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The Ethicist: Classroom Language

NPR's Cheryl Corley talks to Randy Cohen, who writes The Ethicist column for The New York Times Magazine, about the dilemma of Laura Meigs. She's a first-year teacher in rural Mississippi. Her instinct is to correct her students' incorrect grammar and keep them from using racial epithets she finds offensive, but she's heard criticism that in doing so, she may be demeaning their culture.

Copyright 2004 NPR

Cheryl Corley
Cheryl Corley is NPR’s Midwest Bureau Chief and is based in Chicago.
Randy Cohen
Randy Cohen was born in Charleston, S.C., and raised in Reading, Pa. He attended graduate school at the California Institute of the Arts as a music major studying composition.