10 votes

[CW: racism] University of Cincinnati professor gives failing grades to students who test positive for "the [sic] chinese virus"

Topic removed by site admin

6 comments

  1. viridian
    Link
    I was very surprised to see this coming out of UC, but it turns out he's a 72 year old MATH/MECHE adjunct. There's about a 100% chance he intended to retire and just doesn't give a shit that UC is...

    I was very surprised to see this coming out of UC, but it turns out he's a 72 year old MATH/MECHE adjunct. There's about a 100% chance he intended to retire and just doesn't give a shit that UC is going to dump him like a load of bricks.

    8 votes
  2. [2]
    RNG
    Link
    Quote from affected student: Quote from Prof. Ucker's message:

    Quote from affected student:

    My girlfriend tested positive for COVID and the University of Cincinnati's Health Department instructed me to not attend my in-person lab. Not only did my professor give me a zero for not going, but this was his response:

    Quote from Prof. Ucker's message:

    For students testing positive for the chinese virus, I will give no grade.

    5 votes
    1. rish
      Link Parent
      He hasn't even tested positive, his girlfriend has. Good thing this came in to light.

      He hasn't even tested positive, his girlfriend has. Good thing this came in to light.

      4 votes
  3. [3]
    Deimos
    (edited )
    Link
    Yesterday, you questioned why we should give a shit that a random tower at a random university was renamed because of racism, despite it being a well-written article. Why is a (unverified, as far...

    Yesterday, you questioned why we should give a shit that a random tower at a random university was renamed because of racism, despite it being a well-written article.

    Why is a (unverified, as far as I can tell) tweet about a random student at a random university possibly getting a failing grade for a single lab because of racism more interesting and worth posting/discussing? This seems to be exactly the type of outrage-centric content you were complaining about.

    2 votes
    1. [2]
      RNG
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      I'll quote myself a bit here to try to draw the distinction: Students being strong-armed by their professor to attend class when ill with COVID couldn't be more appropos for the current moment. I...

      I'll quote myself a bit here to try to draw the distinction:

      In the modern moment, in 2020, I couldn't fathom a greater waste of one's time than writing a 1000 word essay that's primary content is outrage at the renaming of some tower almost no one is familiar with.

      Students being strong-armed by their professor to attend class when ill with COVID couldn't be more appropos for the current moment. I care greatly about human beings. This is precisely the type of content I wish the former would be replaced by.

      On the other hand, I don't feel that defending David Hume from "being cancelled" (i.e. some building getting renamed) is all that interesting. It isn't just uninteresting though. It is the perpetual relitigation of the popular frame "cancel culture run amuk," a frame of discourse that is deeply dishonest and applied asymmetrically. The best comment on the entire internet on so-called "cancel culture" (in my opinion) is here on Tildes [1]. I better elaborate my position in that same thread [2].

      Why is a (unverified, as far as I can tell) tweet about a random student at a random university possibly getting a failing grade for a single lab because of racism more interesting and worth posting/discussing?

      That's a fair question. When I link to a source, I try to get as close to the original source material as possible. If an article talks about an exciting whitepaper for AI, I'd be more likely to link the whitepaper. This story has also been covered by reputable local news outlets, but they don't provide much other than what the tweets say [3]. There may be a case for me to simply link the news source should the source be some no-name on Twitter.

      [1] https://tildes.net/~humanities/rng/academics_are_really_really_worried_about_their_freedom#comment-5k1h

      [2] https://tildes.net/~humanities/rwq/is_the_university_of_edinburgh_right_to_rename_its_david_hume_tower#comment-5m2d

      [3] https://www.newsrecord.org/news/uc-investigating-racist-term-used-by-professor/article_30d9f5ca-f954-11ea-9a36-fbbb6575b6f5.html

      Edit: I see that this post has been removed by the site admin. Is this due to the low quality of the post, due to our disagreement regarding the previous subject or due to perceived hypocrisy on my end?

      I think my position at least has merit, folks are tired of the everlasting psuedointellectual cancel culture debate. It does seem to me (but not only me) that the type of discussions had on Tildes can be far more high-brow.

      1 vote
      1. Deimos
        (edited )
        Link Parent
        I am the site admin, sorry if that wasn't clear. I just don't think there's anything of value here. Even the student himself doesn't really know what's happening, he says he's not even sure if he...

        I am the site admin, sorry if that wasn't clear. I just don't think there's anything of value here. Even the student himself doesn't really know what's happening, he says he's not even sure if he is getting a zero or if it'll just be excluded from his grade somehow. But it's the type of story that can be explained in one sentence and makes people outraged, so it'll get a billion upvotes/retweets/angry-face emoji/etc. on all the different platforms, but by next week nobody's even going to remember or care that this happened. Like you say, we should try to do better here.

        I think it's reasonable to post as a comment in the weekly thread if you want to, but I don't think it warrants its own topic.