Shannon Gibney is one of seven professors who is filing an anti-discrimination lawsuit against Minneapolis Community and Technical College after she was reprimanded for teaching structural racism in a mass communications course.

According the Gibney, several white male students filed a racial harassment complaint. This is the second time Gibney has been reprimanded by the school, who claims she singled out the white male students.

From Raw Story:

According to Gibney in an interview with City College News, a white male student asked her, “Why do we have to talk about this in every class? Why do we have to talk about this?”She claims she was shocked, because “[h]is whole demeanor was very defensive. He was taking it personally. I tried to explain, of course, in a reasonable manner — as reasonable as I could given the fact that I was being interrupted and put on the spot in the middle of class — that this is unfortunately the context of 21st century America.”

Read more Raw Story

 

After the latest accusation, the Vice President of Academic Affairs pinned a letter to her filed in which stated that he found it “troubling that the manner in which you led a discussion on the very important topic of structural racism alienated two students who may have been most in need of learning about this subject.”

 

Gibney responded to the statement, saying that the vice president’s words helped the white male students undermine her authority as one of the few remaining black professors at Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

 

Thoughts on the situation?

Is the Vice President’s reprimanding of Professor Gibney contributing to issues with diversity on college campuses?

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