An anonymous survey of 105 professors at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business suggests that many of them have lost confidence in the dean, and that they feel “livid,” “betrayed,” and “scared of students” after a fellow faculty member was “thrown under the bus,” as several of them described it, following a controversy over his use of a Chinese word.
The faculty member, Greg Patton, a professor of clinical business communication, used the word nèige (那个), which literally means “that” in Mandarin, but is also commonly used as a filler word like “um” or “er.” It was part of an example during a Zoom class last month on how such words can prove distracting during presentations. The word is pronounced “nay-ga,” and some Black students in the class complained in an email to administrators that it sounded like the n-word.
The business school’s dean, Geoffrey Garrett, sent an email to students saying that he was “deeply saddened by this disturbing episode.” He pulled Patton from the class and replaced him with another professor.
In the wake of the controversy over Patton’s removal, which was covered widely in both the United States and China, the business school’s Faculty Council surveyed professors to find out how they felt about the dean’s actions. The results of that survey are part of a 29-page, nearly 15,000-word internal report, obtained by The Chronicle, that was given to the dean and other administrators. A summary of the findings, which was read during departmental meetings, noted the “anger, disappointment, betrayal, and outrage” felt by professors.
But that summary doesn’t do justice to scathing comments from the survey. They provide a portrait of a business school in which professors are now convinced that a single student complaint, even a questionable one, could upend their careers, and that the school’s leadership, as one professor put it, “doesn’t have our back":
- “I’m scared to death to teach in this environment. Any innocent phrase can be turned around on you.”
- “Faculty will have to walk on egg shells all the time - anyone can be accused of being a racist, bigoted, insensitive, biased, etc.”
- "[I] fear that if things are left as they stand now, this will have a very chilling effect on the faculty.”
- “Makes me not want to teach.”
A number of professors condemned Garrett’s email to students, in which he said that it was “simply unacceptable for faculty to use words in class that can marginalize, hurt and harm the psychological safety of our students.” (The dean was not available Monday morning for an interview, and his office has turned down previous requests.)
- “The Dean did such a disservice to faculty, but especially to Greg Patton, by sending a memo that was highly judgmental and injurious.”
- “Shocked, saddened, pissed off and betrayed by Dean Garrett and the Marshall Administration.”
- “It makes me feel like the dean’s office is willing to throw faculty under the bus in order [to] preserve the appearance of diversity and inclusion instead of opening up dialogues on both sides.”
- “For the Dean to put his signature to a letter with such obviously untrue implication … is chicken shit.”
Some professors said the incident would cause them to alter their own teaching in order not to be accused of giving offense:
- “It will make me even more conservative and guarded than I already am.”
- “I will avoid any diversity and inclusion topics and will strictly stick to safe topics, devoid of any potential land mines.”
- “I may cut sessions on culture.”
- “I plan to be aware and on the lookout for situations that might be misinterpreted, but am concerned that if I start looking over my shoulder and second guessing myself that I might be more inclined to actually make a mistake.”
A few professors, expressing concern that “faculty are not sensitive to their examples” used in class, said they felt sympathy for the students who filed the complaint. “I would never use an example like this,” said one respondent. “… As educators, now more than ever, we need to be sensitive to our diverse student population with varied backgrounds and experiences.”
The majority of the professors quoted in the report, however, disagreed vehemently with the dean’s handling of the complaint, and remain nervous about the fallout. “After the initial shock, my overwhelming reaction now is simple: fear,” wrote one professor. “I feel fear for myself, for my colleagues, and frankly for students who run the risk of inadvertently trivializing the importance of the monumental reckoning on racial injustice that our country is, I hope, experiencing at long last.”
