College Music Professor Reportedly Steps Down After Showing Students ‘Blackface’ Othello

Sheng was accused of rendering the classroom an “unsafe“ space when he screened the 1965 version of Shakespeare's Othello in class as part of a lesson to “show how the opera composer Giuseppe Verdi had adapted Shakespeare’s play into an opera.” In the film, Laurence Olivier, a white actor, wore blackface to portray the protagonist Othello.