Ten years ago, people might have taken this seriously but things have changed.
The College Fix reports:
Mizzou professor accused of racism after she asked student for update on workThe University of Missouri cleared a professor of racism allegations after a fellow academic reported her to the school’s bias team for asking a student to give an update on her research, according to documents obtained by The College Fix.The result of the investigation highlights criticisms of bias reporting systems, which can include ratting people out based on hearsay evidence.Professor Michael Garcia filed the complaint with Mizzou’s bias response team based on what a “senior graduate student” told him. The Fix recently obtained hundreds of pages of bias reports for fall 2024 semester after filing a public records request.Garcia accused a fellow biology professor of “holding students of color to lower standards than majority students” because she accused a graduate student of plagiarizing from an undergraduate.The graduate student who made this allegation to Garcia also complained about the accused professor asking her to get an update from an undergraduate student who had taken sick time.“I do have to mention that the undergraduate submitted her paper first,” Garcia wrote in his Oct. 2024 complaint. “Thus, if chronology is the only thing being considered this would make sense. However, it would seem odd for a senior graduate student to plagiarize an undergraduate.”Christopher Ave, the director of media relations at Mizzou, confirmed to The Fix over email that “the University of Missouri Office of Institutional Equity reviewed the matter,” and “no information was identified to indicate a policy violation,” so “the matter was closed.”The Fix reached out to Garcia over email multiple times in the past several weeks, asking how he views the result of the complaint, how often students come to him with complaints about other faculty, and how he determines whether allegations are valid.
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