UW professor draws fire for remarks about Hmong people
(Published Friday, February 23, 2007 11:46:50 PM CST)
A d v e r t i s e m e n t
By Ryan J. Foley Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. - A University of Wisconsin law professor is under fire for making what some students called offensive remarks about the Hmong people during a recent lecture, including: "Hmong men have no talent other than to kill."
Professor Leonard Kaplan also told his legal process class that many Hmong become criminals and gang members and purchase their wives, according to an e-mail distributed by a Hmong student upset by the comments.
The remarks outraged students who organized a Wednesday night meeting where the law school dean apologized and tried to calm tensions. Students have scheduled another forum for next week and invited Kaplan to share his views.
Kaplan, a law school faculty member since 1974, has called the Feb. 15 remarks a misunderstanding and met privately with offended students to apologize.
The remarks come amid heightened tensions in Wisconsin between white residents and the Hmong, an ethnic minority from southeast Asia who fled after fighting with Americans in the Vietnam War.
A white hunter was charged last month in the death of a Hmong hunter whose body was found in a wildlife refuge near Green Bay. Some Hmong fear the slaying was revenge for the 2004 shooting deaths of six white hunters by a Hmong hunter in northern Wisconsin.
Law School Dean Kenneth Davis said Kaplan misspoke as he was trying to illustrate a point about the difficulties Hmong have faced in assimilating to Wisconsin.
"From the students' perspective, what resulted were uninformed and disparaging racial stereotypes," Davis wrote in an e-mail to students.
The Hmong student's e-mail attributed several remarks to Kaplan. They included: "Hmong men have no talent other than to kill," "Hmong women are better off now that Hmong men are dying off in this country" and "all second-generation Hmong end up in gangs and other criminal activity."
The student also quoted Kaplan as saying, "all men purchase their wives, so if he wants to have sex with his wife and she doesn't consent, you and I call it rape, but the Hmong guy is thinking, 'Man, I paid too much for her!"'
KaShia Moua, the Hmong student who organized the meeting and distributed the e-mail, called the remarks "incredibly offensive and racist."
"He made the unfortunate choice to turn his classroom into a public platform for him to spew his racist and close-minded beliefs about the Hmong," she wrote.
Nam Dao, a Hmong student who is in the class, said he was not personally offended but many of his friends and classmates were.
"I felt a bit uncomfortable mainly due to the delivery of the stereotypes, which were shrouded in Kaplan's trademark style of humor that can be quite polarizing," he added.
Dao said Kaplan cited the Hmong dowry system to show how some ethnic minorities can use a "cultural defense argument" in rape cases.
Kaplan pointed to the gang problem to show that Wisconsin does a poor job providing educational opportunities and job training to Hmong, he said.
Davis said Kaplan's comments were not motivated by racism but were inappropriate.
"The way this material was handled was inconsistent with the expectations to which we hold our faculty, and he understands that and agrees," Davis said. "We have a reputation as being a leader on diversity and inclusivity. When things come along that put those core values at risk, we take them very seriously."
About 70 of the law school's 830 students identify themselves as Asian American.
Kaplan is an expert on the law in the field of mental health, particularly psychiatry. He is also director of the school's Project for Law and the Humanities.
