Duke Professor Defiant After School Condemns Racially Charged Remarks

A Duke University professor was defiant after the school last week condemned his “noxious” and “offensive” words in a letter published in The New York Times in which he compared African-Americans unfavorably to Asian-Americans.

The school’s rebuke came after a student backlash against Political Science Professor Jerry Hough, 80, whose May 9 letter sought to address racism and the Baltimore riots. Hough said African-Americans don’t try to integrate into society, while Asians “worked doubly hard” to overcome racism instead of blaming it.

“Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration,” he wrote on May 10. “Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.”

Duke students and faculty blasted Hough last week, and the school told The News & Observer of Raleigh that he was placed on leave and that 2016 will be his last year at the school.

“The comments were noxious, offensive, and have no place in civil discourse,” said Duke spokesman Michael Schoenfeld. {snip}

But Hough, in an e-mail to an ABC affiliate, said political correctness is getting in the way of thoughtful and frank debate.

“I am strongly against the obsession with ‘sensitivity,'” Hough wrote. “The more we have emphasized sensitivity in recent years, the worse race relations have become. I think that is not an accident. I know that the 60 years since the Montgomery bus boycott is a long time, and things must be changed. The Japanese and other Asians did not obsess with the concentration camps and the fact they were linked with blacks as ‘colored.’”

{snip}

[Editor’s Note: You can email Professor Hough at jhough@duke.edu.]