quote:

The Right Coast Blog Post

Prof. Smith has run the The Right Coast blog for as long as I can remember. The blog is a traditional blog, mostly reprinting excerpts of news stories packaged with a little commentary added. Because Prof. Smith is viewed as right-of-center, he is watched. I’m pretty sure there was some prior kerfuffle involving his blog, though I can’t find a link to it. There are students who have spent a lot of time scrutinizing his writings.

On March 10, 2021, Prof. Smith ran this post excerpting a Wall Street Journal article, Wuhan Lab Theory a Dark Cloud on China – WSJ (emphasis added):

Wuhan Lab Theory a Dark Cloud on China – WSJ
By Tom Smith

Alas, the World Health Organization mission is turning into a case of disaster foretold. A credible inquiry requires China’s full cooperation, not just cooperation with those lines of inquiry that are consistent with its own propaganda. And couldn’t somebody have put Peter Daszak, team member from New York City’s EcoHealth Alliance, under permanent mouth quarantine?

To insist that human encroachment on nature is the great risk tells us nothing about what happened in this particular case. To insist, as he did on NPR, that China’s manhandling of the delegation with greeters in full hazmat garb, its forcing of the visitors into 14-day quarantine, was merely testament to China’s Covid rigor overlooks another possibility: China was seeking to intimidate and dominate the investigators because of the colossal importance it places on controlling the virus narrative.

via www.wsj.com

If you believe that the coronavirus did not escape from the lab in Wuhan, you have to at least consider that you are an idiot who is swallowing whole a lot of Chinese cock swaddle. At least Peter Daszak has good personal and financial reasons, not to mention reasons of career preservation, for advancing what he must know is a facially implausible thesis. But whatever. Go Science!

UPDATE: It appears that some people are interpreting my reference to “Chinese cock swaddle,” as a reference to an ethnic group. That is a misinterpretation. To be clear, I was referring to the Chinese government.

Was the pejorative term “Chinese cock swaddle” a smear of the Chinese people as an ethnic group, rather than the Chinese government? There is no plausible claim that Prof. Smith was disparaging Chinese people as an ethnic group, as UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh points out through a plain reading of the text:

In context, it seems clear that the post’s reference to “Chinese” is indeed a reference to the Chinese government, not to people of Chinese extraction….

Even without the UPDATE, it’s clear that the reference to “Chinese cock swaddle” must be a reference to the government of China, not to Chinese-Americans or to people of Chinese extraction. The title of the post is about China, and the quote refers four times to China (“China’s full cooperation,” “China’s manhandling of the delegation,” “China’s Covid rigor,” “China was seeking”). Though “Chinese” sometimes refers to the government, sometimes to the nation, and sometimes to the ethnic group, here the referent is clear, and it isn’t to Chinese-Americans or to USD law students from China or anything like that….

Yet I stress again that the blog post is not “disparaging language” or “epithets, derogatory comments, or slurs based on race or national origin” towards any “members of the [USD] community” (students, faculty, or staff). It is disparaging language towards China, in context referring to the government of China.

Student Petition for Termination

There does not appear to have been any reaction or complaint immediately after the blog post was published. Just in the past couple of days, however, law school students launched into a campaign to get Prof. Smith fired over the comment.

The Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) delivered a lengthy, heavily footnoted demand letter (pdf.) to Prof. Smith dated March 19, 2021, which requested “an Apology on Behalf of All the Affinity Groups You Have Harmed”:

You are now likely aware of the tremendous amount of reaction and response that this post has generated from the student body, our school’s various organizations, our school’s alumni, and the larger community of San Diego. We are extremely hurt by your words. We want this letter to educate you on how your words have a greater, adverse impact on your own students at USD and the community at large. Specifically, we are writing to express the depth of hurt and disappointment you caused to the Asian Pacific Islander (API) community….

Your blog post promoting a conspiracy theory that COVID-19 originated in a lab from Wuhan, China, has detrimental consequences for students you teach and beyond. Based on your update to the blog post[1], you still have not grasped the severity of the issue or its wider implications for the community that you inhabit. At this point, the origins of COVID-19 are still largely speculative. We are not here to say that any conclusion about the origins of COVID-19 is right or wrong. That deflects from the point. The point is that your speculation of COVID-19 originating from a lab in China only perpetuates an “us versus them” mentality that negatively impacts the API community….

We came to law school hoping we could arm ourselves against such indignities, and yet we are asked to endure them from our own professors under the guise of academic and scholarly debate….

Please consider your position as a community leader who represents the law school. Please consider the diverse students at USD Law and how unsafe they may feel learning from you. Please recognize the difference between intent versus impact. We recognize it may not have been your intent to cause harm, but you did. Take ownership, listen, learn, and do better. All law students are required to take an oath of professionalism prior to law school and our professors must be held to the same standard….

While APALSA did not call for Prof. Smith’s termination in the letter, a student petition does just that. It reads:

Petition for USD School of Law to Terminate Contract with Professor Tom Smith

To the Leadership at the University of San Diego and the School of Law,

The legal field demands from its professionals an ethical obligation to comply with the requirements and standards of both their institution and the greater field of law. Law professors are subject to the regulations of the institutions at which they teach and to professional guidelines that are more generally applicable to attorneys as a whole. Their responsibilities extend beyond the classroom. We as future legal professionals recognize our ethical obligation to understand how our words and our actions will reflect upon our profession, and the institutions we represent.

Law professors are charged with molding the next generation of attorneys, imparting a strong ethical code, and abiding by the same Oath of Professionalism every USD Law student is asked to adhere to on our first day of law school. However, it seems that USD Law has decided students must be held to a higher standard than the professors they employ to teach.

quote:

Originally posted by 357fuzz:
We don’t have a large Asian community where I am at. Of the people of Asian decent a majority are Vietnamese w/ some Thai and Laotian sprinkled in. The vast majority of the Vietnamese are conservative.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by 357fuzz:
We don’t have a large Asian community where I am at. Of the people of Asian decent a majority are Vietnamese w/ some Thai and Laotian sprinkled in. The vast majority of the Vietnamese are conservative.

Leaving your life behind to escape communism will do that to you.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:
In 2020 there was 31 racially motivated attacks on Asians and 660+ on Jewish people. I'm pretty sure Jewish people are not cowering in their homes scared to death.

quote:

Originally posted by Aeteocles:

quote:

Originally posted by 357fuzz:
We don’t have a large Asian community where I am at. Of the people of Asian decent a majority are Vietnamese w/ some Thai and Laotian sprinkled in. The vast majority of the Vietnamese are conservative.

Leaving your life behind to escape communism will do that to you.