Leo Terrell slams professors who claim 'standard English' is racist: 'I find it insulting'

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Leo Terrell slams professors who claim ‘standard English’ is racist: The Black community rejects ‘improper’ English

Fox News contributor Leo Terrell on Towson University panelists' bids to undo Whiteness.

Fox News contributor Leo Terrell on Tuesday slammed a Towson University professor's claim that "standard English" is racist, saying that it's insulting to minorities to claim that correct grammar is somehow discriminatory.  

"Let me just be very clear because I find it insulting. They are asking or basically trying to present the idea that Black English or let’s call it what it is, ebonics, is being taken away from the Black community," Terrell told "Fox & Friends."

Terrell said that the Black community rejects Black English because it is "improper."

"But these far-left professors are somehow claiming that teaching proper English is racist and that we should embrace ebonics, poor English, improper English. In essence, they are trying to claim that improper English is proper and I find that absolutely insulting and it calls for lower expectations of Black kids. It’s very racist in and of itself."

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Terrell reacted to an Indiana University of Pennsylvania English professor's bid to "undo Whiteness" in university students’ writing.

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Indiana University of Pennsylvania English professor Cristina Sánchez-Martín said that "the repeated references to 'correct grammar' and 'standard language' reinforce master narratives of English only as White and monolingualism and a deficit view of multilingualism.'"

During a virtual "Antiracist Pedagogy Symposium" on June 17th, a Towson University panelist criticized a university writing curriculum and other programs for being "racist and perpetuating Whiteness." 

Campus Reform reported April Baker-Bell, associate Professor of Language, Literacy, and English Education at Michigan State University, argued that the use of Standard English among teachers is used to maintain racist assumptions about "Black language."

Bell argued that Standard English is "anti-Blackness that is used to diminish black language of Black students in classrooms is not separate from the rampant and deliberate anti-black racism and violence inflicted upon black people in society."

Bell went on to say, "Teacher attitudes include assumptions that Black students are somehow linguistically, morally, and intellectually inferior because they communicate in Black language."

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Terrell said the professors themselves speak "proper English," yet they apparently don't want to hold Black students to the same standard.

"I can't say this clearly enough. There is absolutely no systemic racism in this country," he said, adding there is "no data" to support the liberal professors' views in this case.