"He sort of implies that minorities are published because we're minorities, not because of our work. That's just insulting." What Prof. Chang means by this is

"He sort of implies that minorities are published because we're minorities, not because of our work. That's just insulting." What Prof. Chang means by this is that she believes minorities are published because of the quality of their work, and anyone who suggests that they're published simply because they're minorities is wrong and motivated by a belief that minorities' work does not stand on its own merits, which would indeed be insulting. If this white guy announced, "I'm going to use a Chinese-sounding pen name because I think it'll make my poems more likely to be published," then yeah, I think a case could be made that it's insulting, because he would be presuming that minorities' work does not stand on its own merits. But in this case, the white guy did not make a racist statement. What he did was demonstrate that in at least one case, the Chinese-sounding name did influence whether his poems were published. So, if it's insulting, it's insulting not because of what this man said or did. Rather, it's insulting on the part of the publications, who did judge the poems on something other than their merits.