Unless the National Security Agency records college lectures—as it does many digital communications—we may never know what really happened in professor Leonard Kaplan's controversial Legal Process class Feb. 15.
According to an e-mail distributed by a Hmong student who was absent from Kaplan's class that day, Kaplan allegedly made racist statements including ""Hmong men have no talent other than to kill,"" and ""all second generation Hmong end up in gangs and other criminal activity.""
Kaplan claims he did not make those comments, but said his statements—including an ironic one about rape—could have been misconstrued. Meanwhile, KaShia Moua, who wrote the e-mail, later said the e-mail ""wasn't well-informed."" In other words, both sides have hinted they made mistakes.
Nevertheless, the juggernaut of incrimination, indignation and alienation unleashed by Kaplan's comments and their reception remains unresolved.
This unfortunate situation, which arose from a discussion of law and culture, unwittingly proves a point Kaplan was trying to make: Cultural differences intervene in our social and legal conduct in ways that are hard to anticipate.
On a cultural level, Kaplan and his Hmong students certainly misunderstood each other. Kaplan did not anticipate that his use of irony might be misunderstood, or his use of examples of Hmong social problems and customs could be viewed as negative stereotyping.
On the other hand, some of Kaplan's Hmong students interpreted his comments in the worst possible light—lacking faith in Kaplan's good intentions. Kaplan's alleged unwillingness to apologize hardened their conclusion.
In conceptually knee-jerk fashion, some faculty and officials at UW-Madison have portrayed this conflict as a tug-of-war over academic freedom—but that's the wrong rubric. The true issues at stake are cultural sensitivity and good faith.
In a culturally diverse environment such as UW-Madison and a rapidly globalizing world, there is little room for cultural provincialism. Faculty, students and administrators all need to try to see the world through the eyes of others—realizing that not everyone shares the same cultural assumptions or sensitivities.
Likewise, people who feel aggrieved need to assess whether their own narrow cultural assumptions may have exacerbated their sense of being wronged. Finally, it goes without saying that people need to get their facts and quotes straight before condemning others.
With a little more cultural awareness and less hair-trigger aggrievedness, we might avoid this kind of unfortunate situation in the future.
