More shaming of the "fat-shaming" professor Geoffrey Miller.

We're already talking about him in this 8 am post. But I'll start a new one for this Inside Higher Education piece (pointed out by TaxProf).

One way to respond is humor:

A new blog was launched Monday in response to the furor. The blog is called Fuck Yeah! Fat Ph.D.s and features those proud of being "fatlicious in academia."

Or you can be super-solemn. This is University of New Mexico psychology chair, Jane Ellen Smith:



According to Smith, Miller claimed his tweets were part of a research project:

"We are looking into the validity of this assertion, and will take appropriate measures. As members of the UNM community, we are all responsible for demonstrating good judgment when exercising our academic freedoms regardless of the format”....

On Twitter, Atlantic correspondent and physician Ford Vox called the validity of Miller’s apology into question, given an essay the professor wrote about Chinese eugenics....

Miller’s essay was published in Edge this year followed up by an interview with Vice, in which he argued that the Chinese government has a long history of eugenics, and he suggested that Western countries should be making greater efforts to pursue genetic research.

There are a bunch of issues colliding here: 1. Saying flippant things about the fat and hurting feelings,  2. Making students worry that they might be discriminated against, 3. The need to prevent actual discrimination against students based on their physical characteristics, 4. Holding professors responsible for things they say in social media, 5. The professor's academic freedom, 6. The taboo against talking about eugenics, 7. What we might want to say and study about eugenics if it weren't taboo.