A Duke University professor has stepped down as her department’s graduate program director after she sent an email asking students in her department not to speak Chinese in student lounges.

Screenshots of an email from Megan Lee Neely to first- and second-year students in Duke’s Biostatistics & Bioinformatics department spread online Saturday afternoon, according to Duke’s student newspaper, The Chronicle.

In the email, Neely told students that two other faculty members had come to her separately, asking to see pictures of the department’s students – and both picked out a group who they complained had been speaking Chinese in the student lounges and study areas.

“Both faculty members replied that they wanted to write down the names so they could remember them if the students ever interviewed for an internship or asked to work with them for a master’s project,” Neely wrote. “They were disappointed that these students were not taking the opportunity to improve their English and were being so impolite as to have a conversation that not everyone on the floor could understand.”

According to reports, over half of the department's master's program students are Chinese. 

The dean of Duke’s medical school, which houses Neely’s department, has since asked the university’s Office of Institutional Equity to investigate the program in response to the email.

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