Miss 'Leeza's Watermelon: Take II

We're happy to report (we think) that the offensive math exam question discovered at Bellevue Community College in Washington State has been properly dealt with, and in fairly short order. We'd reported on this in an earlier post if you want to follow the bouncing reference. According to the Seattle Times:

Bellevue Community College President Jean Floten apologized Wednesday at an emotional open-campus meeting called after students complained about what they said was a racially offensive math question used on a practice test.

We also get a little more insight into how this question got on the exam in the first place:

The test question was originally written with the name of a comedian, Gallagher, whose signature shtick was to smash a variety of objects, often watermelons. Later, the question was rewritten, and the name was changed to Condoleezza, Floten said.

Of course, the college concealed the smoking gun by refusing to out the perp, but whoever it was volunteered for the usual penance:

The college declined to release the name of the teacher who wrote the question. Floten said the teacher has apologized and requested cultural-sensitivity training.

It's amusing to think of a lefty prof having to undergo the kind of punishment usually reserved by the Neanderthals of the right who've somehow slipped through the academic Republican Detection System. But appropriate nonetheless.

On the whole, we congratulate the college for the swift and unambiguous way it dealt with this issue. No crappola, no excuses, no passive resistance, no righteous bluster about "academic freedom" and free speech. And no Marxist cant about McCarthyism.

It's interesting to note that, in the academic pecking order, community colleges are routintely sneered at by tenured lefty academics, who remain comfortable in their cozy adolescent playpens and insulated, unlike the rest of us, from the necessity of taking responsibility for their actions. But community colleges, many of which have dedicated, modestly-paid profs with a heavy courseload and no tenure system at all, are more practical in orientation, and far, far closer to the communities in which they live than the average 4-year state-funded or private institution. So on another level, it's not entirely surprising that Bellevue chose to deal with this issue like adults. We find it rather refreshing. But the likes of Yale will never take note.