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Re:Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge by SpicyLemonZest on Monday September 07, 2020 @02:33PM (#24401459)
But that kind of controversy is supposed to be a good thing for universities! I'm not saying you're wrong as a matter of organizational dynamics, but it reads to me like an explanation of why a liquor store owner might prefer to only sell soft drinks. What's the point of a university where ideas can't be freely discussed?
Re:Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge by geofft on Monday September 07, 2020 @02:41PM (#24401542)
Frankly, the point of the university today is to provide a service for paying customers. When you see a job posting that says that a bachelor's degree in such-and-such field is required, the employer is hardly asking to get candidates who have spent four years freely discussing ideas like they're one of the figures in The School of Athens; they're asking to get candidates who know certain things and have experience doing a bit more self-directed work than they would in high school. (That's also why the university degree can be reduced to a GPA instead of a dissertation or set of publications.)

Now, it's definitely a problem for society that people who want to spend their lives engaging in academic debate, which is a thing we should encourage, can rarely find a job that supports them in doing so, and the closest they can find is providing vocational training to 20-year-olds who are ready to leave the academy once they've received the service they've paid for. But it doesn't really help either the professor or the student to pretend that the modern undergraduate classroom is anything else.

Re:Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge by SpicyLemonZest on Monday September 07, 2020 @03:03PM (#24401737)
(Slight correction, this is an MBA class, not undergrad.)

This decision doesn't even make sense from the perspective of vocational training. Being able to hear 那个 without great pain and upset is a directly job-applicable communication tool - there are many jobs working with Mandarin speakers that students won't be able to handle if the word traumatizes them.

Re:Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge by marcus_holmes on Tuesday September 08, 2020 @04:08AM (#24406230)
It almost makes more sense as an MBA class: How to respond to accusations of racial insensitivy 101.
Re:Professor suspended for saying 那个 nà ge by andi999 on Friday September 18, 2020 @05:46AM (#24514807)
Teacher got an F in this case?