Missouri University professor fired for joking about COVID-19 and city of Wuhan

An associate professor at Missouri University (MU) was alleged to have made racist and xenophobic comments Monday morning, when he joked about masking to a student who hails from Wuhan.

This was during his upper level marketing class, via remote learning, in the Trulake College of Business at MU, the Missourian reported, and the student to whom the joke was made was reportedly not offended.

Later that night that, professor Joel Poor reportedly sent a notification to his students through Canvas that read: "Today I was relieved of teaching duties, I apologize for any disruption this might cause you."

Twitter account #StillConcerned demanded that MU get ride of the professor for his "racist and xenophobic comments that he delivered to his Marketing 3000 class today."

The so-called xenophobic remark came after Poor asked if any other students were from outside the country. One student spoke up and said that they were from Wuhan, China. It was then that Poor jokingly said: "Let me get my mask on."

There were those who came to Poor's defense. One Twitter user by the name Nathan Etheridge, who appears to be a student at MU, tweeted: "I know the guy who was on the other end of this and he is from Wuhan, China. He has told me he was not offended and he thought the professor was just joking with him. This is a modified video that makes this professor look bad. You're trying to ruin man's career to feel virtuous."

Etheridge added: "Update: Professor Joel Poor was just relieved of teaching duties by Mizzou You all should feel ashamed. A man with a family has just had his career and reputation ruined so you could get 5 secs of twitter fame Mission accomplished."

Others felt nothing but contempt for the professor, with one Twitter user tweeting: "he ruined his own career by making that remark. it was totally unprofessional and in bad taste i don’t care if it was a joke or not."

MU's official Twitter account also commented on the video, tweeting: "We have submitted this video to the Office for Civil Rights and Title IX."

Poor sent out a lengthy apology following the incident, saying: "I made a joke about needing to put on a mask after a student said he was from Wuhan. I made the joke in a context of where the virus started. This was put on Twitter without the context that I immediately followed up with 'I've only been to Chongquing and Shanghai' and then asking the student about potential problems traveling to/from the US to China."

"To anyone who was offended by my comments, I sincerely apologize and I want to communicate unequivocally that I have nothing but respect and love for the Chinese people and especially my students from China. But the most important point you need to understand from a marketing perspective is that what I did was wrong and here is why."

"1. In marketing, perception is reality. It doesn't matter if I didn't intend to offend someone, the fact that I did is what counts. When someone tells us we did something wrong, we need to be humble, not defensive and learn from it."

"2. I should have been more sensitive. Even though I am totally supportive of the Chinese people/students, the political context here in the US is not. I should have realized that and refrained from commenting like I did."

"These are the main points I want to make, but I also want to emphasize that students should contact me directly no matter what. I'm open-minded, will never hold it against you and enjoy being challenged."