or Batson are individual members. However, it seems that the AAUP often issues condemnations of actions by universities or governments with which it disagrees, even ones outside the United States, so that ought not to be an insuperable obstacle.
As with all individual posts on AcademeBlog, this article is my personal opinion, and I do not speak for the AAUP. Because Sellers and Batson have both resigned and are not challenging the administration’s action, the AAUP is highly unlikely to issue any statements or get involved in this case. The AAUP’s very limited resources require it to focus on cases where it can help a faculty member in need of assistance. But I am sure that the AAUP would encourage Georgetown faculty (and all faculty) to form an AAUP chapter to help ensure that campus policies protect academic freedom and are correctly enforced.
Re.: John K. Wilson’s statement in the OP: “When it comes to the punishment of faculty during a semester, the rules protect tenured and non-tenured faculty equally.”
This may be true at Georgetown and even at other AAUP-affiliated institutions, but at CUNY this is DECIDEDLY not the case, as I came to find out as a adjunct represented by the PSC (see link below). It turns out, THAT BY UNION CONTRACT, adjuncts do NOT have academic freedom or even the presumed protections of the First Amendment.
https://www.academia.edu/23593134/A_Leftist_Critique_of_Political_Correctness_Gone_Amok_Revised_and_Updated
“One likely answer”? That’s really a stretch. You follow it up in the same graf with “could be a factor.” I know you dismiss the evidence for mismatch, but it’s frankly a more data-driven explanation than racism, whose definition is continually expanding. Control for incoming academic performance and racial disparities in current academic performance largely evaporate.
It is truly amazing that we continue to have this conversation about the comfort of white people to have kitchen table race talk publicly and then be shocked when there are repercussions. Being that this country was founded in racism… it is now shocking to black people when this happens. The shock is that it continues to happen even with all of the people paying the price recently. I guess a lesson well taught (fired, cancelled, ridiculed) is a lesson well learned. Just keep the racist schitt to yourself…for your own good.
I guess I never engaged in “kitchen table race talk” so I’m not sure what it is, except for the denotation of the individual words. If it means, “having a discussion about racial disparities in the U.S. and its many causations while eating a meal,” then maybe I have had such conversations. And, slavery and its legacy were probably mentioned as contributing factors.
But one shouldn’t be able to have it both ways: to be able to claim that (1) There is a DISPARITY in grades and (2) White folks cannot even TALK about it without fear of being “canceled, ridiculed, or fired” for trying to get at the root causes and CHANGE THINGS.
The situation is insane now. As an Asian, my race is foremost. Institutions and businesses openly state that we are discriminated against in favor of everyone else including whites. But we cannot talk about it without retribution. Hence, the resounding silence.
A general problem is that professors are illegally fired, or threatened with firing, and then paid off by the Administration with lots of cash in exchange for a nondisparagement agreement. I have seen this many times; it in the standard Administrators’ Playbook. That way the Administration is happy, and the professor happy, but everyone else loses. It is quite reasonable for the AAUP, with its limited resources, not to pursue cases once the victim is paid off, but I wish more could be done. it reminds me of how rich men uses their riches to mop up after their crimes.
I wish I knew that “lots of cash” was available in exchange for a non-disparagement agreement. Perhaps that’s only available to tenured profs who are treated badly. In my case, it was technically a resignation (under pressure) and I wasn’t even paid for the entire semester. It turns out that had I been willing to be fired, or forced the issue to that point, CUNY would have had to pay me for the FULL term, about $7000 at the time.
I too was punished… for asking questions about racial policies and asking if I had to register my race with the school. I had to, or get fired.
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How many of you would support the proposal that Asians ve treated as equal to Whites in employment and education opportunities? Please let me know it is a lost cause, so I can quit banging my head bloody against this wall.
I am more than willing to support Irwin Tang’s proposal that “Asians be treated as equal to Whites in employment and education opportunities.”
However, “the devil is in the details.” What exactly does “equality” mean? Should we go by a MERIT system in these academic areas? Do test scores and GPAs adequately measure merit or chances for success? There are many other factors that go into equality of opportunity in higher ed.
In the abstract, I’m with you, Irwin Tang. When we “get into the weeds” on the issue, it is not as simple as it sounds./
Wow. You are the first person I know to dare commit publicly to the policy of treating Asians equal to Whites. Most of my friends are progressives, they won’t say such things publicly.
The problem with what is equal is always largely solved by two methods.
1. No identification of race on application materials. And no names either.
2. The criteria for hiring and acceptance are openly known to the public or at least potential applicants.
What if there is an interview in person? Well, don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. There is no perfect system. But the current pro-White system is sickly racist and has contributed to serious consequences among our populace. Being treated as an unwanted species causes mental health issues. It contributes to stress, depression and even suicide, but of course it is not sole factor.
Irwin: Supposedly, those race questions on application forms are there “for statistical purposes only.” The hiring committees are not supposed to see them. Likewise, the criteria (or at least the qualifications) for a given job are usually provided in the position description, for all to see.
Of course, there are ways around these practices. As you say, no system is perfect. For instance, suppose that as an Asian scholar your publications are mainly about Chinese cinema. That’s not ABSOLUTE proof that YOU are Asian (since there are MANY White scholars who write on that subject) but it might be a “hint” to some. Just as those who write about queer theory, feminist studies, or Black issues are often ASSUMED to be gay, female, or Black.
The Harvard admissions scandal is proof-positive that discrimination is afoot in the hallowed (Ivy) halls of Academe.