I'm glad to hear you feel there is more complexity to what Prof. Sellers said, but I do feel the piece was seriously unfair to Sellers and Batson in simply assuming their conversation was offensive, inappropriate, etc. In addition to what has already been said by McWhorter and the previous commenter, I would just note that -- in addition to Sellers saying that she felt "angst" over the situation -- in the extended version of the video clip (which I can no longer find online), Batson says something like, "Yeah, you have to wonder -- is it unconscious bias on our part?" This strikes a very different tone from the letter of apology quoted in the piece, which was undoubtedly written under enormous pressure, and indicates that Batson wasn't shocked or offended in the moment, as the piece assumes.

Far from exhibiting racism or anything close to it, these two individuals were -- in what they thought was a private conversation -- expressing their concern and dismay over their observations that black students were doing less well in their classes than they hoped or expected. It seems to me they have been unjustly raked over the coals enough for that, without Persuasion adding to the outcry.

The problem for Sellers, Batson, and many others is the apparent lack of a good explanation for this situation other than one that blames black students who don't do well in law school classes (and as Sellers noted, of course, some do just fine). There is such an explanation, though, and it has to do with fundamental flaws in our K-12 education system. Those flaws are too much to go into in detail here (please read my book "The Knowledge Gap" for more!), but it's not just lack of resources or inferior teachers or any of the usual explanations. It's that our standard curriculum and approach to teaching doesn't line up with what science has determined about how learning works, with the result that the students who thrive in our education system are generally those who come in with the most advantages -- and they thrive largely despite the system rather than because of it.