A high ranking director at the School of Medicine at Duke has resigned after an email surfaced from her encouraging Chinese students to speak English.
The Duke Chronicle reports Megan Neely, the director of graduate studies at the Duke Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, resigned after screen shots of her email went viral on social media.
Neely remains an assistant professor at Duke, but is no longer in her director role.
According to the newspaper, the medical school has also requested that the Office of Institutional Equity investigate the incident.
Hey, Megan Neely and others at Duke? This is the part where you were supposed to EDUCATE THE COMPLAINING FACULTY MEMBERS, not insist that multilingual students only speak English on campus.
— Rhiannon (@sextoyspolitics) January 26, 2019
WHAT ARE YOU EVEN DOING. You’re supposed to be an institution of LEARNING. https://t.co/yFq6uEj837
The “unintended consequences” of Duke University professor Megan Neely exposing her own and her colleagues’ xenophobia, racism, and monolingualist myopia. https://t.co/pCldTeJoRn
— Michelle Li (@emilytwo) January 26, 2019
#FireDukeMeganNeely in 2019, I cannot believe there is still someone who can still be so RACIST! Her conducts against her MINORITY ethnicity students are just BLUNTLY DISGUSTING and WRONG! YET she is still a Duke assist professor. @DukeU, have some conciseness! FIRE Megan Neely! pic.twitter.com/QXj2M3Sx7o
— codeworld (@codeworld7) January 27, 2019
“Dr. Neely has asked to step down as director of graduate studies for the master’s program effective immediately,” Medical school dean Mary E. Klotman wrote in a letter apologizing to her students, reports NBC News.
“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.”
The Duke Chronicle reports a committee of Chinese graduate students at Duke have drafted a petition calling for a full scale investigation. More than 1,000 students have signed the petition so far.
AsAmNews reached out to Neely,but declined to comment. Instead she forwarded our inquiry to the school’s media relations team which reiterated “Duke does not have any restriction or limitation on the language that can be used outside the classroom. Indeed, we believe that a global university should reflect the languages and cultures of our students. And further, career opportunities and recommendations should never be influenced by the language used to converse outside the classroom, for all students.”
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