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.

"The deleted tweet that sent NYU Professor Geoffrey Miller into virtual hiding on Sunday and through Monday..."

"... read, in full, 'Dear obese PhD applicants: if you didn't have the willpower to stop eating carbs, you won't have the willpower to do a dissertation. #truth.'" 

Then came the rest of Twitter. Responding to one critic who called the message "judgmental," Miller wrote that finishing a dissertation is "about willpower/conscientiousness, not just smarts." Within a few hours, however, facing the rebuke of his NYU colleagues and Twitter's active academic community, Miller deleted both tweets and replaced them with two new, apologetic ones....

But it was too late: by the time Miller apologized, people had organized an email campaign directed at NYU's administration, accused him of endorsing eugenics, and dug up other incideniary [sic] tweets that he had deleted a month ago....

The author of this item at The Atlantic, J.K. Trotter, proceeds to go after Miller:

Here is a tenured, credentialed professor of psychology who appears to harbor an active disdain for those he deems genetically or physically inferior, and trades on that disdain with Twitter jokes. (Who except a snotty teenager ridicules fat people for no apparent reason?) 

Judging from the photograph of Miller, I'd say — perhaps sounding (to Trotter!) like a snotty teenager — he has a personal struggle with weight control. He's quite handsome, but there's something about the shape of his features that suggests there's a fat man inside waiting to bust loose. I suspect that's the energy behind his tweeting about willpower and shunning carbs, and I wish him well. But back to Trotter and Twitter:

On Twitter, it seems, the only thing worse than throwing around a repugnant idea is lying about whether you believe it.

Miller's continued silence hasn't helped his case, either. He did not respond to emails....

Oh, Trotter! I haven't seen pictures of you and don't know if you're chubby, but if you are, with a name like Trotter, try Prancercise.