Story at a glance
- Zoom has been commonly used by educators as virtual classrooms during the coronavirus pandemic.
- Numerous educators have been caught via videochat using offensive, even racist, language.
- Some say extended use of the platform is only bringing to light what was already occurring.
As the use of Zoom as virtual classrooms have become commonplace since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, as have numerous instances of teachers and other educators being captured on video using offensive, even racist, language.
While it being captured via video is still relatively new, some say it’s only bringing to light what was already occurring.
“It’s exposing what has been there,” Raechele Pope, chief diversity officer at the University of Buffalo’s Graduate School of Education, told NBC News.
In Palmade, Calif., Katura Stokes filed a legal claim, stating that she set up a call with her son’s sixth-grade teacher in January because he was having issues accessing the Desert Willow Intermediate School’s online program. Stokes’s claim states that after his teacher, Kimberly Newman, believed the call had been terminated, Newman began to go on a racist rant saying that Stokes’s son was lying and making excuses.
“This is what Black people do. This is what Black people do. White people do it, too, but Black people do it way more,” Newman reportedly said.
The Palmdale School District later said that Newman resigned following the incident.
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In Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Law Center professor Sandra Sellers was fired after she was captured on video saying most of her Black students don’t perform as well as her other students.
“I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks, happens almost every semester,” Sellers said.
Professor David Batson, who was also on the call but did not speak up to disagree or intervene, resigned.
“I think it sends a message about their implicit biases,” Pope said in regards to educators being caught on hot mics. “Because the person is different than they are, a different cultural group than they are, they see someone do something once and now they make that assumption about everyone who belongs to that cultural group.”
In order to address the larger issue of bias and racism in education, Pope urged school districts to make changes in their hiring processes, aiming for more diversity and clearly stating expectations against bias.
“As you’re doing interviewing and hiring, you’re talking to people and you’re being very clear about what you expect and what you want and you are asking questions that get to issues of bias and issues of acceptance,” she said.
Pope also suggested that ongoing sessions of bias training and reform are key.
“I think training is important. I know a lot of people are saying, ‘Let’s not do training. It doesn’t do anything.’ Well, it doesn’t do anything because there’s nothing sustained,” Pope said. “If I went out and ran one mile and said, ‘There’s my exercise for the year,’ it’s not going to do anything to improve my health. So neither is a single training or even training once a year. What would help is a more systematic approach.”
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