One Georgetown Law professor was terminated and another placed on administrative leave following outcry over racist comments in a video posted online.

In the recording, which took place at the end of a negotiations class on Zoom, adjunct professors Sandra Sellers and David Baston talked casually about the performance of Black students in class.

“You know what, I hate to say this, I end up having this, you know, angst every semester, that a lot of my lower ones are Blacks. Happens almost every semester,” Sellers said. “It’s like, ‘Oh come on.’ [You] get some really good ones but there also are usually some that are just plain at the bottom. It drives me crazy.”

In the clip, Baston nods and murmurs agreement but does not offer his own comments.

Sellers has been fired, according to a statement from Georgetown University Law Center Dean Bill Treanor, who characterized Sellers’ words as “reprehensible statements concerning the evaluation of Black students.” Treanor said Baston’s conduct is under review by the Georgetown Office of Diversity, Equity and Affirmative Action.

“These racist statements reveal not only Sellers’ beliefs about Black students in her classes, but also how her racist thoughts have translated to racist actions,” a letter to the university from the Georgetown Black Law Students Association reads. “Professor Sellers’s bias has impacted the grades of Black students in her classes historically, in her own words.”

Georgetown law students are graded on a curve, meaning just a handful of points can be the difference between one letter grade and another, according to Maxine Walters, a third-year law student and the president of the Black Law Students Association.

“So the fact that it’s curve really makes a big difference, because even if a student puts in very a very similar amount of effort, they still have to be curved,” Walters said.

The BLSA letter also notes that Sellers’ comments were directed at the sole Black student in the class at the time. That’s not an unusual situation, according to Walters, who says she’s frequently been the only Black student or one of two Black students in a class section. Those dynamics have shaped her experience, she said.

“I think it stems even beyond the professor and the grading to the atmosphere in the classroom, when discussion is being had or when guest speakers come and how that plays out,” she said. “I think it really, really kind of is throughout the whole experience.”

Georgetown Law’s student body is about 26% students of color, and Black students account for just 9% of the student population, according to 2020 data. Of the 831 current full-time and adjunct faculty members at Georgetown Law, just 103 are people of color.

Walters and BLSA called for Sellers’ termination and a public apology from Baston. But they also want longer-term, structural changes at the school. They want the administration to begin “critically assessing and improving its current subjective grading system,” and to take steps towards “committing to hiring more Black professors who will be better situated to fairly assess Black students in a non-biased manner.”

The BLSA letter is the third time that the organization has petitioned the administration in recent memory, according to Walters. Last semester, the association spoke up against a University of California at Irvine law professor who had an honorary status as a Georgetown professor, after the professor used the n-word. Over the summer, BLSA advocated to add a critical race theory component to the law school’s criminal justice course, to instate a racial justice course requirement, and to mandate implicit bias training for all professors at the school.

The response to those curriculum ideas wasn’t encouraging, Walters said.

“They decided to pass that off to committees,” she said. “As far as I know, none of that has been solidified.”

BLSA is requesting that the administration respond to their demands following Sellers’ termination by Friday. A Georgetown spokesperson said the university would not offer further comment on the matter, beyond Treanor’s public statements.

Meanwhile, many students are dealing with the emotional cost of the incident. Walters said the video was painful for many Black students at the school.

“Several students have reached out and talked about how since yesterday, when they found out, they were having trouble focusing on their schoolwork and they were really upset about what happened and seeing the video,” she told DCist/WAMU.

Walters also said Sellers’ racist comments were sparking concerns among Black admitted students considering beginning their legal education at Georgetown — students BLSA has been trying to recruit.

“It’s always difficult because we have to be honest about what we experience,” she said. “But I think the important thing is to also show that regardless of what is occurring now, that we’re still going to advocate for change and for Georgetown to be a better environment for Black students.”