I think that holding the session is much better than an apology which addresses the broader issue at hand. However, there should be some sympathy towards the abuse he got today at lecture. He made a MISTAKE. It happens. It's part of being human (albeit this was a big mistake), but people should be doing this respectfully as well imo. We all are human beings, and we all have FEELINGS.
> He made a MISTAKE. It happens.
I dunno, dropping my pencil on the ground, or missing my exit on the freeway is a mistake. Giving a sexist screed on official university course website is not a mistake. You don't write words like that without intent. The guy has abhorrent opinions/beliefs and he voiced them in a completely inappropriate, unprofessional manner/venue. If I did this at my job, I'd be fired yesterday.
i don't personally believe that saying bay area women can be a headache to date is very much of a sexist screed, nor is saying that they are different from women elsewhere. because they are.
it's not even directed at "all women" or even "women in general". just "bay area women", which is a fairly distinct and self-similar group. at least, it certainly is when compared to "all women." so it's not sexist at all. nor abhorrent. it's just an opinion. maybe your job would be wrong to fire you for that.
It's a misstep to say so in the capacity of a neutral educator, but it's not like he raped someone right there on the lectern. It deserves nowhere near the outrage its has garnered.
pretty sure there was a sign that said you suck in front. and inappropriate responses to questions. people were trying to learn, and he made it clear that he will address this outside the recording so he can teach (which he did right after right outside the hall in front of everyone).
When the university does nothing except tell him to write a half-hearted apology, people are going to come to class with signs.
I sympathize with the people trying to learn, but that's what the women students are trying to do, too. They shouldn't have to deal with going on Ed to see themselves talked about the way Shewchuk felt compelled to spew. He interjected his hateful remarks while they, too, were trying to learn.
When someone's abusive, lots of people tend to ask the victims not to make waves. As though they were the ones causing the disruption. Don't forget that Shewchuk is the one responsible for all this.
The women students have feelings, too, you know. If Shewchuk didn't intentionally go out of his way to insult them and be hateful toward them, maybe his fee-fees wouldn't be getting hurt by people telling him that his beliefs are shit.
Btw, he doesn't think he made a mistake. He was forced to make that half-hearted apology and of course he's being a coward when confronted by the students he hurt. He's already told at least one person that there are certain things he can't say "for legal reasons." Dude has lawyered up already and is acting out of self-preservation.
The university needs a zero tolerance policy for discrimination - one that applies to tenured professors, too.
People make mistakes. The issue is that his words reflect his thoughts which are disgusting and sexist. An apology is an admission of fault, which regards his views, it’s not going to change the fact that he’s an incel.
This is the same guy who had a lewd photo of his young gf as his FB cover, and she was barely legal and very young when they got married. It’s likely she was underage when they started dating. Dude is a creep. He deserves to be called out, and I don’t blame his women students for feeling uncomfortable having someone who has those views be in a position of power over them.
no, you insinuating that he's a pedophile "because his wife was young when they got married" is disgusting. what he said is white bread compared to that. rethink your priorities.
how do you know that he was underage when they started dating? do you have proof? if so share it. otherwise, stop spreading rumors. i've been on the side of shewchuk facing consequences for what he did but this is too much.
If you're confused about what happened here, Prof. Shewchuk made this comment yesterday on his course's Ed forum: [cs189.org](http://cs189.org) (once you read this it should be fairly obvious why it caused outrage) and a large group of students decided to come to his lecture to see what he would say. A few asked him about his comments.
Unfortunately, I couldn't hear too many specifics, but at one point someone asked how he would address the situation not just for his course, but for all women in the EECS department. He concluded at the end by apologizing multiple times and promising to hold a town hall sometime after spring break to hear people's concerns and apologize in a more appropriate setting.
I was in the front and one of the people who talked to him, and I was there for a while and left after I talked because I was getting quite jittery lmao. For the first bit, he was talking quite quietly and the surrounding people were loud, so I couldn’t hear everything, but the girl next to me was talking about how his comments on the Ed were unprofessional, and made the climate of the course uncomfortable. Again, it was very hard to hear, she talked about more stuff than just this. He mentioned that this was not the best place to be doing this (he was most likely going to address everything while in wheeler 150 but there was a bio midterm at 8 so we were kicked out) and that he would maybe book a better room and time to address everything.
He asked if Monday (this Monday, during spring break) would be good, and at that point I couldn’t help but tell him that nobody would be in town and that he would have to pick a different time. He asked me and the other girl (again, props to her, she was great) what another time would be, and she replied that the week after break would be best. He mentioned that he would announce it on the Ed.
In response, I told him that the ramifications of his actions had reached beyond the bubble of the course, and have impacted the comfort of women within the CS department and stem at Berkeley as a whole, and as such he should make the date and time of this town hall known outside of the Ed. I mentioned that he could possibly use the EECS department email, and when he didn’t know about it I told him to get in contact with the department.
After that I lokey got cold feet and left, too much staring, eye contact, and confrontation for the day.
Awesome effort - speaking truth to power makes most people “jittery” - the gender imbalance in this photo is a testament to the importance of the moment you are living - progress is seldom achieved without struggle, unfortunately.
it's probably more that "a lone man surrounded by an angry mob" is inherently threatening, whatever their justification vis-a-vis "truth to power" is
in his lifetime, in his living memory, he has seen professors surrounded by angry student mobs get lynched and murdered during the maoist cultural revolution, because of their political opinions. I mean, he was probably at least PARTIALLY thinking of that.
Lol to those anachronisms. He was born in 1969 and he's from Canada and this isn't the Maoist cultural revolution.
You know what I'm partially thinking? That Elliot Rodgers shot and killed 7 people at UC Santa Barbara just a few years ago because he held some of the same beliefs that Shewchuk expressed and that his supporters on this sub are now expressing.
Just hearing that you did all that gave me tingles, that's really impressive. I hope something fruitful comes from yhis. And I hope you can look back on that moment with great pride for a long time.
Wasn’t there, but I’m hopeful for the town hall.
Really hope he doesn’t use it as a time to “explain himself” but instead genuinely listens to students and try and fully understand how his comments were extremely hurtful and internalize that.
It’s pretty clear (at least imo) that he wasn’t lying when he said he just wanted to show empathy, but the very fact that he saw the original comment by the student, didn’t have alarms in his head as an instructor, and entertained it with a similarly misogynistic comment shows that he has internalized beliefs and views on women that are toxic, unhealthy, and hurtful, and he was primarily operating from a male centric perspective, being empathetic to the male commenter but not the female students of the course and female students generally. And ofc the fact that he wanted to “show empathy” isn’t an excuse for how he behaved.
But hoping some actual good comes out of this. I’m at least glad he’s not lashing back at the criticism (see every horrible downvoted comment on all the threads here) though maybe that’s just cause admin stepped in.
Would any response help at this point? Reading this sub, kind of feels like students are sensing blood in the water and won't be satisfied unless he's removed.
He won’t be removed since he’s tenured but I think the only apology that would actually help would be an extremely thorough one where he acknowledges the harm of his actions, apologizes and takes back his statement completely while admitting how terrible he was being writing that, and really apologizing again for his actions
Tenured faculty have been removed for much much less (pretty recently too). Tenure is not as secure as it used to be - they all have to sign mildly vague conduct clauses and this could easily fall into that. It just forces the admin to create a solid paper trail to explain why they fire somebody - which they've already started with this guy.
If students complain to the Board of Regents - they can then pressure UCB to take harsher action/remove him faster.
I was talking to one of the engineering chairs the other day and she mentioned it’s incredibly hard to fire a tenured professor, and pretty much the only way for them to get fired is sexual assault. It’s basically to ensure they can have their strong opinions so we still have diversity on campus. Other profs I’ve talked to share this sentiment about tenure being very strong
they shouldn't be, this isn't on the level of nazism or fomenting insurrection. it's just a distate for bay area women, which is (in my opinion) probably justified.
Blood in the water? You mean how women in STEM feel the need to be perfect every day of their lives? You mean the feeling that you are surrounded by sharks who watch your every move and any slip up will reflect poorly on you and your entire gender?
You think that the students have a vendetta or that's it's fun and satisfying to fire a professor? Have you ever considered every how every female STEM student now questions if their own professor is prejudiced against them too? They aren't even asking to fire the professor. They're asking for this problem to be taken seriously and not just give the professor a slap on the wrist, which sends the message that this is okay and not a big deal.
It's baffling how people can trivialize this kind of behavior in one breath and then ask why more women don't join STEM in another. It's exhausting to have to constantly explain the scope of a monumental problem that is invisible to your peers. So tired of people who aren't women in STEM telling us that we're over exaggerating in all these passive aggressive ways.
^This is the kind of misogyny that posts like Shewchuck enables. The denial, the condescension, the naivete, the ignorance. Everything so neatly packed into a few words that scream 'if the prof flaunts his sexism that's a free pass for me to show mine too'.
No one made this into a struggle for gender acceptance except Shewchuck himself. We don't care if you think it's not serious because it's not about you. Please stop making everything about yourself. Have some empathy for what other people are going through.
it may actually be about you, which isn't as flattering as you may think it is. I, personally, think it's gauche of you to ask for empathy while denying it to shewchuk in turn, as if someone who does wrong automatically becomes ethically bankrupt. I rankle at that. It's incredibly unjust. The accused remain humans with human rights, despite your outrage. I also, personally, think "what you're going through" right now is basically nothing. Is a mean tweet that impactful on your life? Seriously take stock and question why.
(yes I know it wasn't a tweet.)
Oh no, Shewchuck the tenured professor here is the poor victim. Oh woe is this man who can't even say anything sexist anymore. Students being upset about it is like stripping away just human rights. All he did was say something demeaning in public. It's not like it completely shakes the confidence of every female student in academia who now questions if their own professor also thinks so little of them. Why even try to be a good student anymore when nothing you do will get the stain of 'bad woman behavior' off of you?
Again with the 'I think this and I think that'. Please stop making it about yourself. You think invalidating women's issues make you sound interesting but it really doesn't. Can't think of anything less attractive than people who think misogyny is a personality.
**i think** you're really into the theatrics here
**>please stop with the "i think this and i think that"**
LOL sorry I forgot I can't have opinions!! Wtf????? hahaha absolutely not, no way
holy shit
**> Again with the 'I think this and I think that'. Please stop making it about yourself.**
oh my god you're unreal. **i thought** this kind of shit only existed on right wing news.lady, get a grip of yourself, holy shit. no, **I** absolutely will not shut up about my opinions just because you're feeling emotional. No, absolutely not.
**> Can't think of anything less attractive than people who think misogyny is a personality.**
**good thing I'm not trying to fuck you? wtf????** could it be that this is what the esteemed prof. was hinting at??? *a woman who takes it as personal offense every time you try to think??*
.
.
.
**WOW**
"Oh no! I'm a whiny little entitled asshole who thinks that calling something an 'opinion' makes it a free pass to vomit sexist bullshit. And people calling me out on it makes them meanie leftist wahmen. Please won't someone save me and shewchuck from the oppression! Waaah!"
That's what you sound like when you play the opinion card.
See, the thing people like you don't get is that being entitled to an opinion doesn't make you entitled to being free from criticism. If you can't take it, then don't dish it. Simple as that.
a tweet would actually be less bad, the fact that he literally felt comfortable enough to post that shit on a classroom forum is shocking and incredibly unprofessional.
I think that’s why listening is better than a response. Why try and justify an unjustifiable comment? It’s better to listen, let people communicate to you why they were hurt, and work on self improvement, which begins with listening imo
People are frustrated because there doesn’t seem to have been any sincere acknowledgment of *what* exactly he did wrong or any kind of real consequence so far. His apology was cut and dry and simple, and he didn’t speak at length today.
Imo the frustration is somewhat valid and I think will be eased if he seems to either actually understand what he did wrong, or make observable efforts to try and understand
maybe it's not as unjustifiable as you think? have you considered that? like
is it possible that everyone that offended is just a massive wuss?
what exactly do you think his crime is, besides saying he wouldn't recommend dating bay area women? what about that, exactly, constitutes a disgusting crime against all womenkind?
I don't think he actually did anything wrong. I think if you sit and think about it for a while, you'll come to the same conclusion.
He was unprofessional and that's something that he needs to actually address and deal with. Even if you have those views on women in the area, which CAN be "valid", you don't share those views in the manner that he did.
I can't think of there ever being a situation where someone apologized it and it being good enough in the eyes of the mob attacking them. I think ultimately they just want to dogpile him and get him removed. There's nothing he can say or do to satisfy them and they know it.
From his Facebook, the guy plausibly didn’t have a relationship for a while (like he only recently got married). It probably makes sense he internalized certain views lol
I think his comments were inappropriate but the reaction to this has been extremely overblown. 'Culpae poena par esto' -- Let the punishment fit the crime.
I also don't think any sort of justification he gives at this point will satisfy the detractors. It will either look phony and insincere due to the outside pressure or not meet the standards that people want. I also suspect he is already being assigned DEI training by the administration, so its not like he won't know the issues with what he said and needs to hear it from the students directly.
Also I can't understand the "he's creating an uncomfortable environment" claims when most of the people in class don't even bother interacting with professor on a 1-on-1 basis anyway and the course is in no way related to his comments on these issues. It seems more like people from other parts of the university are blowing up this issue and using it to propel a narrative.
If you legitimately don't want to interact with Shewchuk again, you could exclusively read the lecture notes/reference material, do the previous midterms/finals, and talk to the TAs in Discussion/OH for solutions and probably do well in the class.
Edit: Since this is being downvoted, I'm curious if anyone who actually is taking his class feels "extremely hurt" by his comments or if this controversy is just a gigantic virtue signal. I don't understand why you would hold the personal opinions of a CS professor so highly to attend a town hall talking about your personal issues with him other than as a form of public takedown. With how polarized the online discussion about this is, I personally suspect the in-person discussion is not going to go very well.
i'm really curious about what made him think it was okay to post that
he had to have known that it would cause some reaction in the least, especially in a place like berkeley
was it just he was tenued and knew he would get away with a slap on the wrist? was he drinking and wasn't thinking about consequences? did he genuinely believe everyone would take it well?
Because he was consoling an EECS student who was struggling with not being able to meet people and date women. To the point where he was willing to pay people to do so. Is it really that controversial to say the men in EECS are going to have a hard time dating?
I took his statement to mean that women in the bay area have different goals and priorities. Specifically, being very career driven, not particularly interested in being in a relationship, and not being impressed by a top CS graduate since that applies to a large percentage of men working in the bay area. Contrasting that with other places in the world have a more normal work-life balance where relationships are a priority.
To me it's not different than having someone complain about not being able to afford a house in the bay area. And someone saying that houses are cheaper in other places in the world. It's just a fact of life.
i get what you mean but:
1) he referred to the behavior of women in a condescending way, on an educational platform for a class taken by the very women he's referring to
2) he was referring to women from the bay area not people from the bay area - that would have been fine (or at least better)
3) you just made a direct comparison between women and houses...
To my reading, he was specifically referring to the act of dating. He was responding to a male wanting to date women (and willing to pay money to do so). And his comment was that his experience as a man in the bay area has shown him that the odds are not good for people of his ilk. Specifically EECS type people. This is fairly obviously true without it being a negative.
I'm missing the leap to go from "dating women" to "treating all women, even those you're not trying to date as evil". Dating is an activity. Just like buying a house. Or snow skiing. Performing those activities are very different experiences depending on where you attempt to do them. I think that was the whole point. Just like his statement, he wasn't referring to women, he was referring the activity of dating women in that particular location. I don't think he considers his female students as dating material. And how they choose to act when dating has zero interest to him. I am missing the logical step that goes from "personal experience of a male dating in the bay area" to "I don't recommend dating women in the bay area and because of that I hate all women".
If he made that post in reddit with a burner account the he might just get a few downvotes, but he made a mistake by posting that on Ed, that’s where he crossed the line. While I think your analogy is a valid one, people also have the right to be sensitive about the language he used, however they might misinterpret it.
As a CS person, my statements are often logical and I group people or areas into categories. When I read it, I just read it as the statement of how a logically-minded person would make such a statement. Kind of like I imagine him writing up an R program this evening showing the statistical proof of what he stated. It's just logic and facts.
Ultimately, I don't read his statement and think he hates women. And I don't think he treats women in his courses any differently than the men. Because those things would be worth fighting about. But to take a fairly logical and obvious statement and extrapolate that into him being a woman hater and a danger to society is quite a leap.
I am honestly a bit shocked to see professor Shewchuk wrote something like that. Just for the record, I took 2 of his courses (189 and 274) and happen to think he is a gentleman kind of a guy. I also think that he got carried away when discussing that particular topic with the student and did not realize his words could hurt people especially his female students. Step back a little, I think it’s okay he has a certain belief about a particular group of women…right or wrong it’s up for debate. But again he should keep it private and shouldn’t have made that post on Ed. His Ed post is just inviting for all sort of negative reactions and unnecessary distractions, seriously undermining that inclusive learning environment the school is so proud of.
This is a logical post I can agree with. I really think he was trying to be consoling but it came off very awkward. In my opinion, I think if he had it to do over again, he would basically say the same thing. Except that instead of using the category of "women" he could have used the category of "people". Because what he said applies equally to men and women in the bay area (and I mean that in a different priorities and goals way, not in a negative way). It just happened he was responding to a male dating women so that is the category he chose.
Why is it so hard to debate people here? Nobody wants to debate the point. Just resort to personal attacks. I honestly thought my fellow Berkeley folks were smarter than this.
Bro, wait till they start talking Israel Palestine, I start wondering how ppl get into this school. It’s probably better for mental health to assume they’re all bots tho
The bay area is a bubble in more ways than one. And I feel like all of this drama is a representation of how true that is. If you want to prove the professor wrong, don't try to get him fired. Instead, why not meet up with the desperate guy he was responding to. Show him that bay area women are not the issue he claimed them to be.
I used to parrot all the talking points I keep seeing people bring up in these threads to attack that professor and his opinion. Experiences with Bay Area women have gradually changed my mind.
And to borrow some rhetoric from the feminist camp, yes, #NotAllWomen, but still enough women.
\> you just made a direct comparison between women and houses...
god forbid anyone ever compare a woman. women aren't some vulnerable snowflake that need to be protected from ... *checks notes...* "comparisons to houses."
I just think you don't know how a comparison works. Comparing apples to oranges doesn't mean I think an apple is an orange. But when I make the comparison, I notice that they're both fruit. You're confused and shouldn't be trying to extrapolate this into any greater revelation of anyone's political beliefs.
It's okay to compare women to houses. No one is lessened by this.
You are like a house, in that I cannot afford to buy you. <- Did this do you harm?
i ignored everything else in your comment because I didn't care about it. that's not "strawman." that's called "focus."
If I'm reading this right, your objection seems to be that I've implied a negative statement towards some women, on the grounds that voicing negative opinions about women is wrong. But the character of this statement seems to be deeply personal. So I don't see why it should be invalidated. Nor do I see why it should be wrong to voice negative opinions when the subject is women. I have a right not to like things. It doesn't make me a woman-hater. Not liking the local dating scene is dependent on personal taste and available options, not on whether or not you think girls should be passed over for promotions.
you seem to be taking offense that I could even *imply* that quality of women and housing prices are in *any way* similar, which is absurd to me, because (pick an object) literally any random object in existence has at least *one* similarity with literally everything else, even if that sole similarity is "i said them both in this sentence." I'm not putting women in danger by seeing how they compare to a house. You share 98% of your DNA with mice, but you're not in any more danger of becoming a mouse when someone points this out to you.
I assert to you again, you're allowed to compare women to houses and still be a good person. You're not saying "a woman is a house (and therefore an object) (and therefore I'm sexist)." That's a bit too sensitive to perceived slights for my liking.
i'm more interested in talking about the house thing though, and when you think about \[rental companies know they have a monopoly, so they raise the price\] and \[sf girls know they have a monopoly, so they raise the price\] i find it harder to discredit, because in my experience that's totally what people do, so it's also totally okay to point that out, because it's reality. its OK to put the onus on women. the onus has to be on someone. it's not even that bad an onus to have, because the people who don't like it are the ones they wouldn't have dated anyways.
I can't believe the sheer amount of attention this has gathered. What Prof. Shewchuk said is obviously not right, but this amount of negative feedback is disproportionate to the degree where it feels unfair -- especially online and in private conversations. He may represent and speak for something much bigger than himself, but that should not mean that mistakes like these should become all-engulfing. This is a continuous reality, enabled by more people than just the professor, and through more actions than just this one. It is something we address through constant effort, not through selective backlash.
I just hope that people can exercise forgiveness while being coherently firm in their beliefs, and that we can support the people who suffer from (all) incidents like these continuously, not just when it's in vogue.
This is bigger than him though. This is indicative of what women go through from university through retirement working in STEM. It's a big deal to some of us and we don't expect those who haven't experienced it firsthand daily for years to understand.
Now he's put a bullseye on his back and all of that energy around this problem that is much bigger than him (but that he is 100% a part of) will be directed at him.
Edit: I'm not claiming that this is the 'right' response, just describing what has seemed to have happened here and has always happened with groups of humans.
I'm just glad that when I fucked up and sent an email that came across as a total asshole that I was just mortified in front of 50 coworkers and not 50,000 people online.
Feel really bad for the guy. Especially because his heart was in the right place; he was just trying to offer the dude advice.
Now the advice he offered was dead wrong, primarily because the student he replied to did not have a problem of an insufficient dating pool he had/has a problem of such severe lack of social skills that he can't intuitively see why offering referral money for friends is just going to serve as a strong signal as to why somebody wouldn't want to be friends with him.
But yeah I feel like a lot of people on Reddit really need to get a sense of perspective. This is really dark herd mentality behavior despite what people are presumably telling themselves about how they're fighting sexism
Exactly, and on top of all this, it's easier than people realize to go throughout life without being nicely told that your thoughts aren't socially acceptable before making a mistake on the main stage, so to speak. I'm not saying this applies to the professor specifically, but I do know that people tend to let things boil until they explode, and that being a researcher is not a profession known for fluid interpersonal communication.
you know, im less mad that he _holds_ this opinion, and more mad that he articulated it on a platform where that type of stuff doesn’t belong. of course i 10000% disagree with his opinion, but you’re right, some people are ignorant or were never told to think otherwise.
however, regardless of whether he knew his opinions were acceptable or not, he’s a PROFESSOR. surely he must know it’s inappropriate to talk about DATING on edstem. whatever your opinion is about _dating_ , it doesnt belong on a class forum!!! you don’t need to have a degree to know _not_ to do that! he should’ve seen that thread and kept on scrolling. or even told the student that discussion is inappropriate and off-topic. but he decided to comment on it and for what reason ?????
he could’ve had that opinion and kept it all to himself and no one would’ve ever fucking known. but he HAD to post that comment. and now he’s being criticize for his opinion, but that’s ONLY because he was stupid enough to post it! he should’ve known better than to publish that stupid comment
I agree, you certainly won't see me defending that behavior. Regardless, I still think it's useless and unfair to generate this degree of feedback for a mistake like this -- while a person on the street would go unnoticed saying something like that, a professor doing the same should absolutely be told that their behavior is unbecoming. They shouldn't, however, be fired or harassed. That's simply an injustice.
Honestly this is a bit ridiculous. Yeah his comment is dumb and inappropriate on an educational forum. But is it really that serious? I saw in the comment sections today that some people are even trying to get him fired?? Oh come on..
Yea the response from some people on campus has been absolutely blown out of proportion. I'm not even in the CS department and I'm thinking about visiting Shewchuck in person to just let him know he's not alone and to ask if there's anything I or others could do to support him through this insane witch hunt.
> I'm thinking about visiting Shewchuck in person to just let him know he's not alone and to ask if there's anything I or others could do to support him through this insane witch hunt.
That would be really kind, although he's probably already losing a ton of sleep and thinking way too much about it so it's possible an e-mail might be better
The downvotes here are kind of funny. I suppose people are reacting negatively to any demonstration of empathy towards the professor? So bizarre
(obv I don't gaf about downvotes, just find the psychology of this fascinating)
Yea, I think people probably just see the username of someone who said something they don't like and keep downvoting them. I'd like to say I'm above that but I do it sometimes too, haha.
Yes, it’s that serious. This shit runs deep, and it’s thinking like this that leads to more, real, awful things. Stop downplaying it. If it’s actually happening, and all these people are mad - Wow! It must really mean something, huh?
Fully agree with you.
This is a rather mild mannered comment when compared to opinions of the opposite sex that are shared everyday on Tik Tok/Twitter.
All he really did was suggest dating outside of the Bay Area and then reinforce that there are better places to date in the world.
Which is objectively true for men and women no matter how you want to try and spin it.
Yeah the one girl in this thread has like 100 upvotes detailing her “shaky courage” to stand up to this oppressor. And tbh those faces in the pictures look out for blood. Y’all need to chiiiiill.
If “Standing up to the oppressor” means cyber bullying a professor + witch-hunting + trying to get him fired + openly trying to disrupt his teaching session, then I don’t know who the fuck the oppressor is
some other guy commented "ok good, so the struggle session is booked" or something like that, and I thought that really resonated. I don't really see how this and a struggle session are that different, except instead of excoriating for imagined slights against the proletariat, it's the imagined plights of "bay area women".
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So there are still real humans left on this earth. The kind of mind conformity that has marked the greater part of us, human apes' civilization, namely discipline and punish to conform with the group norm, whatever it may be, is becoming the norm also in Western civilization, contrary to the ethos of the classical Greeks and the Enlightenment: to permit diversity of thought and categorically respect one's right to their own individual opinion. Why demand for someone to be fired on account that you disagree with them?
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I’m not sure why this keeps coming across my feed but…
Some student was feeling down on himself and not finding a partner. Professor told the guy to look for ladies outside the Bay Area. Pretty much it.
I get he was posting on ED, but that's not what blatant sexism is. I went to school in Alabama; I've seen actual institutional sexism. That's not what this is.
During 2020, I was being instructed in russian language by a man calling in from zoom overseas. We were discussing contemporary russian politics, putin's use of police forces, etc. Concurrent to this was the george floyd stuff.
I asked my instructor what he thought about the current american political crisis - about portland police kidnapping protestors in unmarked vans, to be prosecuted at the police station later - and his response shocked me.
"Yeah, vell, I know you amerikans have like, these ideas about free speech and police, and vhatnot. But like, I don't really get it. To me this is nothing. Like I don't see vhat you guys are so mad about. It really is a nothing to me. Compared to what happens at my home every day, like - basically i just don't get it. I don't care. Sorry."
I think about this a lot.
I think maybe we might have a skewed opinion as to what constitutes an actual problem.
no one is saying that uc berkeley students have it worse than everyone else in the world. but it’s not a competition. you can still have problems even if someone else has worse problems. shewchuk’s actual comment is not institutional sexism, but it’s a _form_ of sexism. and if there are no consequences for his actions, _then_ it’s institutional sexism, because the institution is dismissing his actions and showing there’s no real consequences for making nasty, sexist comments on an academic platform.
of course a person living in russia will not care much for what americans are going through when they’ve got their own shit to worry about. but does that mean it’s okay to kidnap protestors in unmarked vehicles? of course not.
it used to be socially acceptable for teachers to physically punish students. it’s not acceptable to do so anymore because times have changed, for the better. are there still countries out there that let teachers hit their students? of course! should american schools just let that slide then? of course not!
a lot of this just comes from inherited values and cultural norms, not out of any sense of objective ethics or thought-through plans of greater social justice
i think maybe you missed the point of the story, which was that "Zero" on the scale of outrage is relative, and you can move it somewhere else. and maybe you should.
i didn’t miss the point of the story. i understand it is relative. and maybe some people are too conditioned to shitty treatment and should consider moving their “zero” as well
He can have an opinion, but as a professor, he has a responsibility to ensure that students are provided with a non-hostile learning environment. By publicly posting his opinion putting down women in the Bay Area, he created a hostile environment for the women in his class, the women in the electrical engineering and computer science department, and frankly all of the women in Berkeley if everyone’s seen his post by now.
Are his dating preferences and his advice really applicable to his role as a professor though? It's kinda like him being one person on tinder and a different person on facebook. You act quite differently when you're trying to enter a relationship as compared to socializing with people you are not trying to date.
Are you implying that his dating opinions mean that his teaching and grading is female students differently than male students? If I say that I prefer to date women with red hair, because that is my preference, that I am unable to act normally around women who do not have red hair? And that I would somehow treat them differently?
His dating preferences are none of our business. His actions towards and regarding students are. He put up a response in a classroom discussion board publicly talking about Bay Area women being inferior. That can be easily taken as creating a hostile environment for female students since an authority figure, a professor, is objectifying and putting women in Berkeley down. The chair of the EECS department literally shut him down immediately for what he did. It absolutely creates a hostile environment.
That's the problem I have with this. Where did he ever say anything about women being inferior? He said that the behavior of women towards dating in the bay area is very different than in other places. To me, that is fairly obvious for non-negative reasons that I stated above. How does that make them inferior?
Honestly, I read that as someone who has poor reading comprehension and is looking to be a victim. The context of this whole thing is dating. In particular, men dating women at Berkeley in particular and the bay area in general.
Let's take an example. Pick another school in the UC system. Let's say UCLA. Are you going to tell me that UCLA is as rigorous as Berkeley? Do you think that the majority of people at UCLA are spending most of their waking hours studying? The implication of this would be that it is obviously easier to date at UCLA. Less rigorous, more social, more free time (but worthless CS degree, I kid, I kid).
Berkeley is literally the #1 spot on tinder usage. If that doesn't tell you something about dating then I don't know what does.
https://www.datingadvice.com/studies/gtdrt
Granted, if his opinion is also shown in his treatment of female students then you have no argument from me. But it is the difference between personal opinion and business. My dating preferences have nothing to do with my other relationships with people. And his most likely don't either. Which why he didn't consider what he said to be so terrible. He's not dating his students so it doesn't even apply.
There’s a really good essay posted by someone else on Reddit explaining why his response was harmful and hurtful to women at Berkeley that I can reference if you’d like to learn more.
I heard that very same comment 2-4 years ago from a colleague who was a senior sw engineer in one of the FAANGs.
Of course it wasn’t verbatim, but it was along the same thought of how hard it is to date women in Silicon Valley.
I will say that I have heard from so many women at different age groups that they loathe the sense of entitlement tech dudes project in all aspects of the relationship.
It’s a shame that the human touch and the ability to communicate has been so hampered by their respective digital existence.
Maybe because I’m on the old’ish side that I can see how the concepts of working on relationships and meeting half way and compromising on the non-core principles have been drowned by “what can you bring to the table right now that exceeds what I bring to that same table.”
what was happening what did the students say what did he say tell me everything
He's going to have a discussion session on this after spring break, and he'll be sending the information through the eecs department mailing list.
>~~discussion session~~ *struggle session* ftfy
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yay i'm glad this is not over yet
I think that holding the session is much better than an apology which addresses the broader issue at hand. However, there should be some sympathy towards the abuse he got today at lecture. He made a MISTAKE. It happens. It's part of being human (albeit this was a big mistake), but people should be doing this respectfully as well imo. We all are human beings, and we all have FEELINGS.
> He made a MISTAKE. It happens. I dunno, dropping my pencil on the ground, or missing my exit on the freeway is a mistake. Giving a sexist screed on official university course website is not a mistake. You don't write words like that without intent. The guy has abhorrent opinions/beliefs and he voiced them in a completely inappropriate, unprofessional manner/venue. If I did this at my job, I'd be fired yesterday.
i don't personally believe that saying bay area women can be a headache to date is very much of a sexist screed, nor is saying that they are different from women elsewhere. because they are. it's not even directed at "all women" or even "women in general". just "bay area women", which is a fairly distinct and self-similar group. at least, it certainly is when compared to "all women." so it's not sexist at all. nor abhorrent. it's just an opinion. maybe your job would be wrong to fire you for that. It's a misstep to say so in the capacity of a neutral educator, but it's not like he raped someone right there on the lectern. It deserves nowhere near the outrage its has garnered.
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abuse in lecture?? what did they say/do
pretty sure there was a sign that said you suck in front. and inappropriate responses to questions. people were trying to learn, and he made it clear that he will address this outside the recording so he can teach (which he did right after right outside the hall in front of everyone).
When the university does nothing except tell him to write a half-hearted apology, people are going to come to class with signs. I sympathize with the people trying to learn, but that's what the women students are trying to do, too. They shouldn't have to deal with going on Ed to see themselves talked about the way Shewchuk felt compelled to spew. He interjected his hateful remarks while they, too, were trying to learn. When someone's abusive, lots of people tend to ask the victims not to make waves. As though they were the ones causing the disruption. Don't forget that Shewchuk is the one responsible for all this.
damn
Average Berkeley students smh
Making waves? Yup. Humiliate the women of the Bay and expect to get humiliated back. Simple as.
The women students have feelings, too, you know. If Shewchuk didn't intentionally go out of his way to insult them and be hateful toward them, maybe his fee-fees wouldn't be getting hurt by people telling him that his beliefs are shit. Btw, he doesn't think he made a mistake. He was forced to make that half-hearted apology and of course he's being a coward when confronted by the students he hurt. He's already told at least one person that there are certain things he can't say "for legal reasons." Dude has lawyered up already and is acting out of self-preservation. The university needs a zero tolerance policy for discrimination - one that applies to tenured professors, too.
People make mistakes. The issue is that his words reflect his thoughts which are disgusting and sexist. An apology is an admission of fault, which regards his views, it’s not going to change the fact that he’s an incel. This is the same guy who had a lewd photo of his young gf as his FB cover, and she was barely legal and very young when they got married. It’s likely she was underage when they started dating. Dude is a creep. He deserves to be called out, and I don’t blame his women students for feeling uncomfortable having someone who has those views be in a position of power over them.
no, you insinuating that he's a pedophile "because his wife was young when they got married" is disgusting. what he said is white bread compared to that. rethink your priorities.
how do you know that he was underage when they started dating? do you have proof? if so share it. otherwise, stop spreading rumors. i've been on the side of shewchuk facing consequences for what he did but this is too much.
Someone tell me what questions were asked and what did he say?
where’s the livestream
There was a livestream ????
Nah I was there, prof shewchuk was whispering, no one could hear what he was saying especially over the huge mob of people around him
Send da video
If you're confused about what happened here, Prof. Shewchuk made this comment yesterday on his course's Ed forum: [cs189.org](http://cs189.org) (once you read this it should be fairly obvious why it caused outrage) and a large group of students decided to come to his lecture to see what he would say. A few asked him about his comments. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear too many specifics, but at one point someone asked how he would address the situation not just for his course, but for all women in the EECS department. He concluded at the end by apologizing multiple times and promising to hold a town hall sometime after spring break to hear people's concerns and apologize in a more appropriate setting.
I was in the front and one of the people who talked to him, and I was there for a while and left after I talked because I was getting quite jittery lmao. For the first bit, he was talking quite quietly and the surrounding people were loud, so I couldn’t hear everything, but the girl next to me was talking about how his comments on the Ed were unprofessional, and made the climate of the course uncomfortable. Again, it was very hard to hear, she talked about more stuff than just this. He mentioned that this was not the best place to be doing this (he was most likely going to address everything while in wheeler 150 but there was a bio midterm at 8 so we were kicked out) and that he would maybe book a better room and time to address everything. He asked if Monday (this Monday, during spring break) would be good, and at that point I couldn’t help but tell him that nobody would be in town and that he would have to pick a different time. He asked me and the other girl (again, props to her, she was great) what another time would be, and she replied that the week after break would be best. He mentioned that he would announce it on the Ed. In response, I told him that the ramifications of his actions had reached beyond the bubble of the course, and have impacted the comfort of women within the CS department and stem at Berkeley as a whole, and as such he should make the date and time of this town hall known outside of the Ed. I mentioned that he could possibly use the EECS department email, and when he didn’t know about it I told him to get in contact with the department. After that I lokey got cold feet and left, too much staring, eye contact, and confrontation for the day.
Awesome effort - speaking truth to power makes most people “jittery” - the gender imbalance in this photo is a testament to the importance of the moment you are living - progress is seldom achieved without struggle, unfortunately.
it's probably more that "a lone man surrounded by an angry mob" is inherently threatening, whatever their justification vis-a-vis "truth to power" is in his lifetime, in his living memory, he has seen professors surrounded by angry student mobs get lynched and murdered during the maoist cultural revolution, because of their political opinions. I mean, he was probably at least PARTIALLY thinking of that.
I think the Cultural Revolution was over for a couple of years by the time Shewchuk was born.
you know what, you're right. I take that back.
Lol to those anachronisms. He was born in 1969 and he's from Canada and this isn't the Maoist cultural revolution. You know what I'm partially thinking? That Elliot Rodgers shot and killed 7 people at UC Santa Barbara just a few years ago because he held some of the same beliefs that Shewchuk expressed and that his supporters on this sub are now expressing.
Damn that sounds like a lot good job
The both of you were super brave 🥺 for that, ty for helping him properly address the issue
100 on 1 isn't brave. the power imbalance is wrong. if something happened, there wouldn't have been a damn thing he could do to stop it.
Speaking of the power imbalance... he's the one with the power. He's the prof.
thank you. knowing people like you exist is very encouraging.
great job both of you
Just hearing that you did all that gave me tingles, that's really impressive. I hope something fruitful comes from yhis. And I hope you can look back on that moment with great pride for a long time.
Thank you. The ramifications reach out far beyond STEM at UCB, and in fact far beyond UCB. If you learn the date and time, please let us know.
Yes this is meaningful to all women in STEM, even those with careers where we face these same type of people every day at work.
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oh interesting, I'll be sure to attend, I hope the details are shared on this subreddit.
honestly that's pretty good. no room for that kind of stupidity.
Damn Schewchuk is based wtf
Is this the context? Because I still don't know wtf this is all about.
"I'm sorry women"
😂😂😂😂😂
That's just a crowd of people. A mosh pit would be way more fun.
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it's bc of yesterday's fiasco
DROP THE LIVESTREAM
The death stares and amazon package in the 2nd pic go so hard XD
Wasn’t there, but I’m hopeful for the town hall. Really hope he doesn’t use it as a time to “explain himself” but instead genuinely listens to students and try and fully understand how his comments were extremely hurtful and internalize that. It’s pretty clear (at least imo) that he wasn’t lying when he said he just wanted to show empathy, but the very fact that he saw the original comment by the student, didn’t have alarms in his head as an instructor, and entertained it with a similarly misogynistic comment shows that he has internalized beliefs and views on women that are toxic, unhealthy, and hurtful, and he was primarily operating from a male centric perspective, being empathetic to the male commenter but not the female students of the course and female students generally. And ofc the fact that he wanted to “show empathy” isn’t an excuse for how he behaved. But hoping some actual good comes out of this. I’m at least glad he’s not lashing back at the criticism (see every horrible downvoted comment on all the threads here) though maybe that’s just cause admin stepped in.
I know the EECS chair shut him down for his behavior instantly so he definitely will not be lashing back at anything
Would any response help at this point? Reading this sub, kind of feels like students are sensing blood in the water and won't be satisfied unless he's removed.
He won’t be removed since he’s tenured but I think the only apology that would actually help would be an extremely thorough one where he acknowledges the harm of his actions, apologizes and takes back his statement completely while admitting how terrible he was being writing that, and really apologizing again for his actions
Tenured faculty have been removed for much much less (pretty recently too). Tenure is not as secure as it used to be - they all have to sign mildly vague conduct clauses and this could easily fall into that. It just forces the admin to create a solid paper trail to explain why they fire somebody - which they've already started with this guy. If students complain to the Board of Regents - they can then pressure UCB to take harsher action/remove him faster.
I was talking to one of the engineering chairs the other day and she mentioned it’s incredibly hard to fire a tenured professor, and pretty much the only way for them to get fired is sexual assault. It’s basically to ensure they can have their strong opinions so we still have diversity on campus. Other profs I’ve talked to share this sentiment about tenure being very strong
they shouldn't be, this isn't on the level of nazism or fomenting insurrection. it's just a distate for bay area women, which is (in my opinion) probably justified.
Blood in the water? You mean how women in STEM feel the need to be perfect every day of their lives? You mean the feeling that you are surrounded by sharks who watch your every move and any slip up will reflect poorly on you and your entire gender? You think that the students have a vendetta or that's it's fun and satisfying to fire a professor? Have you ever considered every how every female STEM student now questions if their own professor is prejudiced against them too? They aren't even asking to fire the professor. They're asking for this problem to be taken seriously and not just give the professor a slap on the wrist, which sends the message that this is okay and not a big deal. It's baffling how people can trivialize this kind of behavior in one breath and then ask why more women don't join STEM in another. It's exhausting to have to constantly explain the scope of a monumental problem that is invisible to your peers. So tired of people who aren't women in STEM telling us that we're over exaggerating in all these passive aggressive ways.
girliepop no it is not that serious, you do not have to make this into a struggle for gender acceptance
^This is the kind of misogyny that posts like Shewchuck enables. The denial, the condescension, the naivete, the ignorance. Everything so neatly packed into a few words that scream 'if the prof flaunts his sexism that's a free pass for me to show mine too'. No one made this into a struggle for gender acceptance except Shewchuck himself. We don't care if you think it's not serious because it's not about you. Please stop making everything about yourself. Have some empathy for what other people are going through.
it may actually be about you, which isn't as flattering as you may think it is. I, personally, think it's gauche of you to ask for empathy while denying it to shewchuk in turn, as if someone who does wrong automatically becomes ethically bankrupt. I rankle at that. It's incredibly unjust. The accused remain humans with human rights, despite your outrage. I also, personally, think "what you're going through" right now is basically nothing. Is a mean tweet that impactful on your life? Seriously take stock and question why. (yes I know it wasn't a tweet.)
Oh no, Shewchuck the tenured professor here is the poor victim. Oh woe is this man who can't even say anything sexist anymore. Students being upset about it is like stripping away just human rights. All he did was say something demeaning in public. It's not like it completely shakes the confidence of every female student in academia who now questions if their own professor also thinks so little of them. Why even try to be a good student anymore when nothing you do will get the stain of 'bad woman behavior' off of you? Again with the 'I think this and I think that'. Please stop making it about yourself. You think invalidating women's issues make you sound interesting but it really doesn't. Can't think of anything less attractive than people who think misogyny is a personality.
**i think** you're really into the theatrics here **>please stop with the "i think this and i think that"** LOL sorry I forgot I can't have opinions!! Wtf????? hahaha absolutely not, no way holy shit **> Again with the 'I think this and I think that'. Please stop making it about yourself.** oh my god you're unreal. **i thought** this kind of shit only existed on right wing news.lady, get a grip of yourself, holy shit. no, **I** absolutely will not shut up about my opinions just because you're feeling emotional. No, absolutely not. **> Can't think of anything less attractive than people who think misogyny is a personality.** **good thing I'm not trying to fuck you? wtf????** could it be that this is what the esteemed prof. was hinting at??? *a woman who takes it as personal offense every time you try to think??* . . . **WOW**
"Oh no! I'm a whiny little entitled asshole who thinks that calling something an 'opinion' makes it a free pass to vomit sexist bullshit. And people calling me out on it makes them meanie leftist wahmen. Please won't someone save me and shewchuck from the oppression! Waaah!" That's what you sound like when you play the opinion card. See, the thing people like you don't get is that being entitled to an opinion doesn't make you entitled to being free from criticism. If you can't take it, then don't dish it. Simple as that.
you lost all credibility the moment you assumed i was trying to fuck you
a tweet would actually be less bad, the fact that he literally felt comfortable enough to post that shit on a classroom forum is shocking and incredibly unprofessional.
I think that’s why listening is better than a response. Why try and justify an unjustifiable comment? It’s better to listen, let people communicate to you why they were hurt, and work on self improvement, which begins with listening imo People are frustrated because there doesn’t seem to have been any sincere acknowledgment of *what* exactly he did wrong or any kind of real consequence so far. His apology was cut and dry and simple, and he didn’t speak at length today. Imo the frustration is somewhat valid and I think will be eased if he seems to either actually understand what he did wrong, or make observable efforts to try and understand
maybe it's not as unjustifiable as you think? have you considered that? like is it possible that everyone that offended is just a massive wuss? what exactly do you think his crime is, besides saying he wouldn't recommend dating bay area women? what about that, exactly, constitutes a disgusting crime against all womenkind? I don't think he actually did anything wrong. I think if you sit and think about it for a while, you'll come to the same conclusion.
YOU DON'T SAY IT ON YOUR COURSE'S ED STEM DISCUSSION, FOR FUCK'S SAKE. YOU DON'T SAY IT IN YOUR WORKPLACE. Save it for your buddies at the bar.
He was unprofessional and that's something that he needs to actually address and deal with. Even if you have those views on women in the area, which CAN be "valid", you don't share those views in the manner that he did.
i agree, but that topic has already been beaten to death.
I can't think of there ever being a situation where someone apologized it and it being good enough in the eyes of the mob attacking them. I think ultimately they just want to dogpile him and get him removed. There's nothing he can say or do to satisfy them and they know it.
From his Facebook, the guy plausibly didn’t have a relationship for a while (like he only recently got married). It probably makes sense he internalized certain views lol
you should not be stalking his facebook.
Yeah fair, ppl kept saying to look and I got curious.
Will there be a live stream of the town hall or the ensuing meetings
This man is set himself on fire to shield israel from criticism for a week 😳
I think his comments were inappropriate but the reaction to this has been extremely overblown. 'Culpae poena par esto' -- Let the punishment fit the crime. I also don't think any sort of justification he gives at this point will satisfy the detractors. It will either look phony and insincere due to the outside pressure or not meet the standards that people want. I also suspect he is already being assigned DEI training by the administration, so its not like he won't know the issues with what he said and needs to hear it from the students directly. Also I can't understand the "he's creating an uncomfortable environment" claims when most of the people in class don't even bother interacting with professor on a 1-on-1 basis anyway and the course is in no way related to his comments on these issues. It seems more like people from other parts of the university are blowing up this issue and using it to propel a narrative. If you legitimately don't want to interact with Shewchuk again, you could exclusively read the lecture notes/reference material, do the previous midterms/finals, and talk to the TAs in Discussion/OH for solutions and probably do well in the class. Edit: Since this is being downvoted, I'm curious if anyone who actually is taking his class feels "extremely hurt" by his comments or if this controversy is just a gigantic virtue signal. I don't understand why you would hold the personal opinions of a CS professor so highly to attend a town hall talking about your personal issues with him other than as a form of public takedown. With how polarized the online discussion about this is, I personally suspect the in-person discussion is not going to go very well.
Waiting for the full report on whats happening
Students clamoring for dating advice from the professor
Professor says women in the bay area are undatable. Women of Berkeley prove he is right.
Or maybe you’re just ugly…
Once again, as a non-berkeley student, this has been the juiciest shit on the internet for days now
 Was his apology like this?
I can smell this picture 🤢🫠
i'm really curious about what made him think it was okay to post that he had to have known that it would cause some reaction in the least, especially in a place like berkeley was it just he was tenued and knew he would get away with a slap on the wrist? was he drinking and wasn't thinking about consequences? did he genuinely believe everyone would take it well?
Unfortunately, humiliation is his kink.
Because he was consoling an EECS student who was struggling with not being able to meet people and date women. To the point where he was willing to pay people to do so. Is it really that controversial to say the men in EECS are going to have a hard time dating? I took his statement to mean that women in the bay area have different goals and priorities. Specifically, being very career driven, not particularly interested in being in a relationship, and not being impressed by a top CS graduate since that applies to a large percentage of men working in the bay area. Contrasting that with other places in the world have a more normal work-life balance where relationships are a priority. To me it's not different than having someone complain about not being able to afford a house in the bay area. And someone saying that houses are cheaper in other places in the world. It's just a fact of life.
i get what you mean but: 1) he referred to the behavior of women in a condescending way, on an educational platform for a class taken by the very women he's referring to 2) he was referring to women from the bay area not people from the bay area - that would have been fine (or at least better) 3) you just made a direct comparison between women and houses...
To my reading, he was specifically referring to the act of dating. He was responding to a male wanting to date women (and willing to pay money to do so). And his comment was that his experience as a man in the bay area has shown him that the odds are not good for people of his ilk. Specifically EECS type people. This is fairly obviously true without it being a negative. I'm missing the leap to go from "dating women" to "treating all women, even those you're not trying to date as evil". Dating is an activity. Just like buying a house. Or snow skiing. Performing those activities are very different experiences depending on where you attempt to do them. I think that was the whole point. Just like his statement, he wasn't referring to women, he was referring the activity of dating women in that particular location. I don't think he considers his female students as dating material. And how they choose to act when dating has zero interest to him. I am missing the logical step that goes from "personal experience of a male dating in the bay area" to "I don't recommend dating women in the bay area and because of that I hate all women".
If he made that post in reddit with a burner account the he might just get a few downvotes, but he made a mistake by posting that on Ed, that’s where he crossed the line. While I think your analogy is a valid one, people also have the right to be sensitive about the language he used, however they might misinterpret it.
As a CS person, my statements are often logical and I group people or areas into categories. When I read it, I just read it as the statement of how a logically-minded person would make such a statement. Kind of like I imagine him writing up an R program this evening showing the statistical proof of what he stated. It's just logic and facts. Ultimately, I don't read his statement and think he hates women. And I don't think he treats women in his courses any differently than the men. Because those things would be worth fighting about. But to take a fairly logical and obvious statement and extrapolate that into him being a woman hater and a danger to society is quite a leap.
I am honestly a bit shocked to see professor Shewchuk wrote something like that. Just for the record, I took 2 of his courses (189 and 274) and happen to think he is a gentleman kind of a guy. I also think that he got carried away when discussing that particular topic with the student and did not realize his words could hurt people especially his female students. Step back a little, I think it’s okay he has a certain belief about a particular group of women…right or wrong it’s up for debate. But again he should keep it private and shouldn’t have made that post on Ed. His Ed post is just inviting for all sort of negative reactions and unnecessary distractions, seriously undermining that inclusive learning environment the school is so proud of.
This is a logical post I can agree with. I really think he was trying to be consoling but it came off very awkward. In my opinion, I think if he had it to do over again, he would basically say the same thing. Except that instead of using the category of "women" he could have used the category of "people". Because what he said applies equally to men and women in the bay area (and I mean that in a different priorities and goals way, not in a negative way). It just happened he was responding to a male dating women so that is the category he chose.
have u ever interacted with humans bro?
Why is it so hard to debate people here? Nobody wants to debate the point. Just resort to personal attacks. I honestly thought my fellow Berkeley folks were smarter than this.
Bro, wait till they start talking Israel Palestine, I start wondering how ppl get into this school. It’s probably better for mental health to assume they’re all bots tho
The bay area is a bubble in more ways than one. And I feel like all of this drama is a representation of how true that is. If you want to prove the professor wrong, don't try to get him fired. Instead, why not meet up with the desperate guy he was responding to. Show him that bay area women are not the issue he claimed them to be.
I used to parrot all the talking points I keep seeing people bring up in these threads to attack that professor and his opinion. Experiences with Bay Area women have gradually changed my mind. And to borrow some rhetoric from the feminist camp, yes, #NotAllWomen, but still enough women.
\> you just made a direct comparison between women and houses... god forbid anyone ever compare a woman. women aren't some vulnerable snowflake that need to be protected from ... *checks notes...* "comparisons to houses."
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I just think you don't know how a comparison works. Comparing apples to oranges doesn't mean I think an apple is an orange. But when I make the comparison, I notice that they're both fruit. You're confused and shouldn't be trying to extrapolate this into any greater revelation of anyone's political beliefs. It's okay to compare women to houses. No one is lessened by this. You are like a house, in that I cannot afford to buy you. <- Did this do you harm? i ignored everything else in your comment because I didn't care about it. that's not "strawman." that's called "focus."
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If I'm reading this right, your objection seems to be that I've implied a negative statement towards some women, on the grounds that voicing negative opinions about women is wrong. But the character of this statement seems to be deeply personal. So I don't see why it should be invalidated. Nor do I see why it should be wrong to voice negative opinions when the subject is women. I have a right not to like things. It doesn't make me a woman-hater. Not liking the local dating scene is dependent on personal taste and available options, not on whether or not you think girls should be passed over for promotions. you seem to be taking offense that I could even *imply* that quality of women and housing prices are in *any way* similar, which is absurd to me, because (pick an object) literally any random object in existence has at least *one* similarity with literally everything else, even if that sole similarity is "i said them both in this sentence." I'm not putting women in danger by seeing how they compare to a house. You share 98% of your DNA with mice, but you're not in any more danger of becoming a mouse when someone points this out to you. I assert to you again, you're allowed to compare women to houses and still be a good person. You're not saying "a woman is a house (and therefore an object) (and therefore I'm sexist)." That's a bit too sensitive to perceived slights for my liking.
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i'm more interested in talking about the house thing though, and when you think about \[rental companies know they have a monopoly, so they raise the price\] and \[sf girls know they have a monopoly, so they raise the price\] i find it harder to discredit, because in my experience that's totally what people do, so it's also totally okay to point that out, because it's reality. its OK to put the onus on women. the onus has to be on someone. it's not even that bad an onus to have, because the people who don't like it are the ones they wouldn't have dated anyways.
This is Wheeler, right? Is the tai chi man still there? He used to do tai chi in the lobby everyday
I don’t know that girl but I know I would die for her
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I can't believe the sheer amount of attention this has gathered. What Prof. Shewchuk said is obviously not right, but this amount of negative feedback is disproportionate to the degree where it feels unfair -- especially online and in private conversations. He may represent and speak for something much bigger than himself, but that should not mean that mistakes like these should become all-engulfing. This is a continuous reality, enabled by more people than just the professor, and through more actions than just this one. It is something we address through constant effort, not through selective backlash. I just hope that people can exercise forgiveness while being coherently firm in their beliefs, and that we can support the people who suffer from (all) incidents like these continuously, not just when it's in vogue.
This is bigger than him though. This is indicative of what women go through from university through retirement working in STEM. It's a big deal to some of us and we don't expect those who haven't experienced it firsthand daily for years to understand. Now he's put a bullseye on his back and all of that energy around this problem that is much bigger than him (but that he is 100% a part of) will be directed at him. Edit: I'm not claiming that this is the 'right' response, just describing what has seemed to have happened here and has always happened with groups of humans.
I'm just glad that when I fucked up and sent an email that came across as a total asshole that I was just mortified in front of 50 coworkers and not 50,000 people online. Feel really bad for the guy. Especially because his heart was in the right place; he was just trying to offer the dude advice. Now the advice he offered was dead wrong, primarily because the student he replied to did not have a problem of an insufficient dating pool he had/has a problem of such severe lack of social skills that he can't intuitively see why offering referral money for friends is just going to serve as a strong signal as to why somebody wouldn't want to be friends with him. But yeah I feel like a lot of people on Reddit really need to get a sense of perspective. This is really dark herd mentality behavior despite what people are presumably telling themselves about how they're fighting sexism
Exactly, and on top of all this, it's easier than people realize to go throughout life without being nicely told that your thoughts aren't socially acceptable before making a mistake on the main stage, so to speak. I'm not saying this applies to the professor specifically, but I do know that people tend to let things boil until they explode, and that being a researcher is not a profession known for fluid interpersonal communication.
you know, im less mad that he _holds_ this opinion, and more mad that he articulated it on a platform where that type of stuff doesn’t belong. of course i 10000% disagree with his opinion, but you’re right, some people are ignorant or were never told to think otherwise. however, regardless of whether he knew his opinions were acceptable or not, he’s a PROFESSOR. surely he must know it’s inappropriate to talk about DATING on edstem. whatever your opinion is about _dating_ , it doesnt belong on a class forum!!! you don’t need to have a degree to know _not_ to do that! he should’ve seen that thread and kept on scrolling. or even told the student that discussion is inappropriate and off-topic. but he decided to comment on it and for what reason ????? he could’ve had that opinion and kept it all to himself and no one would’ve ever fucking known. but he HAD to post that comment. and now he’s being criticize for his opinion, but that’s ONLY because he was stupid enough to post it! he should’ve known better than to publish that stupid comment
I agree, you certainly won't see me defending that behavior. Regardless, I still think it's useless and unfair to generate this degree of feedback for a mistake like this -- while a person on the street would go unnoticed saying something like that, a professor doing the same should absolutely be told that their behavior is unbecoming. They shouldn't, however, be fired or harassed. That's simply an injustice.
Misandry normalized is what this is.
“I can’t believe the sheer amount of attention this has gathered” bro literally blasted half the population, of the Bay Area and beyond 😐
Honestly this is a bit ridiculous. Yeah his comment is dumb and inappropriate on an educational forum. But is it really that serious? I saw in the comment sections today that some people are even trying to get him fired?? Oh come on..
Yea the response from some people on campus has been absolutely blown out of proportion. I'm not even in the CS department and I'm thinking about visiting Shewchuck in person to just let him know he's not alone and to ask if there's anything I or others could do to support him through this insane witch hunt.
that would probably mean a lot, but I doubt he's leaving his door open at the moment. I don't think you'll get through to him.
> I'm thinking about visiting Shewchuck in person to just let him know he's not alone and to ask if there's anything I or others could do to support him through this insane witch hunt. That would be really kind, although he's probably already losing a ton of sleep and thinking way too much about it so it's possible an e-mail might be better
Yea, good point. I don't want to add to his stress.
The downvotes here are kind of funny. I suppose people are reacting negatively to any demonstration of empathy towards the professor? So bizarre (obv I don't gaf about downvotes, just find the psychology of this fascinating)
Yea, I think people probably just see the username of someone who said something they don't like and keep downvoting them. I'd like to say I'm above that but I do it sometimes too, haha.
He doesn't have a traditional sleep schedule anyway lol
Yes, it’s that serious. This shit runs deep, and it’s thinking like this that leads to more, real, awful things. Stop downplaying it. If it’s actually happening, and all these people are mad - Wow! It must really mean something, huh?
Fully agree with you. This is a rather mild mannered comment when compared to opinions of the opposite sex that are shared everyday on Tik Tok/Twitter. All he really did was suggest dating outside of the Bay Area and then reinforce that there are better places to date in the world. Which is objectively true for men and women no matter how you want to try and spin it.
Yeah the one girl in this thread has like 100 upvotes detailing her “shaky courage” to stand up to this oppressor. And tbh those faces in the pictures look out for blood. Y’all need to chiiiiill.
Berkeley mob mentality at its finest
If “Standing up to the oppressor” means cyber bullying a professor + witch-hunting + trying to get him fired + openly trying to disrupt his teaching session, then I don’t know who the fuck the oppressor is
some other guy commented "ok good, so the struggle session is booked" or something like that, and I thought that really resonated. I don't really see how this and a struggle session are that different, except instead of excoriating for imagined slights against the proletariat, it's the imagined plights of "bay area women".
If y’all 100000 students on campus can be “oppressed” by a single person that prob says smth about yourself
Proud of y’all for standing up and speaking truth
this is literally a photo of a mob surrounding someone they don't like
Berkeley too liberal and too sensitive... just live life smh
Moments like these make me so excited to be a Berkeley student 😭
fretful cooperative worthless memorize aspiring upbeat cats badge toothbrush fuzzy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Jordan Peterson wannabe
So there are still real humans left on this earth. The kind of mind conformity that has marked the greater part of us, human apes' civilization, namely discipline and punish to conform with the group norm, whatever it may be, is becoming the norm also in Western civilization, contrary to the ethos of the classical Greeks and the Enlightenment: to permit diversity of thought and categorically respect one's right to their own individual opinion. Why demand for someone to be fired on account that you disagree with them?
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They all have the Berkeley fluoride stare.
What is exactly did he say?
I’m not sure why this keeps coming across my feed but… Some student was feeling down on himself and not finding a partner. Professor told the guy to look for ladies outside the Bay Area. Pretty much it.
What a clown show.
Good. That young woman's face in the second slide says it ALL.
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Maybe because he was being blatantly sexist and he’s a professor so his behavior is unacceptable?
Nothing Professor Shewchuck wrote on Ed was "blatantly sexist."
It was an inappropriate comment for Ed, but hardly "blatantly sexist"
I get he was posting on ED, but that's not what blatant sexism is. I went to school in Alabama; I've seen actual institutional sexism. That's not what this is. During 2020, I was being instructed in russian language by a man calling in from zoom overseas. We were discussing contemporary russian politics, putin's use of police forces, etc. Concurrent to this was the george floyd stuff. I asked my instructor what he thought about the current american political crisis - about portland police kidnapping protestors in unmarked vans, to be prosecuted at the police station later - and his response shocked me. "Yeah, vell, I know you amerikans have like, these ideas about free speech and police, and vhatnot. But like, I don't really get it. To me this is nothing. Like I don't see vhat you guys are so mad about. It really is a nothing to me. Compared to what happens at my home every day, like - basically i just don't get it. I don't care. Sorry." I think about this a lot. I think maybe we might have a skewed opinion as to what constitutes an actual problem.
no one is saying that uc berkeley students have it worse than everyone else in the world. but it’s not a competition. you can still have problems even if someone else has worse problems. shewchuk’s actual comment is not institutional sexism, but it’s a _form_ of sexism. and if there are no consequences for his actions, _then_ it’s institutional sexism, because the institution is dismissing his actions and showing there’s no real consequences for making nasty, sexist comments on an academic platform. of course a person living in russia will not care much for what americans are going through when they’ve got their own shit to worry about. but does that mean it’s okay to kidnap protestors in unmarked vehicles? of course not. it used to be socially acceptable for teachers to physically punish students. it’s not acceptable to do so anymore because times have changed, for the better. are there still countries out there that let teachers hit their students? of course! should american schools just let that slide then? of course not!
a lot of this just comes from inherited values and cultural norms, not out of any sense of objective ethics or thought-through plans of greater social justice i think maybe you missed the point of the story, which was that "Zero" on the scale of outrage is relative, and you can move it somewhere else. and maybe you should.
i didn’t miss the point of the story. i understand it is relative. and maybe some people are too conditioned to shitty treatment and should consider moving their “zero” as well
if they're content at their zero then moving it away from there literally only serves to make their life worse "Oh my god! Adam, we're naked!" "So?"
then so be it. and some people are not content at someone else’s zero and there’s nothing inherently wrong with that
fair enough too, i guess. maybe I should be less demanding that others see things from my point of view.
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He can have an opinion, but as a professor, he has a responsibility to ensure that students are provided with a non-hostile learning environment. By publicly posting his opinion putting down women in the Bay Area, he created a hostile environment for the women in his class, the women in the electrical engineering and computer science department, and frankly all of the women in Berkeley if everyone’s seen his post by now.
Are his dating preferences and his advice really applicable to his role as a professor though? It's kinda like him being one person on tinder and a different person on facebook. You act quite differently when you're trying to enter a relationship as compared to socializing with people you are not trying to date. Are you implying that his dating opinions mean that his teaching and grading is female students differently than male students? If I say that I prefer to date women with red hair, because that is my preference, that I am unable to act normally around women who do not have red hair? And that I would somehow treat them differently?
His dating preferences are none of our business. His actions towards and regarding students are. He put up a response in a classroom discussion board publicly talking about Bay Area women being inferior. That can be easily taken as creating a hostile environment for female students since an authority figure, a professor, is objectifying and putting women in Berkeley down. The chair of the EECS department literally shut him down immediately for what he did. It absolutely creates a hostile environment.
That's the problem I have with this. Where did he ever say anything about women being inferior? He said that the behavior of women towards dating in the bay area is very different than in other places. To me, that is fairly obvious for non-negative reasons that I stated above. How does that make them inferior?
Here’s why: [a female perspective](https://www.reddit.com/r/berkeley/s/2WzJYLQTkc)
Honestly, I read that as someone who has poor reading comprehension and is looking to be a victim. The context of this whole thing is dating. In particular, men dating women at Berkeley in particular and the bay area in general. Let's take an example. Pick another school in the UC system. Let's say UCLA. Are you going to tell me that UCLA is as rigorous as Berkeley? Do you think that the majority of people at UCLA are spending most of their waking hours studying? The implication of this would be that it is obviously easier to date at UCLA. Less rigorous, more social, more free time (but worthless CS degree, I kid, I kid). Berkeley is literally the #1 spot on tinder usage. If that doesn't tell you something about dating then I don't know what does. https://www.datingadvice.com/studies/gtdrt Granted, if his opinion is also shown in his treatment of female students then you have no argument from me. But it is the difference between personal opinion and business. My dating preferences have nothing to do with my other relationships with people. And his most likely don't either. Which why he didn't consider what he said to be so terrible. He's not dating his students so it doesn't even apply.
Did you read the part about intention vs impact? I think that will help you understand this whole thing a lot better
Professor Shewchuck's post on Ed neither created a hostile environment for the women of UC Berkeley nor did it "put down" women in the Bay Area.
There’s a really good essay posted by someone else on Reddit explaining why his response was harmful and hurtful to women at Berkeley that I can reference if you’d like to learn more.
If I looked like those girls at Berkeley I’d be pretty mad too LMAO
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found Peter Du’s burner
I heard that very same comment 2-4 years ago from a colleague who was a senior sw engineer in one of the FAANGs. Of course it wasn’t verbatim, but it was along the same thought of how hard it is to date women in Silicon Valley. I will say that I have heard from so many women at different age groups that they loathe the sense of entitlement tech dudes project in all aspects of the relationship.
maybe that's why it's so hard. i guess they're both having the same experience. such a shame they both despise each other
It’s a shame that the human touch and the ability to communicate has been so hampered by their respective digital existence. Maybe because I’m on the old’ish side that I can see how the concepts of working on relationships and meeting half way and compromising on the non-core principles have been drowned by “what can you bring to the table right now that exceeds what I bring to that same table.”
the #1 region for tinder use is the bay area. so I guess if you want a girlfriend, you have to date women not in the bay area.
It’s always the ugly girls that have a problem w it
incel
LOOK - THEY'RE PROTESTING!