A Georgia state college professor has drawn backlash for his comments online regarding illegal immigrants including a contention that they can drain the economy of the country.
According to Fang Zhou, an associate professor of History at the Georgia Gwinnett College, Atlanta, in his statement to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, if rewards are given to illegal immigrants, more are bound to follow. He welcomes the backlash, even as people call for his sacking.
Zhou, who is a legal immigrant from China, told the newspaper that he is against political correctness. He claimed to be a speaker of truths to power in his classes and helps his students learn about the financial drain caused by increased crime rates owed to the illegal immigrations.
He claims that his students are rendered ‘woke’ and become intrinsically against illegal immigration once they take his class. However, he does not force his students to mimic his opinion.
In argument, his critics say that the assertions so made have already been debunked and the terms used in his comments such as ‘libtards’ and ‘ghetto thugs’ are primarily offensive.
A critic of the same is Georgia state representative Bee Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American – the first to be elected the House of Representatives in the state. His question is whether these opinions are supported by the Georgia Gwinnett College as well.
Nguyen is a democrat and has told the Journal-Constitution that she is concerned with what is being taught in his classroom. She has noted that 70% of the populous of the students are persons of colour, or from different ethnicities, and have planned to lodge formal complaints with the administration. College officials have declined to comment, but have shares an ‘academic freedom policy’ which propagates that faculty may express their views ‘without fear of censure’.
However, this policy also mentions that the faculty members must remember that their views may reflect on the college.
