So what about the two other faculty members?
If they are real, then their claimed behavior is much more problematic than that of Neely’s undiplomatic messaging.
If they (or their behavior) are from Neely’s imagination, then that is much worse for her in various ways.
Where is there any evidence that she fabricated the story about the 2 faculty whose offices were near the lounge?
It would be pretty dumb for the other two faculty members to do exactly what the email suggested and I wouldn’t think Duke has so many dumb professors in one single department. Based on the emails she sent, this former director had issues with Chinese students talking loud in Chinese for some time (at least a year), and she’s proven to be less than astute. Besides, the medical school dean didn’t mention the other two faculty members in her letter or take any action against them.
The impression I got, based on the poorly written email, was that the 2 professors came together to speak to her about the noisy students. And from what I have read, the email from last February followed some “recent report” (the article had that in quotes), whatever that means, that came from the Department Chair, Elizabeth DeLong https://www.dukechronicle.com/article/2019/01/duke-university-china-2018-email-megan-neely-grad-program-director-who-stepped-down-also-sent-email-in-2018-telling-students-to-speak-english
There are a lot of primary faculty in the Department. https://biostat.duke.edu/people/faculty No idea of the department floorplan, but if the story about the 2 faculty coming to her was fictitious, its likely that would have come out by now.
Looks like there are about 35 primary faculty (not counting the affiliated or emeritus faculty). Several of the faculty appear to be Chinese. Perhaps they could have asked one of these faculty members to speak the the loud grad students. Oh well… 20-20 hindsight (unless there was a reason they would not wish to do that… dunno).
The problem is that there are some types of “judging” that cross the line into areas that are prohibited by discrimination laws.
And any person in a management position should be aware of those laws and not simply become a conduit for reinforcing such discrimination.
A professor can choose not to hire a grad student for any number of reasons, but not because the student is Chinese or the professor has overheard the student speaking Chinese. (That’s discrimination based on national origin, and strictly prohibited).
So an email from someone in a leadership position cautioning against doing something which is legally protected because of implications of being judged by such conduct simply isn’t appropriate, ever.
The same would go for suggestions about other things that might impress future prospective employers negatively: wearing a hijab (religious discrimination); a suggestion that a woman should dress more femininely (sex discrimination); a suggestion that an older woman should dye her hair to cover the gray (age discrimination); comments about african-american hairstyles like afros or cornrows (race discrimination); etc.
So part of the responsibility of being the director would be awareness and understanding of anti-discrimination laws and policies. If in fact the professors asked for pictures because they wanted to note down the names of the offending Chinese-speakers in case those same students later submitted a resume to them seeking a research position – then the director should have told them that was improper – and given them a quick lesson or refresher about their obligations to refrain from unlawful discrimination. Instead, this former director apparently reinforced those thoughts by complying with their requests as well as conveying the sentiments to students within the program.
So yes, “others are watching and judging” is a legitimate concern at a university or workplace, but there is a broader area of legal prohibitions against discriminatory conduct that means that some issues are never properly the subject of such cautions.
And yes the lines can probably get fuzzy. Part of the job of being the director would be to know where those lines are drawn.
And also push back on other faculty who may be crossing the line into illegal discrimination.