A quick exchange on a university’s faculty discussion board has led experts in Appalachian studies to consider again whether bias in academe (and society) is too accepted when it is about the people of the region they study.

On the faculty discussion board, a staff member posted a complaint about a student walking around barefoot in a building. A response is what set off the larger discussion:

One professor wrote: “My approach would be to assure this student that going barefoot is not against the rules because the assumption is that by the time they reach college, students are expected to understand why wearing shoes is expected on campus. If s/he disrespects his or her peers and the college community enough to (un)dress like a hillbilly here, I would say, then s/he should be prepared to be dismissed as one, in whatever pursuits s/he favors, in the preference of someone more attuned to proper decorum and respectful behavior.”

FK – Are they sure it wasn’t a post-modern hippie? In which case of course they should be defending its actions as being in tune with Gaia. Or maybe the student was just trying to get ‘grounded‘ as some people do for health purposes.