Professor Suggests Students Speak English At American University. Now She’s Out A Job

One of my two graduate school programs was composed of about 40% “international students.”

The VAST majority of them were Chinese.

While a few had complete mastery of the English language, many of them could not speak English. I’m not talking “good” English – I’m saying English at all. It BOGGLED MY MIND that while I was reading HUNDREDS of pages of very complicated text a day, they were somehow surfing through this program without truly knowing the language.

It became VASTLY apparent that the program operated under two set of standards… and I found it infuriating. I would not expect to move to say… Germany… and be handed a degree without ever bothering to speak German. And yet here we were.

American undergraduate and graduate programs are EXPENSIVE. Some of these international students are spending HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of dollars to come to America and “learn from Americans.” When it comes down to it, IT BENEFITS THEM to learn English. That’s the ROOT of the reason they’re HERE.

A professor at Duke University has been fired for saying just that.

According to Fox News:

A Duke University professor stepped down Saturday after sparking outrage for an email that encouraged her Chinese students to improve their English by committing to speaking it “100 percent of time.”

Megan Lee Neely, an assistant professor of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, reportedly emailed the students Friday in response to complaints by two of her colleagues who said they were disappointed that the students “were not taking the opportunity to improve their English,” according to screenshots of the exchange that was posted online.

Again… they CAME HERE to IMPROVE THEIR ENGLISH. She’s EXACTLY RIGHT.

Why come to an AMERICAN COLLEGE and then limit yourself to speaking Chinese to other Chinese students all day.  It doesn’t make sense… and I used to see it CONSTANTLY.

It’s not like she’s telling them never to speak Chinese. She’s saying speak English while AT COLLEGE or doing COLLEGE-RELATED THINGS.

Neely encouraged her students to “commit to using English 100 percent of the time” on campus and professional settings and “keep these unintended consequences in mind when you chose to speak Chinese,” according to the university’s paper, The Duke Chronicle.

OMG HORRIFIC…

Screenshots of the email exchange made the rounds on social media and stoked outrage. Medical school dean Mary E. Klotman apologized to Neely’s students in a letter and said that Duke’s Office of Institutional Equity will investigate the incident.

“To be clear,” Klotman wrote, “there is absolutely no restriction or limitation on the language you use to converse and communicate with each other. Your career opportunities and recommendations will not in any way be influenced by the language you use outside the classroom.”

Yeah, ok.

Your opportunities WILL be influenced by the fact that you can’t speak the language of the country you’re studying in.

I used to be a grant writer. I once had a student from the program I graduated from email me for a recommendation to work alongside me. She also requested a TRANSLATOR. She wanted to write the grant proposals in CHINESE and then have someone translate them into English.

Yeah. No.