If I were a student from a former-soviet-union country or from the middle east, I might feel upset, humiliated, and psychologically harmed by this:
The prevailing assumption in Canadian culture is that rules are
reasonable and should be followed. By contrast, students
from post-communist societies and countries with
totalitarian regimes will rarely take program regulations
at face value. They are more likely to challenge rules
because they came from an environment where
unreasonable rules controlled every aspect of life and they
could only survive by breaking the rules at least some of
the time. These students are likely to regard rules as
guidelines to be followed when necessary, but ignored
when possible.Similarly, in Middle Eastern cultures the rules are often
negotiable, and exceptions to rules are frequently made
based on consideration of individual cases. So declaring
that “the class is full” basically opens the door for students
to negotiate getting into the class, because in their culture
“no” is rarely absolute and there is often room for bargaining.
The above quotation is from the lead article in Reflections, a newsletter put out by the UWO teaching support centre. Is the article really saying we shouldn't trust foreign students from certain cultures? The article is replete with these and other stereotypical statements about people from non-North-American cultures.
Profiling, negative characterizations, etc. Sounds like a strong prima facie case of human rights abuse to me.
Addendum #1: Oh no! If Maclean's was taken before the tribunal merely for republishing a portion something Mark Steyn wrote, does that mean I'm in trouble for posting the above quotation on my blog??
Addendum #2: There is some additional discussion about this item, and its parallels with the Maclean's case, here.