German Professor Apologises for 'Rape Problem' Email to Indian Student | Hacker News Reader

German Professor Apologises for 'Rape Problem' Email to Indian Student

huffingtonpost.in

20 pointsoption_greek20 comments

What I find unusual is that the professor told the student the exact reason she was rejecting him. I would have imagined that many people hold such biases in their minds but generally brush applicants off with "you don't meet our needs" or "we're currently full now". After her apology, she did change her statement to "currently full", but I'm surprised she didn't use that in the first place.

I guess the email was supposed to be a way of "raising awareness" about the issue.

Denying access to education to Indian males because they are rapists is a way to "raise awareness"? Maybe in the same sense that requiring jews to wear yellow stars in 1939 Germany because they were a dangerous subhuman race was a way to raise awareness?

I never really understood the banality of evil, but listening to people coming up with benign excuses for what I perceive as blatant abuse I'm beginning to get it.

Indian males aren't a dangerous subhuman race and everyone knows that.

It isn't abuse if he didn't make the cut.

Read the professor's emails in the article.

The reason he was rejected was that they had limited room and he didn't make the cut. I'm sorry, but being of a certain race does not ENTITLE you to declare you made the cut even if you didn't make the cut.

You've made 3 comments in the thread saying "he didn't make the cut". Read the article please. He didn't make the cut because he was an Indian male. The professor didn't even discuss anything else - his grades, or his previous internships or his research interests.

Even the excuse she gave afterwards didn't say he lacked anything, just that she didn't have space in her lab.

Research labs have limited space, therefore they select candidates similarly to any job.

I can't imagine anyone here would have the same response if a startup were hiring two Senior Developers, considered many candidates and then got hate mail from some guy claiming that the ONLY reason he wasn't selected was because of his race.

You missed the fact that those emails are from the actual professor who rejected him? This must be the forth time I tell you to read the article. Don't do any speed-reading bullshit, take your time and read every word and screenshot. Slowly.

And that's what you get when you place diversity above merit: incompetent people getting jobs they don't deserve - and are not prepared for - just because they are female.

For the record, India has approx. 2 rapes reported per 100000 people, while the US has 28.6 and Germany 9.

You can't believe the reporting rate is the same.

No, but I believe that all the cases that reach the press have been reported and are part of the statistics. What I can't believe is that people who don't understand basic statistics are allowed to teach in universities and associate in the boycott of Indian students.

Its not the same, but how much more do you think it is? 5x? 10x? Even if it is 20x, its still comparable to Germany and the US (40 vs 30). Certainly not to an extent that you can indict 600 million people as rapists, as this professor did.

Under-reporting of rape and sex crimes is rife all over the world, including in so-called developed societies.

How did you determine that the male in question was competent (i.e. that he actually made the cut) and that the woman in question was not competent?

You should really read the article before commenting. This is not Slashdot.

I read it. This has nothing to do with Slashdot. You keep making statements as if you knew the situation better than the woman directly involved in the decision.

Read it again. Anyone who puts this in writing is too stupid to teach kindergarten, let alone university courses: "Many female professors in Germany decided to no longer accept male indian students for these reasons, and currently other European female association are joining".

You still haven't offered a shred of evidence that he actually made the cut for that lab. Why is he entitled to work there?

Let us say he did not made the cut based on his profile- How on earth does that justify her email ? Why won't she put the real reason for rejecting him, if there was any, instead of a oversimplified generalization based on the country of origin.

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