A professor in Oakland, Calif.
Is facing backlash after his email exchange with a Laney College student leaked online.In the exchange, Professor Matthew Hubbard asks a Vietnamese student to “anglicize” her name because it “sounds like an insult in English”.In the email exchange, the professor tells the freshman, whose name is Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen.that he needs to address her by a different name because “your name in English sounds like F**k B**”.When Nguyen replied explaining that the request was discriminatory, Hubbard said, “I understand you are offended,”.“but you need to understand that your name is an offensive sound in my language”.Nguyen grew up in the U.S., so English is not exclusively the professor’s “language”.She had also been excited to start college so she could use her legal name after years of going by the nickname “May” .Hubbard has since been suspended from the school.“People should not be embarrassed of their name and they should be proud of their name,” Nyugen told ABC13
