Imagine, if you will, that a Black Georgetown basketball coach expresses his frustration and concern to another Black coach about the fact that, year after year, so many White athletes fail to make the basketball team or are relegated to sitting on the bench. Now imagine that Georgetown University promptly fires that coach for such an “abhorrent” and “racist” comment and then forces the other coach to resign because he had failed to immediately rebuke the other coach. Absurd, right? After all, all the coach had done was state a fact and express concern that so many White athletes who would love to play for Georgetown simply don’t perform well enough.
So, why is it then, that when a White Georgetown law professor expresses her frustration and concern to another White professor about the fact that, year after year, that so many of her Black students end up at the bottom of her class, the first professor is fired for making an “abhorrent” and “racist” remark and the other professor is forced to resign because he had failed to immediately rebuke the first professor? This is exactly what happened to Sandra Sellers (the first professor) and Donald Batson (the second professor), both long time adjunct professors at Georgetown University Law School, neither of whom had ever been accused of any improper, let alone racist, behavior during their long tenures at the school.
We all know the answer to this question. American society has digressed to the point where even making a factual statement can be grounds for dismissal if that statement could potentially be construed as implying that Blacks are not equal to Whites in all all areas. It’s perfectly OK to say that White basketball players don’t perform as well on the whole as Black basketball players, but heaven forbid that one someone point out the reverse about law school.
Instead of “shooting the messenger,” shouldn’t we instead examine the message? Is it true that Black law students, as a whole, don’t do as well at Georgetown law school as to White students, or is that just true for her particular class? If it’s limited to just her class, then it would be appropriate and desirable to examine why this is so. Is it because she has a conscious or unconscious racial bias in her grading (which is unlikely because most law school examinations are graded anonymously), or is it because there is something peculiar about the subject matter of her class or her particular teaching methods that leads Black students to tend to do worse in her class than Whites. In other words, shouldn’t the university try to determine why her Black students tend to do worse than her White ones rather than just assuming she’s being racist?
On the other hand, if Black students tend to do worse than White students in the majority of classes at Georgetown Law School (or any other law school), why should one professor be singled out for dismissal. Wouldn’t it be better for the law school to examine why so many Black students do worse than Whites so the university can determine whether its teaching methods, grading standards, or admissions policies need to be changed? Could it be, for example, that for some cultural reason Blacks do not respond as well to the Socratic style of teaching prevalent at most law schools? Or could it be that affirmative action policies lead to the admission of Black students who simply aren’t as academically qualified as most of their White peers? Or could it be that Black students might (justifiably) believe that grades are not really that important since they will all need to take and pass the bar exam in order to practice law regardless of their class rank?
The point is, are we really at the point were we fire people for speaking the truth, even if the truth is painful? And, even worse, are we going to force people to resign for not jumping on a colleague for doing so? What have we become? The new McCarthyism?