A second Georgetown Law professor has left the university after a video of him and another instructor complaining about Black students went viral.
David Batson was placed on administrative leave last week and resigned Friday, WTOP in Washington, D.C. reported.
Batson is seen in a Zoom video call with professor Sandra Sellers, both adjuncts, nodding in agreement as she explains the “angst” she feels knowing that a portion of her “lower” students each semester will be Black.
“You know what? I hate to say this,” Sellers said in a clip posted to Twitter. “I end up having this angst every semester that a lot of my lower ones are blacks. Happens almost every semester. And it’s like, oh come on. It’s some really good ones, but there are usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.”
Sellers was fired by the university on Thursday.
Batson expressed regret for his participation in the call in a resignation letter to the university.
“In the moment, my heartfelt response was to point the discussion toward what I believe is our personal responsibility — to be aware of and respond to potential unconscious bias in all our undertakings,” Batson wrote, according to The Washington Post, which obtained a copy of the letter. “I understand, however, that I missed the chance to respond in a more direct manner to address the inappropriate content of those remarks.”
The video, recorded in February, was reported to the school on Monday, and a student posted clips of the conversation to Twitter later in the week, prompting widespread backlash.
The Georgetown University Law Center Black Students Association called for Sellers to be fired over the “racist” remarks.
“These racist statements reveal not only Sellers’ beliefs about Black students in her classes, but also how her racist thoughts have translated to racist actions. Professor Sellers’s bias has impacted the grades of Black students in her classes historically, in her own words,” the BLSA statement reads.
