A University of Southern California communications professor is no longer teaching a class after he said a word in Chinese that sounds like an English racial slur.
“I cannot believe this is real, but it is,” Campus Reform Editor-in-Chief Cabot Phillips tweeted. “This USC Professor is on leave after students were offended that a Chinese word he used during a lecture on foreign languages sounded like an english racial slur. Watch the video for yourself.”
The school is now offering “supportive measures” to students who were hurt by the Professor’s language… https://t.co/l4N4REBCDT
— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) September 3, 2020
Greg Patton, a professor at USC’s prestigious Marshall School of Business, explained the usage of a Chinese filler word for “that” and compared it to usage of other filler words in English, such as “like” and “um.” He used the Chinese word, which sounds similar to the N-word.
“Recently, a USC faculty member during class used a Chinese word that sounds similar to a racial slur in English,” the university said in a statement. “We acknowledge the historical, cultural and harmful impact of racist language.”
Another professor is instructing the class after Patton “agreed to take a short term pause while [the university is] reviewing to better understand the situation and to take any appropriate next steps.”
Phillips pointed out examples in a Twitter thread of several other teachers being placed on leave or fired for comments deemed racially insensitive, including a dean fired for saying “everyone’s lives matter” in an email and a professor who was suspended for refusing to lower grading standards over the death of George Floyd.
