Please accept my personal and sincere apologies for the insensitive language recently found on my laboratory's website. I find the language offensive and I am embarrassed by the poor judgment exhibited in posting the offending language. Although I was unaware of the existence of this page until it was brought to my attention, I accept full responsibility. I have taken steps to remove the offending language and will arrange for appropriate training for my research group and me relative to the UCSD Principles of Community.A snapshot of Dr. K---'s apology letter is available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/large/305804015.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJF3XCCKACR3QDMOA&Expires=1306293416&Signature=VrQ2Q0yYMZtijjChKd13kt41HAI%3D
----. K---.
Professor,Chemistry & Biochemistry
-----
Updated May 23, 2011
It is not my intent to criticize anyone particularly but to promote the public awareness of racial issues on campus when I wrote this open letter.
For my Chinese friends, I am proud of those who stood out during this incident, especially RoamingGhost, who wrote the first version of this letter and contacted the President of UC and the Chancellor of UCSD. For any friends from other ethic groups, I would like to emphasize that the C word is as offensive to Chinese as the N word to African-Americans and the K word to Jews. Do not use it. Additionally, any racial discrimination issues are serious. You must be responsible for what you say. Try to communicate before you complain. Try to be considerate with other ethnic groups.
I will keep my promise and am willing to bring this letter down or at least remove Dr. K---'s name when I see the formal apology of Dr. K----.
Here is an apology from UC San Diego: http://physicalsciences.ucsd.edu/
---------An apology for insensitive comments on Professor K----'s research lab website
On behalf of President Mark Yudof, Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, and the UC San Diego community we are truly disappointed by the insensitive and offensive language that appeared on the website of Professor ------ K-----.
This language does not conform to our commitment to the UCSD Principles of Community. We have communicated today with Professor K----- who has ensured that the offending language has been removed and he will provide a formal, written apology. This apology will be posted on Professor K-----’s website. Further, we have asked the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) to review the matter. Please accept our sincere apologies on behalf of the University.
Suresh Subramani
Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Mark Thiemens
Dean, Division of Physical Sciences
Updated May 23, 2011
I would like to highlight the comment of an anonymous reader who is familiar with Dr. K----. I am willing to believe this reader: this incident is due to misunderstanding instead of Dr. K----'s true intention.
It is not my intention to critic anyone particularly but to promote the public awareness of racial issues on campus. If I receive any formal explanation of Dr. K---- or representatives of Dr. K----- or UCSD, I am willing to bring this letter down and looking forward to a smooth resolution.
I see what you've written and I'm sure it will be removed once brought to their attention.
Professor K----- is one of the biggest proponents of acceptance of all races and diversity on campus. I had him in CHEM 6C and I can attest that he never made any sort of inappropriate comments in class and he was always very respectful and supportive of all students in class and outside of class in his office hours in addition to being a brilliant man and excellent teacher.
Also, I think anyone who's ever worked in a lab (I did this past summer) knows professors don't have time to make, edit, and monitor frivolous details like their own site. I think from the context of the snapshot you have, it's obvious the lab rules there are satirical. I think that term shouldn't be used but I, as an Asian-American, do not find it offensive, especially since it's an old general term and not equivalent to the N word. Instead of writing an open letter and creating controversy, why didn't you just e-mail him personally?
He is a very responsive person and I'm sure he would have removed it immediately once it was brought to his attention, just like any other professor at school.
Also, to bring more attention to his true character, I know he and his wife donated millions to support students' educations at UCSD from an article I found googling him. Don't throw out accusations and make assumptions without knowing someone.
------------
This open letter is adapted from a letter by RoamingGhost at http://www.mitbbs.com/article_t/Military/35811421.html
I am writing to bring to the public attention a racial discrimination incident at the University of California, San Diego.The webpage mentioned in this letter is archived in Google Cache at
Dr. ----- -. K-----, a faculty member in the Dept. of -----, openly states that "3.Don't believe anything the Chinaman says." in his lab's website (http://-----.ucsd.edu/labrules.php). As any well-educated people should have known, the C word is as offensive to Chinese as the N word to African Americans and the K word to Jews. It is really shocking that Dr. K----- uses the C word and attacks the integrity of Chinese people, openly and officially in the university-hosted website. As a Chinese, I am deeply uncomfortable with Dr. K-----'s statements and feel disappointed that UCSD even allows such incident from happening.
The fact that this incident happens in a publicly funded lab at a prestigious university is shameful. What concerns me even more, racial discrimination seems a widely spread issue on the UC campuses. For example, Alexandra Wallace, a UCLA student, posted racially discriminatory video clip to Youtube not long ago. The UC system obviously fails to fulfill its responsibility to educate its faculty members and students on racial issues.
I hope that UCSD takes immediate action to deal with Dr. K----- inappropriate and seemly racial discriminatory statements and demand Dr. K-----'s apology to the Chinese students community. I believe the UC system will learn from this unfortunate incident and take the education of racial issue more seriously. I would also like to see more friendly communications between different ethnic groups on campuses so that we together make the UC campus a better place.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:e7DW-P-AlsUJ:kubiak.ucsd.edu/labrules.php+http://kubiak.ucsd.edu/labrules.php&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com
The webpage is also archived by Internet Archives:
http://web.archive.org/web/20090503020539/http://kubiak.ucsd.edu/labrules.php
A snapshot of the webpage on May 21, 2011 is shown below.
http://kubiak.ucsd.edu/labrules.php
18 comments:
support! thank you for bring this up to public!
Can you send the image to the news media like CNN, MSNBC, etc.
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?10
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339
google cache is a strong support to sue this racist professor
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:e7DW-P-AlsUJ:kubiak.ucsd.edu/labrules.php+http://kubiak.ucsd.edu/labrules.php&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a&source=www.google.com
please change "a faculty" to "a faculty member", similarly, "faculties" to "faculty members"
Support! Some nasty people have to learn a hard lesson before they know how to respect other human being.
Great.
Strong Support!!!
I see what you've written and I'm sure it will be removed once brought to their attention.
Professor Kubiak is one of the biggest proponents of acceptance of all races and diversity on campus. I had him in CHEM 6C and I can attest that he never made any sort of inappropriate comments in class and he was always very respectful and supportive of all students in class and outside of class in his office hours in addition to being a brilliant man and excellent teacher.
Also, I think anyone who's ever worked in a lab (I did this past summer) knows professors don't have time to make, edit, and monitor frivolous details like their own site. I think from the context of the snapshot you have, it's obvious the lab rules there are satirical. I think that term shouldn't be used but I, as an Asian-American, do not find it offensive, especially since it's an old general term and not equivalent to the N word. Instead of writing an open letter and creating controversy, why didn't you just e-mail him personally?
He is a very responsive person and I'm sure he would have removed it immediately once it was brought to his attention, just like any other professor at school.
Also, to bring more attention to his true character, I know he and his wife donated millions to support students' educations at UCSD from an article I found googling him. Don't throw out accusations and make assumptions without knowing someone.
Thank you for binging this up.
But I am not sure about the expression: "allows such incident from happening".
Should be "fails to prevent such incident from happening".
I also worked in Kubiaks' lab for a little bit during my undergrad. He was always very friendly and accepting of all students. Anyone who would think that he's a racist from a stupid joke on his website (which someone else updates) clearly does not know the man. His lab is actually more diverse than the typical lab at UCSD. Like the commenter above, I'm also Asian and I think this whole ordeal is ridiculous.
The rule is most likely a reference to the fact that a lot of chemical suppliers based in China who pop up in inventory searches don't actually have anything in stock.
But hey, congrats on trying to ruin someone for no real reason.
"The rule is most likely a reference to the fact that a lot of chemical suppliers based in China who pop up in inventory searches don't actually have anything in stock."
I believe that's the reason behind the #4 rule. I ran into the same situations before when dealing with some Chinese research reagents providing companies.
Hi, Qiang:
Thank you for your open letter. Any public racial discrimination is a serious offense and should not be tolerated at all.
You have definitely did the right thing.
Just because these words seem be a obvious funny expression for you people in that lab, does not mean they are not racial.It will be seen as it is.
Yes. His comments are the single most racist thing ever uttered by man, and are obviously not a joke made by lab members. You can tell that Kubiak himself posted those remarks by the great amount of effort put into modernizing and maintaining the website. I believe that he puts much more effort into making sure his important pages such as lab rules are tidy and racist than he does, say, making sure his irrelevant and less useful research publication pages are in order. In fact, the first page I looked for when researching Kubiak was his lab rules, since his work is unimportant and obviously never updated or checked upon.
Your response to this situation is neither uncalled for nor disproportionate in any form. I am sure that your intent to not "criticize anyone particularly" will not result in damaging anyone particularly. By this standard, your post is certainly successful and will definitely result in a change in UCSD's racial climate rather than smearing an individual.
If I were to characterize this post with single words, my first choices would not be "sensationalist" or "damaging".
Someone above says that "Don't throw out accusations and make assumptions without knowing someone.". I think the basic assumption for a UCSD professor is firstly not a racist. Also he should be fully aware of the fact that what he write on his homepage is gonna be read by everyone. Especially things like lab rules. Unfortunately, Prof. Kubiak failed to support this so basic assumption. If you really have good impression of him personally, you should be shocked even more by those words.
@Quanyi
Yes. You are correct. If your superior's website is suddenly replaced with wholly pornographic content, your first thought should be that your superior is clearly a sex addict, even though you know he has sworn himself to chastity and have seen him hold himself to that standard in your many years of working with him. If you really have good impression of him personally, you should be shocked even more by those images.
The last thing on your mind should be to inform individuals with no personal experience with your boss that he is not, in fact, a pervert.
I want to thank the anonymous student in CHEM 6C class for bringing another side of story of Dr. Kubiak in this discussion.
While the racist side of story may have got the hottest attention. A person looking for the truth beneath the surface would also consider other possibilities and take into consideration of a person's behavior as a whole. Without further investigation, the truth may not be easily known.
Personally, I would tend to believe what his student described him as a fair and open person. I hope that we Chinese people, Asian people, and all the people in the world could all have a open mind and open heart. We could forgive a careless mistake made by a person. What we should never do is to ruin a person's career and life by mistake.
海纳百川，有容乃大。
Lili
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