Skip to main contentThe editors of Reed College's student newspaper were asked to step down when a parody based on the popular website Hotornot.com misfired, drawing charges of racism. "Academic or not?" a full-page spread in the Feb. 6 issue of The Quest posed questions about the teaching style and academic leanings of five professors.
"We thought it would prompt debate and that it was readily obvious as being a satire," says Quest co-editor Jesse Hoffman.
The flap centers on the satire of Pancho Savery, English department chair and one of several professors teaching the required freshman course Humanities 110. Hoffman says Savery, who is African-American, is known for criticizing the humanities curriculum and fellow Reed faculty for failing to credit ancient Egyptians and Africans as the predecessors to Greek and Roman civilization.
Savery's lecture regularly receives a standing ovation, but, Hoffman adds, "there are those who deplore his methods." (Savery declined to be interviewed by WW.)
The Quest satire asked readers to vote on whether Savery is an "Incendiary afrocentrist with alarmist concerns? Enlightened intellectual with informed opinions?"
Not everybody got it. Students began circulating a petition calling for a re-election of the paper's editorial board. The paper also received dozens of letters decrying the spoof--Hoffman says it usually only receives three or four per issue--and current and former student-body presidents and faculty members have spoken against the piece.
Hoffman says the piece was intended to lampoon both the mindless, instant judgment of online polls as well as intellectual pretensions of Reed's faculty. Instead, Hoffman says, the ensuing rancor suggests the mostly white campus of 1,300 isn't ready for an honest discussion of race. And, he adds, there may be good reason for that: "I think it's a guilty conscience."
WWeek 2015