The waste of space called "Better than Stick Figures" has crossed the line of decency. In the April 18 issue of The Spectrum, the "artist," if you could even call him that, insults the English speaking skills of Asian teaching assistants, saying students ought to be given foreign language credits for attending Chem 101.
Paul Hebert's insensitivity is extremely disturbing and exemplifies the very racism and bigotry that caused the reverse discrimination perpetuated by Affirmative Action. If anything, students are lucky to have a teaching assistant who cares enough about others to become a teaching assistant in the first place. We should be grateful and honored that these students travel so far from their native countries just to study in the United States and at the University at Buffalo.
According to university policy, all international graduate students who have been awarded teaching, research or graduate assistantships must demonstrate their oral English language proficiency by taking the Speaking Proficiency English Assessment Kit test at a cost of $60 per student. This test assesses their spoken English proficiency and measures their degree of comprehensibility in English. A score of 55 out of 60 is required of all international teaching assistants. The foreign teaching assistants I encountered as an undergraduate were nothing but helpful to me, and I seriously doubt that Paul Hebert has a level of dedication to learning and education anywhere near what these students exhibit. I'm sure that if more American students were as committed to a higher education in such technically demanding fields, you would see more American teaching assistants in your laboratory classes.
Hebert's cartoon was not even amusing in the least and undermines the university's efforts at promoting diversity and helping these students feel welcome and more at home in a foreign country. How many of us could complete our undergraduate education, pack up everything and leave the United States alone to further our studies in a completely foreign land?
Shame on Hebert; I am sorry he is so narrow-minded. With his views, he can never appreciate the diversity that makes our country so unique. He is entitled to freedom of speech and opinion, but to promote his racist and bigoted views in a university-sanctioned publication that is funded by the very students who he is criticizing is simply unacceptable and disgusting.
We live in a civilized society: we should not tolerate this type of discrimination and immature racial intolerance that Paul Hebert has demonstrated.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
