A UBC Professor Has Been Accused Of Making Racist Comments During A Lecture & It's On Video

A student recorded the moment.

Editor

An investigation has been launched after a university professor in B.C. was accused of making racist comments during a lecture.

In the video, posted to Streamable, you can hear the professor from the University of British Columbia's Department of Chemistry, rambling about IQ levels and race.

The professor has been identified as Dr. John Sherman, according to a UBC Reddit thread where the video was shared.

"I’ll give you a fact. Black people do poorer on IQ tests than white people," he said in the video.

"Is that racist? That's a fact," he added.

He also said, "Asians do better than white people on the IQ test, that's a fact. Now you can make judgements from that. Does that mean that Asians are smarter than white? White are smarter than Black? I don't know."

"Is that racist to even ask that question? I don't think it's racist but that's just a historical fact," he added.

Dr. Sherman continued to talk about the subject, restating that it was a fact.

A screenshot was also shared on the thread and is of an update sent to Dr. Sherman's class, addressing his comments.

The matter is under investigation to determine what happened during the lecture on January 19 after someone reported the professor's comments.

The update encouraged people to watch a nine-minute period of the lecture recording which "will cover the whole situation, including context."

"He uses a word as an example and made some comments," it said.

It added that a different professor would be teaching the class.

The thread now has more than 400 comments, where people are heatedly discussing the UBC professor's remarks.
from UBC

Some people believe he simply didn't communicate himself property.

from UBC

However, many others believe his comments were racist.

from UBC
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  • Editor

    Morgan Leet (she/her) is an Editor for Narcity Media Group. After graduating from Carleton University’s School of Journalism and Communication, she jumped into fulfilling her dream as a journalist, merging her passion for travelling with writing. After working in the print media world on Canada’s East Coast, she joined Narcity with a move to B.C., drawn to the beauty of Western Canada. Since then, she's documented her experience moving to Vancouver, covering everything from local events to bucket-list travel destinations across Canada's West Coast.

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