News

I’m writing to you as an NYU CAS and NYU Law alum, a lawyer, a health coach who works with fat people, and a fat person myself.

Based upon Geoffrey Miller’s tweet, I’m very concerned about NYU’s decision to keep him on staff. His tweet, stating that fat people have “no willpower” and therefore should not even apply to be PhD candidates indicates that he supports and likely engages in appearance-based discrimination.

Discrimination based on weight is a serious problem. Studies indicate that 1 in 3 children experience weight bias from a teacher. Larger people are less likely to be accepted into college. Like any other kind of discrimination, discrimination against fat people is insidious and prevents larger people from achieving in academia and elsewhere. As a result, many states and municipalities have added “height and weight” and/or “appearance” as a protected class. It is now illegal to discriminate on the basis of height/weight and/or appearance in the state of Michigan and in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Washington, DC, Madison, WI, Urbana, IL and Binghamton, NY. Civil rights groups like NAAFA are working to get more laws like these on the books.

Dr. Miller’s continued employment could create liability for NYU on a number of bases. The ADA as amended protects people who are disabled by weight or are perceived to be disabled by weight. Perceiving fat students to be disabled, as Dr. Miller essentially suggests, would bring fat students under the umbrella of the ADA. Obesity is also more common in protected groups (e.g. women, certain minority groups, people over 55) so that discrimination on the basis of weight has a disproportionate impact on these groups. This type of discrimination may also violate consumer protection laws, because students purchasing the same education will get unequal benefits based solely on their appearance.

On a personal note, I can tell you from my own experience that I had a great amount of willpower in college. I was on a very strict diet while a senior at NYU. I lost weight, was hungry and uncomfortable all the time, and still finished my senior honors thesis. Most of the fat people I’ve encountered in my life have been through similar experiences. We power-through and achieve despite being stigmatized and despite starving ourselves “for our own good.”

Fatness is so maligned in our culture that bigotry toward fat people often goes unnoticed at best and supported at worst. It may sound cliche, but if you substitute “obese PhD candidates” with “female PhD candidates” or “gay PhD candidates” the bigotry would be much clearer. Similarly, publicly stating that a group of people are not fit to receive PhD’s based on their size should not be tolerated.

John, I have a great deal of respect for you, and your seminar was probably my favorite class of my academic career. I know you to be an eminently reasonable person who understands the dangerous nature of stigmatization and bigotry. That is why I am asking you to reconsider NYU’s decision to keep Dr. Miller on staff. It pains me to think that the school that I know and love would stand behind a professor who would find me ineligible to pursue a PhD just based on my appearance.

I would be happy to discuss this with you further at your convenience. I can also put you in touch with an attorney who represents fat people in discrimination suits.

Thank you.

Best regards,
Golda

Special shoutout to Sondra Solovay, Esq., weight discrimination specialist and co-editor of The Fat Studies Reader (printed, ironically, by NYU Press), for her help with this letter.

I found UNM’s response to Prof. Miller’s tweet to be more heartening. I’m glad that they’re at least investigating his claim that this is all part of an experiment.

Golda is a certified holistic health counselor and founder of Body Love Wellness, a program designed for plus-sized women who are fed up with dieting and want support to stop obsessing about food and weight. To learn more about Golda and her work, click here.