#California professor put on leave after asking student to ‘Anglicize’ her name

A professor at a California community college has been placed on administrative leave after asking a Vietnamese-American freshman to “Anglicize” her name because it sounds like an “insult in English,” according to reports.

Matthew Hubbard, a math professor at Laney College in Oakland, asked Phuc Bui Diem Nguyen on the second day of her online class to change her name in an email obtained by CNN.

Nguyen — who told the network that the trigonometry professor had not asked how to pronounce her name – informed him that his request felt “discriminatory” and warned that she’d file a Title X complaint if he didn’t use her given name.

But he responded that pronouncing her name in English sounds like “F— Boy.”

“If I lived in Vietnam and my name in your language sounded like Eat a D—, I would change it to avoid embarrassment,” Hubbard added, according to CNN.

Nguyen, who previously asked to be called by the nickname “May,” had looked forward to starting classes and using her legal name, ABC7 News reported.

When Hubbard told her to “Anglicize” her name, she didn’t know what the term meant.

“I never heard that before. At that moment I was surprised, so I Googled the meaning — I didn’t know what it meant so I called my best friend to ask him what does that mean?” Nguyen told the station, adding that Hubbard later referred to her as “P-Nguyen” in a Zoom class.

“I was shook because growing up, they were problems with how to pronounce my name, but they would ask me how to pronounce my name,” she said.

In a statement, college President Tammeil Gilkerson said: “We are aware of the allegations of racist and xenophobic messages from a faculty member at our college with a student about the pronunciation of their name. We take these allegations seriously and immediately placed the faculty member on administrative leave pending an investigation.”

Hubbard, who has taught at the college for 15 years, told The New York Times that there were two people in his class with the last name Nguyen.

He told the paper that he sent his first email partly to prevent confusion with the other student, and partly because he was uncomfortable using Nguyen’s name.

Hubbard said he eventually asked all of his students to change their Zoom names to their last name and their first initial, adding that his first email to Nguyen “was a mistake, and I made it thinking about another student willing to Anglicize.

“But it’s a big difference with someone doing it voluntarily and asking someone to do it. The second email is very offensive, and if I had waited eight hours, I would’ve written something very different,” he told The Times.

The Peralta Federation of Teachers, the union that represents Laney staff, said it hoped to soon institute diversity training.

“I am shocked and appalled by the racist comments we are seeing online from a Laney faculty member to a student,” union President Jennifer Shanoski told The Times in a statement. “In no way are these comments or assertions acceptable in our diverse, welcoming, educational environment.”

Nguyen said she felt empowered not to change her name at Hubbard’s insistence.

“I decided to fully embrace it and let everyone know that they should be proud of their name,” Nguyen told CNN, adding that she is still waiting for a sincere apology from Hubbard.

Her sister, Quynh, said Hubbard gave her a two-sentence apology that she felt was insincere.

“He wasn’t being accountable for his actions,” Quynh Nguyen told CNN. “I was so shocked and I was so disappointed at his ignorance and at the school.”