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Students in Japan accuse American professor of using racial slurs, demand his firing

Hitotsubashi University-Kodaira-Campus

By Jennifer Zhan, AsAmNews intern

An organization of students and young researchers at a Japanese university is calling for the dismissal of an American professor they say discriminates against minorities.

The Anti-Racism Information Center (ARIC) launched a petition that accuses John Mancuso of using the term “gook,” and “bakachon,” an offensive Japanese word for Koreans. The petition includes links to three audio clips allegedly of Mancuso. In one, the speaker is heard referring to Koreans as “f—-ing idiots” and “insane.” 

Mancuso of Hitotsubashi University told AsAmNews that two of the clips are “not even confirmed to be my voice.” When asked if he believes the language used constitutes hate speech or should have consequences, the associate professor said he could not comment further due to recent university and police involvement. 

However, Mancuso confirmed he is the speaker in the December 14 audio, which was recorded before an ARIC workshop titled “The International Rise of Populism: Xenophobia and Japan” and advertised with a photo of Donald Trump. 

In the clip, Mancuso claims to work for Trump. He then asks ARIC representative and Hitotsubashi graduate student Ryang Yong-Song if he has an ID, foreign alien card or passport, despite the fact that “you were born in this country.”

Mancuso said he has previously used similar lines of questioning in class to show he supports ethnic Koreans, but ARIC’s petition describes the incident as threatening.

In Japan, there is a historical record of tension regarding the status of ethnic Koreans. In 2014, a United Nations panel called on Japan to crack down on hate speech rallies that target ethnic Koreans, The Asahi Shimbun reported. According to The Japan Times, the Justice Ministry said 378 such rallies were held that year. 

The Japan Times said that the country’s first anti-hate speech law, passed in 2016, carried no legal penalties. Yong-Song told AsAmNews that he thinks Japan currently violates the UN’s International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). He says people in Japan rarely critize instances of discrimination publicly.

“This is because in Japan there is no culture of protest that fights against discrimination like in the US,” he said.

In April of 2018, Mancuso began including a Freedom of Speech Agreement in his class syllabus. The agreement, which he said was symbolic and based on the Chicago University statement on freedom of expression, guarantees students and teachers the right to communicate controversial opinions and speech in or outside of class “without being told that they are racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc.” 

Freedom of Speech Agreement from 2018 syllabus via https://syllabus.cels.hit-u.ac.jp/hit_syllabus/2018/08/08_43391_ja_JP.html

According to Mancuso, hidden recorders have been found in his classroom and reported to the police on three occasions.

Mancuso said he has been mischaracterized and targeted for elimination by ARIC. He added that Yong-Song lost a harassment claim, and that university investigators took his side when he filed his own claim alleging that Yong-Song verbally and physically assaulted him. 

While Yong-Song admitted going to Mancuso’s classroom “to protest,” he denies that he or any ARIC member used violence or physical contact. He said Mancuso was able to successfully spread false rumors due to a racist stereotype that Koreans are violent and can’t control their anger.

To Yong-Song, the necessary condition for realizing freedom of speech is the elimination of discrimination. He added that the university’s harassment committee is “systematically corrupt” and has historically been “a hotbed for acts of retaliation against victims who have sought justice.”

In addition to Mancuos’s firing, ARIC’s petition calls for Hitotsubashi University to establish a third party committee to review cases of discrimination. 

Hitotsubashi University did not respond to email requests from AsAmNews for comment on ARIC’s petition or any university investigations. Both Mancuso and Yong-Song said administration has ignored multiple requests to meet.

Classes at Hitotsubashi, including Mancuso’s, resumed in September.

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