‘Non-white’ students at UCLA complained recently that by pointing out punctuation and spelling errors creates an “unsafe culture.”
David Thompson reported:
More crushing injustice on campus, this time at the UCLA Graduate School of Education & Information Studies:
In a letter sent to colleagues in the department after the sit-in, [Professor] Rust said students in the demonstration described grammar and spelling corrections he made on their dissertation proposals as a form of “micro-aggression.” “I have attempted to be rather thorough on the papers and am particularly concerned that they do a good job with their bibliographies and citations, and these students apparently don’t feel that is appropriate,” Rust said in the letter.
You see, by highlighting spelling and punctuation errors, the professor is contributing to an “unsafe climate for students of colour.” For those of you interested in the policing of tiny tragedies, “micro-aggressions” are defined by one official report as,
Subtle verbal and nonverbal insults directed toward non-whites, often done automatically and unconsciously. They are layered insults based on one’s race, gender, class, sexuality, language, immigration status, phenotype, accent, or surname.
