MD: Towson adjunct professor fired for use of racial term in class
He referred to himself as a "n*gger on the corporate plantation", evidently meaning that he felt underpaid for the work he did.
"A Towson University adjunct professor was fired last week after using a racially insensitive term in his art class.
Allen Zaruba, a local artist who had taught at Towson for 12 years, said he was discussing provocative works depicted in textbook chapters on the body and identity when he used the term. "I crossed the line," he said. "I made a terrible, terrible mistake."
Zaruba, who is white, said his black stepfather used racial terms freely and that "I never quite got the horror of the word." "But I will never use that term again," he said. "It is absolutely transgressive." "As soon as I said it, I thought, 'Lord have mercy,' " Zaruba recalled.
On Thursday, three days after uttering the remark, Zaruba learned he had been fired in a phone call from interim department Chairman Stuart Stein....
Adam Jackson, president of Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, a campus group that promotes social justice, said he didn't know the context of the incident but was intrigued by Zaruba's wording, which included reference to "a corporate plantation."
"I think that the university firing him on the basis of using a racially charged word is an excuse to escape criticism from across the university," Jackson said. "At worst, it could be a racially insensitive analogy, but to call the university a 'corporate plantation' would be a deep statement that directly challenges the politics of this university." ....
Despite taking responsibility for his error, Zaruba said his firing raises troubling questions about the power of political correctness in modern society. "Are we in for another state of McCarthyism?" he said. "We have to have compassion and realize that people are not perfect."
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4 comments:
If the professor were black, instead of his stepfather, he would have gotten a free pass, since blacks can't seem to complete a sentence without saying nigga. That fact makes the action taken against him a clear case of racial discrimination.
And, if he just realized that, because of our national weakness and our inability to think for ourselves, that we are a society addicted to political correctness, then he's not too bright.
Sue. There are probably lots of lawyers out there to take the case without money up front. Organizations like colleges have deep pockets. I wonder if in court he could show that a black instructor at some point in the past had used that word in an instructive capacity and was not punished, which shows clear racial discrimination. Insitutions only respond to litigation which is why they are always so afraid of the ACLU.
Yet another example of the racial double-standard. It's OK for Blacks to use the term "nigger", but if a White uses it, it's racism.
When will people learn that "nigger" is a derogatory term in and of itself regardless of who says it?
bull crap...black people say sh!t all the time but when a white person say it....all hell breaks loose. I'm mixed and i hear black people say crap all the time. They think because my skin is a little dark that i'm totally black, not knowing that one of my parents is white. I'm so sick of the double standard....it really sadens me.
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