College professor placed on leave after asking student to 'anglicise' her name

Professor says student needed to 'understand your name is an offensive sound in my language'

College professor placed on administrative leave after asking student to anglicise her name

A college professor has been placed on administrative leave after he requested a student “anglicise” her name because it sounded like an “insult in English”.

Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen, a Vietnamese-American, was attending her second day of classes as a freshman at Laney College in Oakland, California, when she received an email from her trigonometry professor, Matthew Hubbard.

In the email, Hubbard asked that Nguyen anglicise her name to something more English-sounding.

According to Nguyen, the term was one she’d never heard before, so she first had to Google it before she could respond.

“I never heard that before. At that moment I was surprised, so I Googled the meaning – I didn’t know what it meant so I called my best friend to ask him ‘what does that mean?’” Nguyen told ABC7 News KGO, adding that she has experienced many people ask her how to pronounce her name after struggling with it.

Hubbard, she said, was “being an ignorant person and not trying to learn my name.”

Rather than change her name, the college freshman told her professor that his request was “discriminatory” and that she would file a complaint with the Title IX Office if he would not call her by her birth name – prompting him to send another email in which he again requested that she change her name on the basis that it is an “offensive sound in my language”.

“Your name in English sounds like f*** boy,” Hubbard responded, according to a screenshot of his email shared with KGO. The professor also said that if the situation were reversed, he would change his name to “avoid embarrassment both on my part and on the part of the people who had to say it.”

“I understand you are offended, but you need to understand your name is an offensive sound in my language,” he continued. “I repeat my request.”

Following the exchange, Laney College issued a statement in which it said it was aware of allegations of “racist and xenophobic messages from a faculty member” and that the faculty member had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation.

“On the surface this incident is obviously disturbing and comes after decades of discussing and working to combat structural racism, xenophobia, and violence in both the Black and Asian Pacific Islander community,” the statement, also posted on the college’s website, continued. “While our mission has been bold and unrelenting, we also recognise that our college and its community is a reflection of broader society and we must actively fight ignorance with education. We do not tolerate racism, discrimination or oppression of any kind.”

According to KGO, Hubbard issued an apology for his behaviour on Twitter, before later removing his account.

His apology reportedly read: “I apologise for my insensitive actions which caused pain and anger to my student, and which have now caused pain and anger to an untold number of people who read my two inappropriate emails on the internet.”

The Independent has contacted Laney College for comment.