...think about the fine line between sensitivity and discrimination?

So, in a particular class today, the professor was describing the course with special emphasis on its difficulty. Mostly this was to drive the non-majors and first year masters away. The prof made special note of the fact that it was language heavy. Fine. After people got weeded out, the class consisted of a bunch of native English speakers (including a canadian), and an asian girl. After weekly assignments were handed out, the prof, noting that the girl might have difficulty for language reasons (English, not theory) with a harder or longer entry this week, switched assignments with someone else. This is the same girl that he gave a 5 minute speech about how qualified she was as a theorist.

I have no doubt in my mind that the prof had nothing but thoughts of making the girl as comfortable as possible in order to ease her in or whatever and the girl thanked the prof for thinking of it. However, it struck me that the same thing could be taken as highly insulting. This is a qualified theorist being reassigned based on the fact that english is her second language under the assumption that she might not be able to handle it. This is not how it went down but there's a fine fine line between being accomodaring (as this prof was being) and being insulting.

Also, between love and a waste of time.