WASHINGTON - Aug. 16, 2019 - George Washington University students very recently signed a petition asking GWU to change the stick figure on lighted crosswalk signs on campus because they feel "oppressed" by being "told by the symbol of a white man when it is okay to cross," and because "many students from diverse backgrounds, including individuals of color, gender fluid individuals, and LGBTQA+ individuals, feel oppressed by this," notes public interest law professor John Banzhaf.
Now American University has decided to teach its faculty how to not "kill our students" by grading them on their ability to write because, they are being instructed, since "grading on writing ability" is an act of "white supremacy," by doing so, "you engage in racism."
As a visiting professor brought in to train the faculty how not to grade students' writing ability is telling them, "you actively promote white language supremacy, which is the handmaiden to white bias in the world," Banzhaf now reports.
As he delicately put it, "I stand up here today asking everyone to listen, to see, to know you as you are, to stop saying shit about injustice while doing jack shit about it."
Instead of grading students on their writing ability, Professor Asao Inoue will instruct AU professors to base student grades upon how hard a student worked to produce a paper, even if he proves to be totally illiterate. To do this, he maintains, faculty should lay out "labor-based grading contracts."
Interestingly, an official language of India - with a population of over 1 billion which dwarfs that of the U.S. - is English.
The same is true of many other non-white countries including Cameron, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. So its strange, to say the least, to argue that teaching how to properly write in the official language of more than a dozen largely black countries is racist, and promotes "white language supremacy, which is the handmaiden to white bias in the world," suggests Banzhaf.
One of the primary purposes of universities is to teach students how to write, says Banzhaf, and in many such institutions, courses in writing make up a significant portion of the curriculum.
Now American University is trying hard to buck that tradition, and may become the first university to promote and encourage illiteracy among its students, argues Banzhaf.
JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH),
2000 H Street, NW, Wash, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/ jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com @profbanzhaf
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