Your link requires a registration, @1NJParent. Is there another link?
@mathmom - I am just sharing what they said was the reason the profs felt some of the students might not be good candidates for their lab. They seemed to be claiming that the students could improve their English if they spoke it more frequently, which may be true to some extent. And in a person’s lab, can they require the students to speak to each other in English when the professor is in there so the professor understands the discussion? That might not be unreasonable. Would it be reasonable to consider one equally qualified candidate over another if one’s communication skills in English are better than the other’s?
To me, the meta message seemed to be that the faculty members whose offices were near the main kitchen/lounge where the students were hanging out (instead of the student kitchen/lounge) and were being disturbed by the loud conversations were annoyed by the students who seemed to not be responding to previous requests to be quieter or use the other kitchen/lounge. These faculty members and the chair should have met with the involved students privately to address the issue. If that had already occurred previously (don’t know) and the students chose to continue their behavior and ignore the faculty members’ requests, thats another story.