COLLEGE STUDENTS DON’T KNOW MUCH: Columbia Student Offended by Professor Who Said Negro Was Correct Term in the ’60s: “I didn’t pay attention in class after that.”

A Columbia University student was angry with her sociology professor for saying it was appropriate to use the term negro when referring to people of color while discussing the 1960s. She wrote to the professor, explaining to him that negro was an offensive and outdated term, but he failed to adjust his vocabulary. “I didn’t pay attention in class after that,” the student, Maria Martinez, told The Columbia Daily Spectator.

Here’s some context: The professor is Todd Gitlin, a longtime leftist activist who served as president of Students for a Democratic Society in the early ’60s. He teaches a course in American studies.

“It is in fact true, a matter of historical record, that African Americans in the ’50s and ’60s wanted to be called ‘Negroes,'” Gitlin told The Spectator. “Denying that practice would be a falsification of history.”

It’s too bad she’s occupying a seat that might instead be occupied by someone willing to learn.