LSU, Tenure, and Profanity in the Classroom

September 9, 2015 7:44 AM

Teresa Buchanan, associate professor of education at LSU, was fired for using profanity in the classroom and allegedly comparing women unfavorably to men. THe administration defends their actions by equating Dr. Buchanan's conduct to sexual harassment. Faculty at LSU and the AAUP have both objected to alarming administrative overreach in what they both see as grounds for censure rather than dismissal. Several media reports are linked off of this Language Log post.
posted by jackbishop (43 comments total)

Here's LSU's side:

On Tuesday evening, the university released an additional statement saying that evidence suggests that Buchanan over several years “had berated, embarrassed, disparaged, maligned and denigrated young, primarily female students who aspired to become elementary school teachers. The investigation further revealed that at least one K-12 school principal forbade this faculty member from being in contact on school grounds with that school’s teachers and children, which significantly damaged her ability as a supervisor of student teachers to perform her duties.”

Louisiana State added that the number of student complaints about Buchanan’s “abuse likely would have been even higher had there not been fear by students that reporting the faculty member would lead to retribution,” since student teachers are especially vulnerable.

posted by Elementary Penguin at 7:53 AM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

In case anyone else was looking through the links for what she actually said, it seems she would occasionally say "fuck, no" in response to questions, once referred to someone as a pussy, and once made a joke that the quality of sex in a relationship might decline over time.

The first one is not even a problem as far as I'm concerned and the third might not be funny but certainly doesn't strike me as remotely a firing offense for a college professor. Which leaves us with her once referring to someone (not a student or something, probably a public figure?) as a pussy. Maybe worth a notice of censure as other faculty claim but I don't see how you can fire a tenured professor for it.
posted by Justinian at 8:00 AM on September 9, 2015 [4 favorites]

It does seem hard to reconcile the two claims about why she was fired.
posted by Justinian at 8:00 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think a lot of online liberals and lefties tend to reflexively support academic tenure as being a Good Thing for genuinely noble reasons (the pursuit of truth free from capitalist fetters, etc, etc.) but are often blindsided when tenure turns out bad (i.e., your kid's English professor is an MRA, makes regular rape jokes in class, disparages women, cries about how the gubmint is oppressing his "free speech", etc.)

Courts have generally ruled that colleges and universities have broad powers to determine the course of the educational experience that they offer. Basically, if a University decides that your teaching, as a professor, does not represent the overall mission or intellectual tone of the university, they are within their rights to let you go. The University has a right to, for lack of a better phrase, control it's "brand name" -- and this right supersedes whatever "free speech" rights the professor has in a classroom. This does sound harsh, but it is necessary. Imagine if a bunch of creationists infiltrated the Yale biology department and suddenly Yale becomes "The Creationist Ivy", with everybody being powerless to stop it.

This leads to many sad cases where good professors find themselves on the wrong side of an ideological fight. But it also leads to other cases (such as this one, apparently) where horrible, terrible professors are rightly shown the door.

The most important thing, I guess, is for students and parents to get a good idea of what a university considers in and out of bounds before applying. That way, you can avoid universities that hire MRAs (or creationists, or others of their ilk) to teach classes.
posted by Avenger at 8:02 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

The language stuff is crap, but other than that I can't find any mention of the claim I quoted from Buchanan's side. If the school has evidence of that, they should lead with it, because an Early Childhood Education professor being forbidden from entering a school that student teachers teach at suggests a real problem. If the students are afraid of retribution, that could explain it. If she is in fact banned from that school it would be nice to hear her explanation why. I suppose we'll hear it if this goes to trial.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:04 AM on September 9, 2015

So what was it that got her banned from elementary schools? That seems like the far more worrying situation to me, rather than oddball student complaints on end-of-year evaluation forms.
posted by Scattercat at 8:05 AM on September 9, 2015

Yeah, they should put up or shut up with a charge like that. It's quite serious.
posted by Justinian at 8:06 AM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

Which leaves us with her once referring to someone (not a student or something, probably a public figure?) as a pussy. Maybe worth a notice of censure as other faculty claim but I don't see how you can fire a tenured professor for it.

This case seems like a mess, but this was also the charge that caught my eye as something the university should intervene in (a pattern of that language usage would reasonably be sexual harassment of the "hostile workplace" variety), although firing for a one time use would seem extreme to me, even absent the tenure issue.

That said, the professor who is using that kind of language in an early childhood education class seems consistent with the claim of a pattern of berating young, primarily female students who wanted to be teachers. Together with the claim that she is banned from elementary schools, I wouldn't be ready to say there definitely wasn't a good reason for her firing.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:07 AM on September 9, 2015

The Advocate has some good articles with additional details here and here. Many of her former students are commenting and the vast majority loved her.
posted by tafetta, darling! at 8:11 AM on September 9, 2015

Here's more about the banning:

Buchanan said Cancienne had asked repeatedly for her to send teachers to Iberville Parish, but she’d resisted because it’s a relatively low performing district, and her students teachers need to see standout teaching so they know what to do themselves. She said the program got off to a rocky start there, but she denied any unprofessional behavior.

She said she voluntarily agreed to no longer supervise the LSU student teachers in Iberville after Cancienne called her to complain. She said she thinks Cancienne’s complaints, and LSU’s desire to placate him, had something to do with her firing.

So that is less persuasive than LSU's version.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 8:16 AM on September 9, 2015

Many of her former students are commenting and the vast majority loved her.

Which has nothing to do with whether or not there is a problem with her methods.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:25 AM on September 9, 2015 [10 favorites]

Also, after what happened at Marquette, I no longer see the AAUP as being neutral on this sort of matter. They have shown a willingness to defend the conduct of professors and downplay the seriousness of what is presented.
posted by NoxAeternum at 8:31 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

538 ranks states on government corruption. LSU is by far the largest university in the state and is in the state capitol Baton Rouge. The reason she is fired is somebody with stroke doesn't like her. Period.
posted by bukvich at 8:42 AM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

> But it also leads to other cases (such as this one, apparently) where horrible, terrible professors are rightly shown the door.

What the hell are you talking about? Did you even read the story, or do you just automatically take the employer's side in any dispute? This is a messy affair and it's not clear what the facts are, but I find your simplistic take bizarre and repugnant.
posted by languagehat at 8:46 AM on September 9, 2015 [12 favorites]

Also, thanks for the post, jackbishop; it's an interesting story and I'm curious to see what MeFi makes of it.
posted by languagehat at 8:46 AM on September 9, 2015

"Using profanity in the classroom" is the kind of rule that only exists for selective enforcement. College professors curse all the time and nobody cares.
If they're leading with that, they have nothing and it's purely political. If there was documented harassment, they would lead with that - it's infinitely more actionable and sympathetic to the admin.
posted by Mitrovarr at 8:50 AM on September 9, 2015 [5 favorites]

The committee did recommend her censure, but it sounds like, from the articles and the comments to the articles, that the elementary school superintendent didn't like her for whatever reason, complained about her to the president of LSU, and then the president of LSU looked for an excuse to fire her.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 9:01 AM on September 9, 2015

Frankly, when I hear someone say something like

What a teacher or student might call ‘rude’ might be also called ‘blunt.’ What a teacher or student might call ‘unprofessional’ might also called be ‘honest.’ And what a teacher or student might call ‘cruel’ might also be called ‘holding high standards with low tolerance for poor teaching.’

I tend to start looking very askance at them, because it really sounds like they're looking to demand that people excuse their improper behavior. Then when you add this statement:

“The documented evidence I’ve seen is primarily limited to student evaluations,” Buchanan said Wednesday. “The things they refer to were taken out of context and inaccurate. This certainly is an issue of academic freedom and free speech."

Then I start wondering if the lady doth protest too much.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:11 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

In that vein, Buchanan said, she at times employed humor in trying to get her students to realize the heavy demands of the teaching profession.

For example, she said, her young female teachers often have very supportive boyfriends who will help them set up their rooms at the beginning of the school year, but she tells them not to count on that.

“In the beginning of a relationship, while the sex is good, your partner will do anything he can to help you,” Buchanan recalled telling students. “After two or three years, don’t count on him coming out.”

That is WILDLY inappropriate. Of course, its not possible for us to know if we can extrapolate her general attitude and demeanor toward her female students from one example, but, man. Yeah, that is certainly flashing me back to a professor I get panic attacks even thinking about.

She probably should have been given an opportunity to change instead of firing, but there are so many nuances we don't know about.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 9:12 AM on September 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

Does anyone know who the principal is who reportedly banned her? (Or, really, what school they adminstrate?) I ask because to me this seems like maybe the biggest cudgel, and Louisiana is such a profoundly weird state. There's a vast difference between southern Louisiana and northern Louisiana, and I'm just curious where the territory is here. That principal could be a big-time evangelical sort, or a much more progressive type, and even though the particular location may not reveal all, it could possibly yield some clues. It all seems quite odd.
posted by taz at 9:12 AM on September 9, 2015

Imagine if a bunch of creationists infiltrated the Yale biology department and suddenly Yale becomes "The Creationist Ivy", with everybody being powerless to stop it.

This literally happens, and it is part and parcel of how academic freedom works.

It's a totally different issue than harassment in the classroom.
posted by kiltedtaco at 9:21 AM on September 9, 2015 [9 favorites]

I could imagine circumstances in which using that kind of language over time could result in a situation meriting firing after censure. But I don't see evidence of there being berating of students or sexual harassment via inappropriate language.

ifds: that sounds so much like someone in my department. I'd literally be much healthier today if she'd been fired for that sort of thing a long time ago.
posted by persona au gratin at 9:35 AM on September 9, 2015

To be clear: I really mean that I don't see the evidence, but it may well exist.
posted by persona au gratin at 9:39 AM on September 9, 2015

To be clear: I really mean that I don't see the evidence, but it may well exist.

It sounds like the core of the evidence is in student evaluations, which are meant to be anonymous and not typically for public perusal.
posted by NoxAeternum at 9:45 AM on September 9, 2015

For comparative purposes, a very former colleague of mine killed another faculty member (DUI) and couldn't be fired until he pled guilty about a year later.

Generally speaking, lawsuits against public institutions (as opposed to private ones) succeed when the faculty member demonstrates that not all i's and t's were appropriately dotted and crossed. Normally, there has to be a disciplinary trail, complete with lots of letters in the file, before you fire a tenured faculty member; if they just fired her out of nowhere, without any record of proceedings, then she probably has a pretty good case, no matter what she did or didn't do.

I would be more willing to opine on what she did or didn't do, except that...I can't tell. Swearing in class is something I don't do, but it's worth an eye-roll, at most. Swearing at a student or at another faculty member would be a different kettle of fish. Anonymous course evaluations may or may not be instructive--a disciplinary committee would probably shrug at "too hard," "too many readings," or what-have-you, but if students consistently report bad behavior aimed at them ("professor insults students instead of answering questions"), then again, people will take note. (Depending on the institution, written comments may not go past the individual faculty member, or they may go to the department chair, dean, etc.) I don't think any of this is going to be clarified until there's an actual court case and participants have to start discussing documentation and specifics.
posted by thomas j wise at 10:07 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

I work with this stuff (tenure and promotions) and these people (education professors and supervisors of teacher education) for a living. I'm actually shocked that she was fired, irrespective of having tenure.

We have faculty who work in public schools, supervising student teachers who are working towards their teaching credential. The relationship between the school and the university, with the faculty member being the liaison and the 'face' of the university, is extremely important. So, when we have problems with the placement of students (or faculty) in a specific school, we do our best to correct the situation. That sometimes means removing a student teacher or their supervisor if it's a bad fit. It just something that happens. It comes with the territory.

That's the supervision part of it. But the fact that she was denied her promotion is astounding to me. She had positive extramural letters, a good service record, and a decent amount of publications (although she averaged fewer than two a year, which might have been an issue in the department where I work). Still, the outside reviewers saw her as worthy of promotion. Her school and her dean supported the promotion. The promotion/tenure committee on campus supported her promotion. All of those facts should add up to a promotion. It is ultimately the Provost's (or Provost-equivalent's) decision, and all of those other recommendations are strictly advisory, but I have never, ever, ever seen the decision-maker so resolutely ignore all of the evidence in favor. The little bit of evidence against her maybe warrants censure or corrective action, but it shouldn't stand in the way of her promotion. (At my school, a professor who had really, really bad teaching evaluations was promoted from Associate to Full this year. The p/t committee on campus criticized the professor's teaching, but the fact that the professor has brought in millions of dollars in grant money worked in their favor.)

We have faculty members who say stupid things, and we have students who complain about them. It is, again, a thing that happens. The complaint is addressed, the faculty member is told to do things differently, and it (usually) ends there. The reaction here by the university administration is just bizarre to me. It seems like there HAS to be more to the story, because I'm sure not seeing anything that makes sense.

On another note, the other immediate reaction I had to this story was "Ha, of course the scandal exists within a teacher education program." I deal with four graduate programs, teacher education being one of them, and it is by far the most dysfunctional. Every year we have at least one or two major issues within the program. Examples: A handful of teachers-to-be form a clique and bully another student. A group of students make insensitive remarks about children of immigrants on a class listserv. A student gets a poor grade on a presentation, scrapes the email addresses of every faculty/staff member/student named on the website and sends a blast email enumerating the instructor's many faults, including the fact that she dresses "slutty." Those are just from the past three years. I don't know if the students who want to become teachers are interested in the teaching profession because they never outgrew junior high, or whether they regress to a junior high mentality from spending so much time in schools. Either way, dealing with the whole program -- students and faculty alike -- is like dealing with a bunch of petulant 7th graders.

I think firing Buchanan was a huge overreaction to correctible problems, but seeing that she works in a teacher education program made me do a little nod of familiarity and recognition.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:05 AM on September 9, 2015 [10 favorites]

Mod note: One comment removed; please don't pull general arguments from another thread in here, better to focus on the specifics of this actual post.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:18 AM on September 9, 2015

That is WILDLY inappropriate.

Actually, I don't see how it's inappropriate at all. It's mildly amusing, and good advice to teachers: you have to depend on yourself, and you can't rely on others to always help you. The assumption that there must be secret information here, and "nuances" that we don't understand, strikes me as highly unlikely. A public institution has an obligation to prove a professor is incompetent, and the evidence they've offered doesn't come remotely close to doing that. Instead, this decision seems to be a product of people's personal prejudices against swearing by professors. And I do wonder, based on LSU's emphasis on the fact that these were predominantly female students, if this is a case of sexism: that female professors who teach female students are held to a very different standard than a male coach or a male professor would be.
posted by JohnKarlWilson at 11:39 AM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

I think there was two ways to read that “in the beginning of a relationship, while the sex is good, your partner will do anything he can to help you” statement.

1. Everything wanes in a relationship, so rely on yourself. In this case the "while the sex is good" aside is just a colorful descriptor and could be removed from the sentence with no change in meaning.

2. Your partner is only helping you because the sex is good. In this case the "while the sex is good" is meant as a causal link.

Until Nox rephrased the sentiment I couldn't see the much more offensive second reading.

I feel like I don't really have a strong enough grasp on the actual facts of this Buchanan case right now and the facts could be read in either direction depending on who's interpreting them. My mind changes based on what I read last basically.
posted by john-a-dreams at 12:07 PM on September 9, 2015

At this point, I'm really interested in what those evaluations said, especially considering the "well, that's taken out of context" argument, which always comes with the faint aroma of eau de bullshit.
posted by NoxAeternum at 12:16 PM on September 9, 2015

The University has a right to, for lack of a better phrase, control it's "brand name" -- and this right supersedes whatever "free speech" rights the professor has in a classroom. This does sound harsh, but it is necessary. Imagine if a bunch of creationists infiltrated the Yale biology department and suddenly Yale becomes "The Creationist Ivy", with everybody being powerless to stop it.

This leads to many sad cases where good professors find themselves on the wrong side of an ideological fight. But it also leads to other cases (such as this one, apparently) where horrible, terrible professors are rightly shown the door.

...

posted by Avenger at 8:02 AM on September 9 [2 favorites +] [!]

You're just making stuff up. This is simply not true, nor is it how tenure and academic freedom work.
posted by jayder at 12:45 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

To echo something from mudpuppie's excellent comment: to have a tenured faculty member's recommendations from the department, the college, the dean, and the university be in favor of promotion; and to have her fired by the provost instead, just never, never happens. It never even happens that the provost overrules the recommendations from below and denies promotion. So there must be something else here.

(Our two most dysfunctional departments are education and business, in that order.)
posted by persona au gratin at 12:45 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

It never even happens that the provost overrules the recommendations from below

I have seen this happen. A couple of years later there was a new provost.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:54 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

She shouldn't be discussing her students' sex lives in class at all. But more than that, she shouldn't be accusing her female undergrads of trading sex for favors. There's no reason she couldn't teach the lesson that you can't rely on volunteers to do your work without bringing the the studemts' sex lives into it. Saying, "You need to be responsible for setting up your classroom because you can't always rely on volunteers to help you," is one thing; saying, "Eventually you're not going to be able to whore yourself out for free labor," is another.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:58 PM on September 9, 2015 [7 favorites]

You're just making stuff up. This is simply not true, nor is it how tenure and academic freedom work.
posted by jayder at 12:45 PM on September 9 [+] [!]

No actually it's a fairly non-controversial interpretation of the case law, especially Wirsing v. U. of Colorado (1990) and Edwards v. California University of Pennsylvania (1998).
posted by Avenger at 3:51 PM on September 9, 2015

"At this point, I'm really interested in what those evaluations said, especially considering the "well, that's taken out of context" argument, which always comes with the faint aroma of eau de bullshit."

Well, impugning someone because you think that "taken out of context" is default bullshit is itself bullshit, and I wish you'd knock it off.
posted by klangklangston at 4:44 PM on September 9, 2015 [1 favorite]

What a teacher or student might call ‘rude’ might be also called ‘blunt.’ What a teacher or student might call ‘unprofessional’ might also called be ‘honest.’ And what a teacher or student might call ‘cruel’ might also be called ‘holding high standards with low tolerance for poor teaching.’

That is a direct quote taken from Buchanan.

“The documented evidence I’ve seen is primarily limited to student evaluations,” Buchanan said Wednesday. “The things they refer to were taken out of context and inaccurate. This certainly is an issue of academic freedom and free speech."

Hey, look, another direct comment.

Buchanan said Cancienne had asked repeatedly for her to send teachers to Iberville Parish, but she’d resisted because it’s a relatively low performing district, and her students teachers need to see standout teaching so they know what to do themselves. She said the program got off to a rocky start there, but she denied any unprofessional behavior.

While not a direct comment, it's clear that it was taken from her statements.

(All these are taken from the two Advocate pieces linked here.)

So before you start assuming that someone is just talking without reading up on the matter, perhaps you should read up yourself, lest you be made to look like a fool.
posted by NoxAeternum at 5:57 PM on September 9, 2015

Mod note: Civility, gentlefolk, civility. Thank you.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 6:09 PM on September 9, 2015 [3 favorites]

We simply don't have enough information. If Buchanan has any sense she won't release anything prejudicial to her case, and the university has said that it won't comment further while the matter is sub judice. So either this is a crazy blowup, or there's something genuinely problematic that didn't come out before everybody clamped down.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:20 PM on September 9, 2015 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Was r_n's note not clear? A few comments deleted. Take it to MeMail -- or don't, as long as you keep it out of here. I don't plan on making this request a third time.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane (staff) at 12:10 AM on September 10, 2015

She shouldn't be discussing her students' sex lives in class at all.

Unfair reading. If one or more students had responded to her colorful explanation by actually discussing their sex lives, there would have been a massive record scratch moment for her "What the hell, is this the Twilight Zone/Candid Camera?"

But more than that, she shouldn't be accusing her female undergrads of trading sex for favors.

Are you arguing that she did so just then?
posted by sebastienbailard at 1:07 AM on September 10, 2015

I'm loathe to take much of anything at face value here. For example, some (much?) of this seems driven by Iberville Parish School Superintendent Ed Cancienne, and looking around, it seems that there has been controversy involving "shadow schools," or elite "alternative schools" in Iberville Parish, among a couple of others (including St. James where Cancienne formerly worked) where, reportedly, high performing student scores are attributed to their low performing originating school to raise those schools' scores. From the article:

It is wrong to sacrifice poor children to improve the lot of others. Despite what Reformers would have you believe poor children are not less valuable than rich kids. They are not disposable batteries like Iberville uses them for. They should not be abandoned because wealthier kids are easier to reach. This is exactly what is happening overtly with Shadow Schools, but covertly nationwide when schools for poor kids are closed and the kids are shipped across the school district to hide the problem, hide the individual struggling students among the masses.

Here's a story about North Iberville High School that was closed, and those students forced to bus 75 miles round trip to another school; parents and community leaders hoped to start a charter school to avoid this (and have been unsuccessful, I believe):

Cancienne said he had hoped the district’s plan to launch a new science, technology, engineering and mathematics program in the fall on the old North Iberville High campus would have satisfied the community’s desires to see another community-based school.
...

[Rev. John] Jordan said he understands the vision Cancienne has for the STEM program in north Iberville but believes many students in that area would be getting shortchanged because they wouldn’t qualify for admission.

“When I read the requirements and the demographics that would be served there, that school does not really meet the needs,” Jordan said. “I don’t feel our kids should be overlooked from going there because they don’t meet those high standards.”

(Here's an uncritical view of the alternative schools.)

So, just looking at this information, when I read that part of the reason for Teresa Buchanan's dismissal is "conflict with Iberville Parish Superintendent Ed Cancienne," and she says she resisted sending trainee teachers to Iberville Parish "because it’s a relatively low performing district, and her students teachers need to see standout teaching so they know what to do themselves," I have to wonder if some of this stuff is in the background of that, and thus a much more political maneuver / reckoning against her than a case of using the F-word, etc.
posted by taz at 3:57 AM on September 10, 2015 [5 favorites]

(in other words, without having all the information myself, what I've been reading makes me suspicious that the convoluted administration of Iberville Parish schools means that poor kids are getting shortchanged while money and resources are funneled to elite programs that artificially boost public school scores and keep them from being removed from parish control and funding, and Buchanan didn't want to support this paradigm – or possibly other Iberville Parish school policies – with her program, and is being punished for this.)
posted by taz at 4:14 AM on September 10, 2015 [1 favorite]