THAT SEEMS ABOUT RIGHT: Chinese alumni compare USC to Mao for removing professor over Chinese word that sounds like n-word.

A news organization that tracks the Chinese social network Weibo reported that the American controversy puzzled Chinese users.

“On Weibo, netizens had little sympathy for the students feeling offended over the Chinese words. Many called them ‘ignorant’ or ‘uncultured’ for mistaking the Chinese words for a racial slur,” according to What’s on Weibo. Some accused the offended USC students of “discriminating against the Chinese language” or ranking English higher than Chinese for no reason.

UCLA’s Volokh criticized USC leaders for failing to teach students that “they should not be upset by such accidents of language,” and for implying that “Chinese speakers should watch what they say, not just in examples but in ordinary conversation that could be overheard.”

Forcing faculty to avoid certain Mandarin words would be “oddly Anglocentric” and offensive to Mandarin speakers, Volokh wrote in a sample letter that he said Garrett should have written.

Volokh and the Chinese alumni are right, the USC administration is laughably, cravenly, humiliatingly wrong.