Duke University professor defends his views of blacks versus Asians
In photo above: Duke University political science professor Jerry Hough. (Photo courtesy of Duke University)
By JONATHAN DREW
Associated Press
RALEIGH — A Duke University professor criticized for an online post comparing blacks and Asians said Monday, May 18, that it’s not racist to discuss what he sees as differences in how the groups have performed in the U.S. over the past few decades.
Political science professor Jerry Hough has been sharply criticized for a response he posted in the online comments section of the New York Times editorial “How Racism Doomed Baltimore,” dated May 9. The 80-year-old professor, who is white, has been on an unrelated academic leave for the past school year.
In his online comments, Hough wrote that Asians have been described as “yellow races” and faced discrimination in 1965 at least as bad as blacks experienced. Of Asian-Americans, he wrote: “They didn’t feel sorry for themselves, but worked doubly hard.”
The posting goes on to say: “I am a professor at Duke University. Every Asian student has a very simple old American first name that symbolizes their desire for integration. Virtually every black has a strange new name that symbolizes their lack of desire for integration.”
In an email Monday to The Associated Press, Hough defended his comments but said it’s difficult to be subtle in a post on a newspaper’s comments section with a limited word count.
Hough described himself as a disciple of Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1950s who supported integration. In his lifetime, he said, he’s observed prejudice ranging from the World War II-era internment camps for Japanese-Americans to segregation in the South, and he’s dismayed that more progress hasn’t been made.
