When I accepted admission here, I was excited to come to a community where -- unlike my high school -- people couldn't make outrageous claims without having someone demand that they answer for their beliefs. I am already a third year, and overall, I have been happy with the level of intelligence and personal responsibility displayed by students and faculty at the University. That is, until last Monday. After being spoiled by an environment made up of mostly reasonable people for the last three years, you can imagine my surprise when I walked into class a week and a half ago to find a newer, larger, scarier version of the highly self-righteous yet poorly informed kids from my high school not only in my class, but leading it.
The date was Monday, Sept. 16. The time: 2 p.m. The place: The Curry School, basement level. I entered my SWAG 201 lecture on what seemed like a day like any other. We had a guest speaker: specifically, Wende Marshall, an assistant professor from the anthropology department. I sat down with my friend and awaited the beginning of class. All seemed well at first, and but soon after Marshall began her talk, it became quite evident that something was a little awry.
Right off the bat, the seemingly aggressive manner in which Marshall -- who was lecturing on poverty, race and gender -- spoke to the lecture hall was disarming, and, though disconcerting, this was acceptable because I assumed she had the facts to back up what she was saying, and was merely so passionate about the topic that she failed to realize that attacking people is not always the best way to get them to understand your side of an argument. However, this was just the beginning of the disaster that was to be Marshall's lecture. It soon became evident that Marshall did in fact have evidence to back up her argument -- one-sided, very incomplete evidence.
Things got off to a fairly reasonable start as Marshall began to tell us about the nature of poverty in America and Charlottesville, something about which few would deny we should all be aware. She provided interesting information off of a Web site that described the gap between the cost of living and the amount of money one can make working a 40-hour week at minimum wage. She told us how a disproportionate number of poverty victims are black and female; she also discussed the Moynihan report, which she informed us was published in the 1960s and claimed that economic problems in the black community were due to its matriarchal structure. Interesting. Though one was now beginning to get the feeling that we were only getting a small part of a larger picture, it wasn't until about 15 minutes into the class period when Marshall was asked for numbers and studies pertaining to her arguments that she pompously declared she "didn't do statistics," and things really started to get ugly.
Marshall, her outlandish attitude and statements gaining momentum, claimed that U.Va. is now and has always been a center for eugenics (the belief that people's genes are destiny and that they correspond to race) in the United States. She then told the class how the U.S. government was organized in order to "keep 'inferior' colored women from procreating." When asked to give examples, Marshall responded that "well, you can't just look at the state," and again referenced the Moynihan report. Which, may I remind you, is one study and hardly something upon which to base an entire argument, especially due to her failure to ever explain it in detail.
She then went on to tell us how "child support is all about trying to make poor men give money to poor children without figuring out how to make it the priority of the state." Just a sidenote, Ms. Marshall, but it is not and should not be the responsibility of the state to pay for the consequences of individuals' -- ahem, conscious -- and irresponsible decisions. Regardless of where you stand in regard to her opinions, the point is that Marshall stood at the front of the lecture hall for 45 minutes spouting out highly questionable and controversial viewpoints one after the other, never stopping to back up her claims. When she declared that "U.Va. is still a plantation," I had about had it. It was time for her to have to answer for what she was saying.
Playing devil's advocate, I raised my hand and asked her -- because she had spoken about the living wage -- what her response was to the economic laws which dictate that if the living wage is established, people will have to be fired. Marshall's reply: "Um, yeah. I don't respond to that."
Ah. I see. She elaborated: "All I know is, if people are working, they should be making enough to live. It's that simple." You are talking about overhauling the whole capitalist system on which our country is based, I retorted. Marshall: "Yup." Well, that's not simple, I said. Marshall: "I never said it was simple."
And so we have it. I'm going to say it straight out: Marshall needs to be observed by the administration, and if this lecture was any indication of her usual teaching style, she needs to be fired. Fast. It is a wonder that this woman was ever hired to teach at such a high-ranking University, and -- despite the overall strength of the faculty at U.Va. -- the fact that she was employed here calls the University's criteria for employment into question. She is by all means a rare exception and certainly not the rule as far as quality of professors go around U.Va., but the fact that such a lecture took place at a class at the University an atrocity. Measures -- such as a more extensive investigation into the teaching style of professors in practice -- need to be taken in the future to ensure that things of this nature never, ever, reoccur.
(Laura Parcells is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at lparcells@cavalierdaily.com)
Read More
UPADHYAYA: The Great and not-so-Good sides of U.Va.’s 2030 housing plan
By Apal Upadhyaya | YesterdayInstead of improving the dire state of existing infrastructure, however, the University has shifted attention away from it and chosen to expand.
EDITORIAL: Support low-barrier shelters in Charlottesville
By Editorial Board | 2 days agoInvesting in low-barrier shelters now will pay off in increased stability for the homeless, which will undoubtedly improve the safety of shelters and the community writ large.
SHRAUGER: McIntire’s three-year model limits opportunities for first-year students
By Alex Shrauger | 4 days agoBy pigeonholing students into commerce so early, the University violates its own mission of providing a holistic education that produces students capable of succeeding in a variety of fields.
