"You are close to failing in any event, so these sort of excuses -culturally driven and preying on some sort of Western liberal guilt - are simply lame," said Auckland University lecturer Paul Buchanan in an email to Emirati student Asma Al Yamahi, according to Gulf News. That email led to his termination.
“He is a racist man and he deserved to be sacked from the university,” Asma told Gulf News by telephone from Auckland, N.Z. “I am the only person wearing a scarf in the class and at the beginning of the course he was looking at me very strangely. He didn’t like me.”
Buchanan reportedly apologized for the email. He claimed, among other things, that he was he was facing an end to funding for the New Zealand Center for Latin American Studies, of which he was acting director, and was recovering from bowel surgery. The Gulf News also reports that he complained about the "poor quality" of some overseas students.
"It was hurting us in our graduate classes because these people were badly under prepared and in some cases had no background in political science whatsoever," Buchanan said, according to the Gulf News.
Here is the full text of the email:
| http://archive.gulfnews.com/nation/Education/10145293.html |
08/09/2007 09:42 AM | By Daniel Bardsley, Staff Reporter
Dear Asma,
I say this reluctantly but not so subtly: you are not suitable for a graduate degree. It does not matter if your father died or if you have a medical certificate.
I have been too nice and given you too high marks all along (at C+). I do not anticipate that you will do better in the final exercise. You are already a day late.
The extension is meaningless because you have not attended the last few classes and are the worst performer in the class.
Of course by a far stretch, you will have the obituary of your father, but even if available and the student health people might have believed you, I do not.
You are close to failing in any event, so these sort of excuses -culturally driven and preying on some sort of Western liberal guilt - are simply lame.
Prove that your father died and you were distraught and unable to complete assignments and - in spite of your abysmal record to date as an underperforming and underqualified student - and perhaps you might qualify for an extension to get a C-.
But as it stands, you will flunk since you are already a day late and your track record is poor. By the way, are you a Hoadley student? That would explain a lot of things.
In a word: NO - I do not accept your extension request.
PGB
Paul G Buchanan
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