Duke University apologises over professor’s email asking Chinese students to speak English

Duke University has apologised after a professor cautioned international students against speaking Chinese on campus and urged them to speak English instead.

The professor, Megan Neely, issued the caution in an email Friday. Neely has since asked to step down from her role as director of graduate studies in the medical school’s biostatistics master’s programme, the dean of Duke’s medical school, Dr Mary E Klotman, said in a letter to students Saturday.

Neely did not respond to email requests for comment Sunday. A university spokesman confirmed that she remained on the faculty as an assistant professor of biostatistics and bioinformatics.

Neely said in the email that two faculty members had come to her office complaining about students speaking Chinese “very loudly” in the student lounge and study areas. The faculty members wanted to identify the students and write down their names, she said, in case the students sought to work with them in the future.

“They were disappointed that these students were not taking the opportunity to improve their English and were being so impolite as to have a conversation that not everyone on the floor could understand,” Neely wrote in the email. “To international students, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE keep these unintended consequences in mind when you choose to speak Chinese in the building.”

She added that she had the utmost respect for international students. “That being said,” she wrote, “I encourage you to commit to using English 100 percent of the time” in a professional setting.

The university confirmed the authenticity of the email, which was widely shared on social media.

In February 2018, Neely sent a similar email, which a university spokesman also verified. In that email, she acknowledged that living and studying in a foreign country was a “tremendous undertaking,” but relayed that faculty members were concerned about students speaking foreign languages in the department’s break rooms.

“Speaking in your native language in the department may give faculty the impression that you are not trying to improve your English skills and that you are not taking this opportunity seriously,” she wrote. “As a result, they may be more hesitant to hire or work with international students because communication is such an important part of what we do.”

In her letter, Klotman, the dean, apologised to students and said she had asked the university’s Office for Institutional Equity to conduct a “thorough review.”

“I understand that many of you felt hurt and angered by this message,” Klotman said. “To be clear: 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.”

Neely’s emails drew criticism and reflected broader tensions about the way Asian and Asian-American students are viewed in academia. In 2011, a UCLA student ranted on YouTube about the “hordes of Asian people” at the university and complained about their cell phone use at the library. International Chinese students also face unique challenges, including suspicions that they may be spying for their home country.

Ken Lee, chief executive of OCA-Asian Pacific American Advocates, said he was disappointed by what he described as an “ignorance and hateful bias against students.”

“Forcing students to repress their heritage language further perpetuates a wrongful culture of fear toward Asian and Asian-American students,” Lee said in a statement Sunday.

About 36 of the 54 students in Duke’s master of biostatistics program are Chinese, according to the university. About 10 of the 50 faculty members in that program are Chinese, the university said.

More than 1 million foreign students study in the United States each year, with roughly one-third coming from China. But universities have seen a decline in international student enrollment.

International enrollment began to flatten in 2016, partly because of changing conditions abroad, but also, college administrators said, because President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and more restrictive views on immigration have made the United States less attractive to international students.

In a letter dated Saturday, a group of international students at Duke petitioned the university to investigate what happened leading up to Neely’s email, including the actions of the other faculty members.

The group said in a statement Sunday that the emails showed “an appalling lack of knowledge and understanding about the Chinese culture and community.”

“We wrote the petition to combat the normalisation of xenophobia and discrimination against Chinese students at Duke,” the students said.

Yung-Hwa Anna Chow, who advises students in Washington State University’s college of arts and sciences, said international students must have English proficiency to study in the United States. While students may need to speak English in classrooms and research labs, they should be able to choose which language to speak in social settings, she said.

“To attack these students and say they have to speak English because it’s good for them and that they need to practice more, it speaks to these professors’ privilege and entitlement,” she said.

Chow, who was raised in Taiwan and began learning English at 12 when she moved to the United States, said speaking a native language allows people to connect with one another, establish a feeling of home and combat homesickness.

“That’s a really important piece for these students,” she said. “If you were traveling to China and you didn’t speak Chinese, would you want to be speaking Chinese all the time or would you feel more comfortable speaking English with your friends?”

© 2019 New York Times News Service