Professor Donald Barr, Associate Professor (Teaching) in the Department of Pediatrics, has written a letter to the editor of The Stanford Daily to request a correction to yesterday’s article “Stanford athletes had access to list of ‘easy’ courses.” Barr says he was misquoted in The Stanford Daily in a way that implied he compared the accommodations that athletes receive to accommodations for disabled students. His letter reads:
To: Zach Zimmerman
Editor in Chief, The Stanford DailyA story appearing in the Stanford Daily on March 9, written by Amy Julia Harris and Ryan Mac, contained a grave journalistic error. The students who wrote the story misquoted me, and in so doing fundamentally changed the meaning and the implications of the comments attributed to me.
During the brief interview I had with one of the students during my regular office hours, I explained that I, as other faculty, sometimes accommodate student-athletes’ off-campus competition schedules by arranging with the coaching staff for the proctoring of examinations, just as we do for other students involved in certain types of extracurricular activities.
At no point during our brief conversation did I compare the academic accommodations provided for athletes to the accommodations provided for students with disabilities. I have contacted the students who wrote the story as well as the instructor of the class for which they wrote it, requesting that they immediately retract their story and publicly correct their error.
Donald Barr, MD, PhD
Associate Professor (Teaching), Department of Pediatrics