OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY CANCELS BIGOTED CLASS ON REDUCING SOUTHERN ACCENTS

Oak Ridge, Tennessee is a scary place, one where 900 Ph.Ds look down their noses at Appalachian people. It is a place where weddings between scientists and engineers and local women were called "mixed marriages." It is a place where environmental crimes were committed by our government and Union Carbide in secrecy, and never punished. It is a place where workers raising environmental, safety and health concerns are exposed intentionally to toxic materials and otherwise retaliated against. And it is a place where a government-paid $805/person course in "SOUTHERN ACCENT REDUCTION" was scheduled, but rightly cancelled. They need a course in "ENERGUMEN IDENTIFICATION."


KNOXVILLE NEWS SENTINEL
BY FRANK MUNGER

Are y’all listening? ORNL cancels ‘Southern Accent Reduction’ class after employee outcry


It’s OK to speak Southern and work at a national lab — after all.

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has cancelled plans for a “Southern Accent Reduction” class because of objections from lab staff members, some of whom said they were offended by the training opportunity.

ORNL’s human resources department early last week distributed a registration notice for the six-week course to be taught by Lisa Scott, “a nationally certified speech pathologist and accent reduction trainer.”

Here was the e-mail pitch for the speech rehab program: “Feel confident in a meeting when you need to speak with a more neutral American accent, and be remembered for what you say and not how you say it.”
The email said the class would cover “some of the most common pronunciation and grammatical differences between Southern dialects and Standard American English.”

Here’s more: “In this course you will learn to recognize the pronunciation and grammar differences that make your speech sound Southern, and learn what to do so you can neutralize it through a technique called code-switching.”

Carolyn Ward of ORNL’s Learning and Development Services, said the lab simply offerd the class in response to a request. “We try to provide whatever requests we have,” she said.

ORNL spokesman David Keim said managers quickly cancelled the class after some staff members complained.

“Given the way that it came across, they decided to cancel it,” Keim said. “It probably wasn’t presented in the right way and made it look like ORNL had some problem with having a Southern accent, which of course we don’t. That was not the intent at all.”

Oak Ridge National Laboratory has one of the region’s most diverse work populations, with employees from across the United States and many different countries of origin, as well as visiting scientists from around the globe.

“We’ve offered accent reduction training to foreign nationals for years,” Keim said. “But this one obviously surprised some folks.”

If the training class had proceeded as planned, it would have cost $805 per person. Keim said the lab would have paid the fee if an employee’s supervisor approved participation. The course was scheduled to meet for an hour and a half, one day per week, for six weeks.