Radford Representing GSU Prof and Student in Discrimination Case

Decatur Metro | July 3, 2009 | 7:10 pm

James Radford sends in a link to a WSB story that details the discrimination case brought by a GSU grad student, Selma Shelbayah, against an unnamed professor who is accused of making multiple dispariging remarks about her Muslim heritage.

Radford ,who is seen briefly in the video, is representing both the student and GSU professor Dona Stewart, who stepped down from her post as Director of Middle East Studies over the university’s reaction to the student’s claims of the incident.  Stewart is also an Oakhurst resident.

Here’s what happened after Shelbayah told Steward about the incident according to GPB…

Stewart told Selma Shelbayah to file an official complaint to the department dean. After that the professor apologized to the student, but a day later, Stewart said that the dean told her to fire Shelbayah, and she refused.

But GSU says…

“In no way was retaliation taken against Stewart or the student as a result of the complaint.”

Uh OK.  Even if only half the details here are true, this is still a really ugly story for Georgia State.

Here’s an idea that’s too often lost in modern academia: try putting your students before your tenured faculty every once in a while.

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3 Responses to “Radford Representing GSU Prof and Student in Discrimination Case”

  1. W. Gibbets says:
    July 4, 2009 at 9:46 am

    I would like to know who the dean is–considering how diverse GSU is, this seems really out of line with the university as a whole. It’s the department of Middle East Studies–how do you keep Muslims out of that department? That’s just ridiculous.
    Of course, all of this now rests on Stewart’s claims: the university did not fire her, she stepped down, so I hope they have proof that the dean insisted that she fire the grad student. If they don’t then the dean gets away with a win/win situation for him/herself.

  2. James says:
    July 4, 2009 at 4:42 pm

    The WSB and GPB coverage was pretty bare bones. For a good article that provides some more detail and context to the case, see:

    http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/07/02/discrimination

    • W. Gibbets says:
      July 5, 2009 at 12:10 am

      Ok, so the whole friggin’ communications department is involved? This sounds so surreal for GSU as a college culture–what’s the deal here?
      Are they that stupid in the COMMUNICATIONS dept.?
      I doubt it, but, as in any collection of humans, you will have persons that cannot control themselves–which makes me wonder if the Com Dept. is a little too Suthun for its own good.