A high school biology teacher in California is on the receiving end of backlash from the school community after he wrote a series of questionable, racist questions on his students’ final exam.
The teacher, Alex Nguyen, was removed from his class at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento and is on administrative leave pending an investigation into the test, per the Sacramento Bee.
Nguyen crafted an exam with multiple questions filled with offensive, racist overtones and administered it to at least four of his classes. He even included the full names of some students, the majority of whom were students of color, and disparagingly mentioned their physical and ethnic attributes.
He called out one student, who is Black and Mexican, in one question that read, “In high school, there are individuals who are cross-eyed like (the name of a fellow student) and (the name of the student previously mentioned), which is a dominant trait. We call those individuals ‘weirdoes’. So, if you crossed two weirdoes (the two students named again) that are heterozygous for being cross-eyed, what is the offspring that would result?” per the Sacramento Bee.
In another question, he purported that Black culture is popular among Luther Burbank students and made a crude attempt to substantiate his point by referencing the “pimp walk” and traits like “walking with a limp.”
“For some reason, the African American culture has influenced most of the student body. How? In African Americans, they have a gene for the pimp walk, which is dominant. What is the result if you cross (student name) homozygous dominant Latina with a homozygous recessive Hmong like (student name)?”
Another question targeted students who fall asleep in class:
“Here at the wonderful school of LBHS, we have certain students who love to sleep in class. I even see students fall asleep during exams! Can you believe that?! I don’t like it when students sleep in class… it’s rude! So, WAKE THE #$%K UP! Well, through much study, I have concluded that the gene for falling asleep is dominant. Not only that some students sleep, they snore in class. This, too, is a dominant trait. What are the possible offspring if you cross a homozygous sleeping, heterozygous snoring student (student name) with a homozygous attentive, non-snoring (student name) student?”
Ten minutes into the exam, the principal showed up, spoke privately with Nguyen, and collected the exams. School administrators learned about the exam after Nguyen had issued the same tests to three other classes. Even after the tests were removed, Nguyen still finished the testing period using a projector to display the same exam questions students had to answer using their own sheets of paper.
Those exams were also graded.
A district spokesperson said the school wasn’t aware that Nguyen still allowed the test to go on even after the exam papers were pulled. Officials are investigating the matter and the exams and final grades of the affected students will also be evaluated. Parents of the test takers were also called.
Nguyen issued that last test on June 12 and was placed on leave the next day, which coincidentally was the last day of school.
The biracial student whose name was derisively mentioned in the “weirdoes” question said he doesn’t want Nguyen to get fired but does believe he owes his students an apology.
“I’d want him to apologize to Burbank as a whole because that’s the majority of our kids,” the student said. “So for him to say those things, it’s pretty messed up.”
His parents Adriana and Shawn Allen said this incident reflects a fraught relationship that their son has had with Nguyen since the start of the school year. The Allens struggled to get in touch with Nguyen to discuss their sons’ disability accommodations, which allow him to redo assignments. They also said the teacher would make sarcastic and resentful slights toward their son for missing classes and tests due to his participation in varsity sports.
The Allens’ son said Nguyen targeted another Black student on the test who he talked down to before the exam. In that instance, he aggressively told that student, “Get back to work, boy,” after he noticed the child was not completing his work.
“I was like, ‘Yo, that’s sounds racist,’” the student said. “It’s like, talking to him like a slave or something. … You should know the history of it because you’re an adult and went through history class and all that.”
After word got around about the exam, other teachers at Luther Burbank reported that the school has a history of sweeping racist incidents under the rug. The principal denied any claims that the school tolerates racism and discrimination, stating that the “vast majority of our staff are culturally responsive, culturally sensitive, and committed to providing a safe learning environment for our students.”
The Allens have mixed opinions on how the school should deal with Nguyen. While they have had a mostly positive experience at Luther Burbank, Adriana Allen believes Nguyen shouldn’t be allowed to return to the classroom. Her husband stated he needs anti-bias training to learn how he can better serve his students.
“In this day and age, I don’t want anybody to get fired from their job,” Shawn Allen said. “But if there’s some sort of discipline, a class that you could take to better yourself, especially working in a school with the diversity that they have, because you have to know how to deal with all kinds of different cultures and people. … You should have an understanding that your words can hurt people, and put them in a position that they don’t want to be in.”
According to California Department of Education data, of the 1,574 students who were enrolled at Luther Burbank in the 2023-24 school year, 46.4 percent were Latino, 23.5 percent were Asian, 17.4 percent were Black, 3.3 percent were Pacific Islander, and 2 percent were Filipino. Less than 3 percent of students enrolled were white.
