Free Republic

by Jamal Watson

NEW YORK — For the third consecutive year, more than a 1,000 academics, activists and political leaders gathered in New York on Friday to strategize on the problems that beset young Black males.

The gathering, which was convened by Charles J. Ogletree, who teaches and directs the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University’s Law School, is part of “The Pipeline Crisis/Winning Strategies Initiative,” a national effort aimed at identifying ways to tackle the many barriers that limit the number of young Black men in the pipeline to higher education and professional endeavors.

Ogletree’s initiative calls on the legal, financial services and business communities to partner with the public sector to address the needs of young Black men in five target areas: early childhood education, public school education, employment and economic development, criminal justice, prison reform and re-entry, and opportunities for high potential youth.

At the symposium, held at the Chelsea Piers in Manhattan, Congressman Charles B. Rangel and Congressman Jerrold Nadler said that government could do more to address the issue. But private companies, like American Express, Goldman Sachs & Co., and the law firm of Sullivan & Cromwell, have also pledged dollars and support services toward providing young Black men additional educational and career opportunities to help them succeed.

“The numbers are staggering,” says Ogletree, in an interview with Diverse. “It’s a disgrace that we live in a society where the rate of failure has not been stemmed.”

The statistics are alarming and there is little evidence that the overall situation for young Black men is improving. The U.S. Census Bureau currently estimates there are about 5 million Black men in America between the ages of 20 and 39, but many scholars say that this demographic is losing ground in mainstream American society, despite advances made by Black women. They argue that the problems for many Black men often begin when they are boys.

Yet, despite the setbacks, Ogletree — one of the country’s most prominent legal scholars — says that there are also many efforts aimed at reversing this trend.

He points to a program created at Bard College by Dr. Leon Botstein — who was honored at the symposium — for his work in spearheading the Bard Prison Initiative, a program that provides college education to inmates in New York’s prisons. Botstein has long argued that college-in-prison programs slash rates of re-incarceration, particularly among Black males.

But over the past two decades, many of these programs — which were once publicly funded — have been severely cut or eliminated altogether. In New York, for example, the Abyssinian Development Corporation — a nonprofit that was started by Abyssinian Baptist Church — had to step up where government fails and is helping young homeless Black men become homeowners.

“We can’t just keep citing the statistics,” says Ogletree. “We have to work to give Black and brown men a second chance and provide them with the opportunity to work and earn a decent pay.”

With the presidential election just four months away, Ogletree and others say that they are looking to the presumptive presidential candidates, Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain, to address the crisis facing young Black men as they barnstorm the country for votes.

“We’re sending very clear messages to both camps that it’s important that we help to open up new opportunities, create new challenging jobs, and provide educational opportunities to our young men,” says Ogletree, who is supporting Obama. Obama was one of his former students at Harvard.

In addition to Botstein, Dr. Roland G. Fryer, who is the Chief Equality Officer for the New York City Department of Education, was honored for his work in executing the New York Million Motivation Campaign, a pilot program that seeks to help high-need students internalize the connections between education and success. Participants in the campaign received a free Samsung U740 handheld cell phone and earn text messages, talk time, and other rewards, such as free ring tones, music downloads, or event tickets through their performance in school.

“I’m grateful for this honor and gratified that it comes as we continue to develop strategies to re-brand achievement, helping high-need students fully appreciate the value of education,” Fryer said. “This recognition is a great sign that more people are willing to join our fight to end the educational crisis plaguing African-American and Hispanic communities.”

by Jamal Watson

NEW YORK

Last October, hundreds of students, faculty and community activists rallied on Columbia University’s campus to protest the hanging of a noose on the office door of a popular African-American professor. Now this same professor, Dr. Madonna G. Constantine, has been fired from her teaching post amid charges that she repeatedly plagiarized the work of two former students and a colleague.

Constantine, 45, a tenured professor who has taught psychology and education at Columbia’s Teachers College for the past decade and is an expert on race relations, had originally been sanctioned by the university back in February after an 18-month investigation into the plagiarism charges.

Though she was able to hold onto her job at the time, Constantine immediately appealed the sanctions and hired an attorney to defend herself against the allegations, claiming that she had been “specifically and systematically targeted” by university officials. She later filed a grievance against Dr. Susan Fuhrman, who is president of Teachers College.

Sources say that the decision by Constantine to challenge the plagiarism findings ultimately forced university officials to reject Constantine’s appeal and to suspend her, effective immediately. Constantine has until July 15th to challenge her termination, but the decision to fire one of only two Black women full professors at Teachers College came as a blow to her longtime supporters.

“During the months since the college levied sanctions against her, professor Constantine continued to make accusations of plagiarism, including in at least one instance to the press, against those whose works she had plagiarized,” officials wrote in a letter sent out earlier this week to the entire faculty.

Officials at Teachers College point to the investigation of Constantine’s work by the law firm, Hughes Hubbard & Reed, which concluded that there were “numerous instances in which she [Constantine] used others’ work without attribution in papers she published in academic journals over the past five years.”

Constantine could not be reached for comment, but her attorney, Paul Giacomo, faulted Columbia, adding that the “action of seeking termination of our client’s employment is retaliatory and hostile and has the effect of punishing her for asserting her right to due process.”

Giacomo says that Constantine may bring a wrongful termination lawsuit against the college either in federal or state court.

Before the noose incident and the subsequent plagiarism charges, Constantine was well-respected in her field. She earned a bachelor’s from Xavier University of Louisiana and a doctorate in counseling psychology from the University of Memphis. She worked at the University of Texas at Austin and Temple University before she arrived at Columbia. She is the co-author of the book, Addressing Racism: Facilitating Cultural Competence in Mental Health and Educational Settings.

Nine months later it is still unclear who placed the noose — long associated with lynching and a symbol of racial hatred — on Constantine’s door. New York City Police declined to comment on the incident, but a grand jury was convened earlier this year to hear evidence related to the case.

Following the incident, Teachers College held a series of meetings to allow students the opportunity to express their concerns about the incident, but some students say that they remain confused over what to think about the school’s decision to let the popular professor go.

“Many of the students feel very conflicted,” said a student who knows Constantine, but did not want to be identified. “The last few months have been very trying for everyone. No one knows what to make of this situation. It’s just so confusing.”

According to a report by The Associated Press, New York Gov. David Patterson signed legislation last month, which boosted noose displays to the same category of crime as cross burnings and swastika displays.

- Jamal Watson

by Jamal Watson May 15, 2008,

Former politicians are turning down lucrative job offers elsewhere to teach students who are interested in, but sometimes cynical about, the political process.

While John F. Street, a former two-term Philadelphia mayor, chose to teach at Temple University because of his longstanding relationship with the school, he says he is impressed with the institution’s commitment to the community. Not long after John F. Street had closed one chapter in a long career as a powerful force in Philadelphia politics, he embarked on another chapter. This time, Street was settling into unfamiliar terrain as a celebrity at one of Pennsylvania’s largest institutions of higher education.

When word started to spread across Temple University’s campus that Street had been hired to teach an urban politics and policy class this spring semester, hundreds of students tried, unsuccessfully, to enroll in his course. Within an hour, the two sections of the class — each with 30 students — were filled.

Nowadays, the former two-term mayor of Philadelphia is perhaps the most recognized face on Temple’s campus where he skillfully guides undergraduates each week through the decision-making process that mayors in urban cities have to employ every day.

“It’s gone a lot better than I thought it would,” says Street, who at 64, admits that he was unsure how his 19- and 20-year-old students would respond to him in the classroom. “My students are very attentive, and they have a real appreciation for the political process.”

While White politicians have long retreated to the academy in pursuit of highprofile jobs as professors and university presidents, the trend is relatively new for Black politicians like Street who come to the academic setting after having served long political stints as state legislators, mayors and congressional leaders.

Dr. Ronald Walters, a professor of political science at the University of Maryland, College Park, says that the entry of Black political leaders into the academy is a direct result of the university opening its doors to individuals who were historically limited from pursuing opportunities in the academy.

“Of course, Black politicians in the first generation also did not have the kind of credentials that were required to teach at the university level,” says Walters.

Now, many Black politicans have law degrees from top-notch universities or deep experience in public policy institutes before serving out their terms.

“For many years, one of the reasons why Blacks did not come out of their political jobs is because they had no place to go,” says Walters, who adds that the trend has changed in recent years with many Black officials deciding not to run for re-election in some cases.

In many cases, these former politicos are turning down lucrative job offers elsewhere to work, in some cases, at urban universities where they are providing hands-on training to a younger generation of students who are interested in but sometimes cynical about embarking on a career in the political arena.

Former U.S. House Rep. Major Owens (center), who represented Brooklyn, N.Y., in the House for 24 years, now teaches a government course at Medgar Evers College, which is part of the City University of New York and has a predominately minority student population. “I think there is an enormous advantage with having someone like myself in the classroom,” says Street, who was urged by Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell to try out teaching. When Street expressed an interest, colleges and universities from across the city came calling and tried to woo Street onto their faculty.

At the end of the day, Street chose Temple, in part, because he is an alumnus of the university’s law school and has long lived within walking distance of the university’s main campus located in the heart of North Philadelphia. His son is a Temple undergraduate; another son earned a master’s degree in education there; and his daughter, Rashida Ng, is currently an assistant professor in the architecture department at the Tyler School of Art at Temple.

“For whatever reason, I have had a long relationship with Temple,” says Street, who notes that Temple, unlike some of the other surrounding schools, boasts a rather large minority population, an important detail that ultimately factored into his decision to join the faculty. “It’s a great school, and I am particularly impressed with its commitment to the community.”

Counting on a Celebrity Politician

Like Street, former Congressman Major Owens, who represented Brooklyn in the U.S. House of Representatives for 24 years, hadn’t given much thought to teaching either. After retiring from Congress in 2007, Owens — who is a trained librarian — spent a year at the Library of Congress working on his memoir.

But Dr. Edison O. Jackson, who is president of Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn, had been courting Owens for sometime to join Medgar Evers as a distinguished lecturer. Ninety-five percent of the students who attend Medgar Evers, which is part of the City University of New York (CUNY) system, are of African descent, and Jackson thought that these students — many of whom are first-generation college students — would benefit from having a political celebrity on campus. “

He’s a known quantity and has been a fighter for our institution,” says Jackson. “He exemplifies the type of leadership that we are trying to encourage and motivate in our students.”

Kurt Schmoke, Dean, Howard University School of Law and former Baltimore Mayor Owens’ course, which is offered this semester for the first time, has 15 students and is part of the college’s civic engagement requirement. “

I teach the structure of government, and many of my students did not pick this up from high school,” says Owens, who chaired the congressional subcommittee on select education and civil rights from 1987 to 1994. “We talk about the key ingredients in the performance of a politician. How do you hold politicians accountable?”

This is not Owens’ first foray into teaching. He previously taught at the now-defunct School of Library Service at Columbia University, and since leaving Congress he has received and politely declined many full-time offers at other institutions.

“I have a high attachment to Medgar Evers,” says Owens, who is 71. “I’m not interested in an administrative position. I want the flexibility to work as a consultant and teacher and have the freedom to really employ my expertise.”

Building on a Storied History

Kurt Schmoke was working at an international law firm when he was first approached about the possibility of serving as dean of the Howard University School of Law.

Schmoke, 58, served as Baltimore’s mayor from 1988 to 1999. He had thought about the possibility of doing some teaching down the road but not the possibility that he would one day lead the very law school where Charles Hamilton Houston, the architect of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, served on the faculty.

“There are times that I miss being involved in elective office, but I am thrilled with my position,” says Schmoke, who also teaches a seminar called “American Election Law and Policy” for third-year law students. “But life in a university means there is politics; you just don’t have to deal with campaigning and the press.”

Since arriving at Howard, Schmoke says that he’s been busy trying to build on the law school’s storied history, attracting students from 30 different states.

“I have to remind the legal profession that Howard’s best days are not behind us,” says Schmoke. “When we talk about Howard, we talk about Brown v. Board of Education. What we do here remains very relevant, and we try to engage about the issues of today and tomorrow.”

Pursuing a Second Career

Julian Bond, 68, who is chairman of the NAACP, took up teaching in the late 1980s after he served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1965-1975 and then the Georgia state Senate from 1975 to 1986.

Over the years, he taught twice at Harvard University, once at Drexel University, the University of Pennsylvania and Williams College. He currently teaches history at the University of Virginia, a job that he secured after a friend who was teaching there asked him if he was interested. He is also on the faculty of American University, a post that he was recruited to by the former president of AU.

Given the dearth of minority faculty on college campuses, Bond recommends teaching as a career for former Black politicians, but cautions that they’ll “have to become ‘teachers’ and not ‘political figures.’”

“Surely they’ll bring great expertise if their teaching is about what they know best — serving in office and running for office,” he says. “But after a class or two, as was true with me, their students forget who they were and want them to become knowledgeable informative instructors.”

-Jamal Watson

by Jamal Watson May 5, 2008

Earlier this year, NAACP chairman Julian Bond journeyed to the U.S. Supreme Court to interview Justice Clarence Thomas.

The event was somewhat historic, in part because Bond — a staunch supporter of affirmative action and other social programs — has long been a critic of the policies and positions espoused by Thomas.

But now, both of these historic figures in Black history are the subjects of much scrutiny as they prepare to deliver commencement speeches this month at two East Coast universities.

A group of conservative students at The George Washington University have criticized the school’s administration for inviting Bond, arguing that he has made disparaging comments when he equated the Republican Party with the Nazi Party and characterized Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her predecessor, Colin Powell, as tokens.

And at the University of Georgia, the decision to invite Thomas — the second African-American to serve on the high court — has been met with opposition from faculty and staff. Minority student groups and women groups on campus are leading the charge.

UGA’s President Michael Adams defended the selection of Thomas.

“We’re not going to have a political litmus test at the University of Georgia over who speaks at the university,” Adams says, telling students and faculty to “embarrass neither themselves nor Justice Thomas” when he speaks at UGA’s undergraduate commencement exercises on May 10.

The selection of commencement speakers is often controversial. And some speakers often widen the division that already exists on campus, by using the occasion to push forward controversial positions.

At GW, the College Republicans are protesting the decision to grant Bond an Honorary Doctor of Public Service degree, saying that he is divisive figure.

“We don’t take issue with the NAACP per se, but the things that Mr. Bond has said about the Republican Party are untrue and, as an organization, we had to say something about it.”

In a 2006 speech, Bond allegedly told college students at Fayetteville State University in North Carolina that “the Republican Party would have the American flag and the swastika flying side by side.”

Administrators at GW have met with the leadership of the College Republicans to hear their concerns, but defended their decision to invite Bond to campus. They say that it would be inappropriate to disinvite him.

“Julian Bond is certainly a well known figure in civil rights and he himself is an accomplished individual,” says Tracy Schario, a spokeswoman for the university, who adds that Bond — who marched alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. — was selected this year, in part to commemorate the 40th anniversary of King’s assassination.

“There are a lot of historical synergies,” says Schario, who adds that students rarely agree on commencement speakers.

Brooks says that the College Republicans have asked to meet with Bond before the commencement speech. It’s unclear if that will happen. Bond could not be reached for comment.

“We want to ask him point blank, why he’s made these statements in the past,” says Brooks. “Once we do this, then we can move beyond this and listen to his words of wisdom.”

At both UGA and GW, additional security will be on hand, though officials are not anticipating any major disturbances. On both campuses, some students say that they may stand up and turn their back to Thomas and Bond when they take to the podium to express their disapproval.

Schario says that GW is in the process of reevaluating the way that commencement speakers are selected to give students a larger voice in the process. Unlike some other schools, the university does not pay its commencement speakers.

Charles Basden, who is chairman of the Black Student Union at GW and a graduating senior, says that his organization met with the College Republicans when the issue about Bond’s appearance on campus first surfaced, hoping to educate them on his involvement in the civil rights movement.

In recent months, the campus has experienced some polarizing racial incidents, including the discovery of a swastika and the ‘N’ word scribbled on a door. Basden believes that Bond can help unite the campus.

“His record and his social justice work, makes him a timely speaker.”

by Jamal Eric Watson

MEMPHIS — After their four-hour meeting concluded on the afternoon of April 4, 1968, Jesse Epps extended a dinner invitation to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who had arrived in Memphis with other civil rights leaders to rally on behalf of the city’s striking Black sanitation workers.

King politely declined the invitation. He had already agreed to dine at the home of Samuel “Billy” Kyles, a local Memphis preacher, who arrived at the Lorraine Hotel shortly before six that evening to pick him up.

“I got into my car and we drove away, and shortly thereafter, we learned that he had been shot and killed right on the balcony of the hotel,” says Epps, who in 1968, was a labor leader with the American Federation of State, County, Municipal County Employees (AFSCME) and had been sent to Memphis to help settle the 64-day strike. “They killed the dreamer, but they could not kill the dream.”

Forty years later, Epps is back in town this week to commemorate King’s death. He joins thousands of others, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, who are hosting numerous festivities across the city that train a spotlight on King’s life and legacy.

Even though time has passed, a cloud of sadness still hovers over this city as Americans reflect on a life that was cut short much too soon.

At 71, Epps, who is currently the founder and president of the National Union of American Families, isn’t as pessimistic as some others. Call him idealistic if you want, but he’s been focused over the last decade on training a new generation of student activists who will create a movement that utilizes some of the same tactics and strategies that the civil rights leaders employed in the 1960s.

“The issues today are clear,” says Epps, who convinced King to travel to Memphis in 1968, much to the dismay of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). “We have to find a way to empower and provide equal economic, educational and social opportunities to every American family.”

After arriving in Memphis earlier this week, Epps has been busy barnstorming area colleges, encouraging students to commit themselves to fulfilling King’s dream of creating a just society. In fact, he’s formulated an idea to place thousands of college students on the ground this summer to work as community organizers in legislative districts across the country.

“You young people can do what we did in the 1960s and change the world,” says Epps, speaking to a group of students at Memphis State University. “We changed America and made her better. You can do the same thing with the tools that you have at your disposal and ask America to live up to what is already written in the Declaration of Independence.”

Many experts, however, say that getting current college students excited about the kind of activism that was commonplace four decades ago, has proven more difficult because students feel less attached to the struggles that existed during their parents’ generation.

But Epps says that whenever he speaks to college students across the country, they are genuinely interested in learning more about the struggles that this country faced during segregation.

“I know that I really want to hear the stories from the veterans who were there,” said Walter F. Washington, 27, a graduate student at Tennessee State University who made the trek to Memphis from Nashville to participate in the many activities planned here. “The rights that we now enjoy are a direct result of the sacrifice Dr. King made for us by giving his life.”

Perhaps it’s fitting then that this week thousands of people are reflecting on the dreamer and his dream, with some recalling where they were when they first learned that King had been struck down by an assassin’s bullet.

Wally Roberts was working the night shift at the Providence, R.I., Evening Bulletin and was at his desk in the City Room when someone called out that King had been shot.

“Several of us reporters and editors crowded into the little room, where half a dozen AP and UPI teletype machines made a madding racket, to read the news story with a Memphis dateline being cranked out by one of the AP machines,” says Roberts. “I can’t recall much else except the assistant city editor, an Irishman from South Boston who was known for his hard drinking and nasty temper, snarled, ‘Well, somebody finally got that ‘nigger.’”

Roberts said that it was clear that the man was “trying to get a rise out of me as much as he was expressing his feelings. But I was too sickened from the shooting and from his reaction and just walked back to my desk in despair. It was no surprise to me when a little while later the same teletype machines started reporting about the riots breaking out in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere. It was an immensely sad time.”

--- Jamal Watson

David A. Paterson may become New York’s first Black governor amid speculation that Eliot Spitzer may step down after he was allegedly implicated in a prostitution scandal.

Paterson, 53, who hails from Harlem is currently the lieutenant governor and ran as Spitzer’s running mate in 2006. Before becoming lieutenant governor, Paterson — who hails from a powerful Black political family — served as the minority leader in the New York Senate, becoming the first non-White to ever hold that position in New York history. In the Senate, he was praised for his ability to create consensus among Republicans and Democrats.

Paterson, who is legally blind, has been a strong proponent of public education and has championed programs that create opportunities for minorities to attend college.

A graduate of Columbia University, Paterson attended Hofstra University’s law school. He graduated in 1983 and went on to work as an assistant district attorney in Queens.

“He is one of the most honest and open politicians that we have,” says Beverly Alston, who up until recently, served as Paterson’s special assistant. “He’s tough, make no mistake about that, but he’s also fair.”

Those who know Paterson say that with his experience in the state Legislature, he can easily assume the role of governor.

“I’ve never even contemplated if he was prepared for the job,” says Yasmin Cornelius, who is the deputy director of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the country’s largest community development support organization, dedicated to helping revitalize low-income urban and rural communities.

“He is not a newcomer. Everyone should feel assured that New York state is not going down.”

Critics have called for Spitzer’s resignation and he is said to be considering it.

Growing up, it was no secret in Clay Westfall Mering’s house that his great-great grandfather had been a wealthy slave owner.

In fact, James S. Rollins, who is known today as the "founding father" of the University of Missouri, had as many as 36 slaves on his sprawling plantation.

Mering, 52, who works as an architect in Tucson, Ariz., hadn’t thought much about Rollins until he read in the newspaper that the Rev. Al Sharpton’s great-grandfather, Conrad Sharpton, was once owned by Julia Thurmond, whose grandfather was Sen. Strom Thurmond’s great-great grandfather.

"That got me thinking about my own ancestry and slavery," says Rollins. "I knew that I needed to do something."

In an effort to come to terms with his great-great grandfather’s involvement in slavery, Mering announced that he was donating $25,000 to the University of Missouri’s Black studies department for the creation of the James S. Rollins Slavery Atonement Fund.

The permanently endowed fund, which was finalized late last year, was created to support student and faculty research on topics related to slavery and attendance at conferences and seminars that examine the impact and effects of slavery in the United States.

"This is a significant gesture and we are grateful for Mr. Mering’s generosity," says Michael Middleton, who is the deputy chancellor at MU. "It would be wonderful to see a groundswell of similar efforts and contributions come from this. It is a gift from the heart, which is gratifying to all parties involved. If more people in our country made similar selfless gestures, we would all be in a better situation."

At first, Mering says, the university wanted simply to create a generic title for the endowment fund, but Mering and his family objected, threatening to pull the funds unless administrators agreed to the words slavery and atonement in the title of the endowment.

"I think calling it a slavery atonement fund speaks to the need to atone for ancestors who had slaves and had a lot of slaves," says Mering, who adds that Rollins’ father, Anthony Wayne Rollins, also owned about 75 slaves. "In fact, I felt that it needed to be addressed by name and not just addressed euphemistically."

And what might James Rollins — a seasoned Missouri politician who was chiefly responsible for overseeing the creation of the University of Missouri — think about the creation of an endowment for Black studies bearing his name?

"I would like to think that maybe his opinions would have evolved over time," says Mering, whose parents also attended MU.

University officials acknowledge that Rollins has long been considered an iconic figure on campus. It was Rollins who rallied support to pass the law that opened the university, and officials say he later donated land for the original campus and raised $114,000 from neighbors to ensure that the school would be headquartered in Columbia,Mo.

Later, Rollins would serve on the Board of Curators — the governing body of the university — for 18 years. He died in 1888.

"He was definitely a big man on campus," says Mering, who believes that his greatgreat grandfather and other slave owners lent out their slaves for the construction of the first buildings on campus.

"With 15 percent of the population enslaved at the time, it seems almost a certainty to me that people would have donated the labor of their slaves," he says.

"This needs to be addressed publicly and urgently … a step needs to be taken right away acknowledging this probable thing … that slavery existed in the first years of the university.

"University officials cannot confirm that slave labor was used to build the university, but add that they are looking into the issue.

Meanwhile, Dr. Wilma King, the Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professor of history and the interim director of the Black studies program, says that the funds from the endowment may support research about the men, women and children owned by Rollins or others with connections to MU.

"The possibilities are boundless," she says. For his part, Mering hopes that the endowment will prompt a critical discussionon campus about the role of slavery and its long-lasting impact.

Dr. Clenora Hudson-Weems, a tenured professor in the English Department and Black studies program, says that she welcomes that kind of talk and lauds Mering for encouraging the dialogue.

"We still have racial problems here at the University of Missouri," says Hudson-Weems, who adds that the university lags far behind other colleges and universities in recruiting and retaining Black faculty. Of the full-time faculty at the university, 3 percent are Black.

"It seems to me that since we are talking about atonement, we need to make university administrators atone for its horrible treatment of African-American faculty over all of these years," she says.

--JAMAL WATSON

Dr. F. Javier Cevallos, president of Kutztown University, a publicly funded college located in Pennsylvania, is facing new pressure to step down from his post amid criticism from the university’s faculty union.

The union’s leadership — which is comprised of a 10-member executive board — is planning to call for a vote of no-confidence in Cevallos later this week, claiming that he has mismanaged the day-to-day operations of the university, leading to an increase in class size, cramped office space and poor building conditions across campus. In addition, they charge that the morale among faculty is at an all-time low.

In an interview with Diverse, Cevallos, who is the first Hispanic president of a university in Pennsylvania, says he plans to remain on the job.

“I believe that the union has taken a position that is out of touch with what most faculty on campus think,” says Cevallos, who adds that he has the support of the school’s board of trustees.

Recently, a number of Hispanic leaders rallied on Cevallos’ behalf, pointing out that since arriving at Kutztown five years ago he has dramatically increased the number of minority students from 5 percent to 14 percent. They say that many local residents, and some faculty, have resisted the efforts to diversify the college. Some have also signaled that Cevallos is being targeted because he is a minority.

But Dr. Michael Gambone, the president of the Kutztown chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State Colleges and Universities, says that race is not an issue.

“We did not inject this element into the discussion,” says Gambone, who also teaches history at Kutztown. “Our concern is that the quality of life is suffering here on campus. The graduation rate is less than 30 percent. That should signal a red flag.”

Gambone says that problems with Cevallos surfaced years ago, and last year, the union reported “serious concerns” to the board of trustees about his job performance.

“These conversations have been ongoing for years,” says Gambone. “We need meaningful reforms. We want to make this school better.”

The issue, Cevallos says, is that Kutztown, like other regionally funded state institutions across Pennsylvania, is experiencing a growth in enrollment. Over the past five years, the enrollment has increased from 8,500 to 10,500.

“We are growing fast, but we cannot turn students who want to come here away,” says Cevallos. “That is the mission of a public institution.”

Community advocates, like Angel Medina, who is president of the Pennsylvania Statewide Latino Coalition, says that criticism of Cevallos by the union is misdirected.

“Universities all over the state are having the same budget problems and fiscal crises because they’re not getting what they need from the state,” says Medina. “We need to look at the larger issue, not just one individual.”

The impending vote has divided the 500-person faculty, forcing many to take sides.

Some faculty members, including Kevin McCloskey, a professor of communication design, are supporting Cevallos.

“The union seems to be directing all of the problems solely at him, and I don’t think all these things can be blamed on Dr. Cevallos,” says McCloskey.

McCloskey acknowledges that there are some institutional problems at the college, but believes that the battle with Cevallos reflects the union’s frustration with what was agreed to in the last contract. There were provisions in the last contract regarding class size and pay, among other issues, that the faculty agreed to, but now wished that they had fought harder back then.

“Somehow this has gotten personal,” he says, adding that he hopes that the vote of no-confidence does not come to pass

by Jamal Watson Jan 24, 2008, 17:00 When Diversity Training Goes Awry Done incorrectly, what should be a useful exercise can and has backfired on some colleges and universities.

By Jamal Watson Initially, Courtney Halligan, a first-year student at the University of Delaware, was not opposed to attending a diversity training session that was required of all incoming freshmen. In fact, the 18-year-old New Jersey native assumed that the experience would be an opportunity for her to learn more about students from different backgrounds.

It didn’t take long for Halligan to change her mind.

Dr. Marie Amey-Taylor, director of learning and development for Temple University’s human resources department, conducts a creative problem-solving session with faculty. She recommends that institutions conduct a climate assessment on campus before doing any diversity training. In one-on-one and group sessions conducted in the dormitories by resident assistants, Halligan and dozens of other White students complained that they were made to feel like racists. She adds that they were blamed for the legacy of racism that Blacks and other minority groups have endured through the years.

Meanwhile, other students expressed anger that they were encouraged to talk openly about their sexuality, and some gay students said that they even felt pressured to publicly out themselves.

“I was personally offended,” says Halligan, who is majoring in communications. “I was angered when a document was used in the training that stated that ‘all people of European descent are racist.’ When I attempted to express my opinion against such statements, I was silenced.”

In response to complaints by students like Halligan, and pressure from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a Philadelphia-based civil liberties advocacy group that monitors freedom of speech issues on campuses across the country, the university decided last semester to suspend the controversial program.

“Our concern was not the substance of the program but the way that it was administered,” says Samantha Harris, director of legal and public advocacy for FIRE. “It crossed the line from education to indoctrination.”

In a message to the community that was posted on the school’s Web site last November, University of Delaware President Patrick T. Harker explained his rationale for suspending the program. “There are questions about [the program’s] practices that must be addressed, and there are reasons for concern that the actual purpose is not being fulfilled,” Harker wrote.

Dr. Michael Gilbert, the school’s vice president for student life, says that a campus committee has been formed to strategize on ways to revamp the program for next year and that diversity education remains a priority at the state university. “The university had good intentions in initiating a program to teach students to be tolerant of those who are different from them, but the way the program was run was unacceptable,” says Halligan.

The debacle at UD is the latest embarrassing incident in which diversity training has backfired, possibly causing more harm than good and alienating students in the process. Diversity experts point to these examples as cause for college officials across the nation to re-examine and reform their own campus diversity training programs.

The major problem, experts agree, is that there is no uniformity in training, and some individuals who call themselves diversity trainers have received little or no instruction at all in facilitating discussions on sensitive issues such as race, class, gender and sexual orientation. Additionally, no independent agency exists that has the authority to certify or sanction trainers, leaving the task to colleges and universities to weed through résumés to figure out if those applying to conduct the trainings are indeed qualified. Mauricio Velásquez, President, The Diversity Training Group

“This leads to great variance across the board in terms of the type of training that is done and the philosophy behind the training,” says Dr. Marie Amey-Taylor, director of learning and development in the human resources department at Temple University.

Some trainers facilitate around diversity issues with the goal of raising social justice issues, while others may use diversity training to focus on behavior modification or ensuring that a college or university is in compliance with Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulations.

Amey-Taylor, who has been a diversity trainer for more than 30 years, mainly conducts workshops and training for faculty and staff at Temple and at other colleges and universities across the country. In her work, she uses a variety of exercises and processing models to help participants confront their own biases and prejudicial behavior.

“If not done correctly, these sessions are not only dangerous, but can be destructive,” says Amey-Taylor, who believes that diversity training sessions involving hot-button issues should be facilitated by someone who has years of experience and cannot be left to student resident assistants who may have received their training in an hours-long session.

“This is not customer service work,” says Amey-Taylor, whose dissertation, “Diversity Trainers: Personal Profiles, Paradigms and Practices,” addresses the issue of preparedness within the field. “My feeling is that this is one of those topical areas that require a high level of skill. You can’t expect a person to be good on their feet. They have to be very skillful.”

But in an effort to save money, more colleges and universities have resorted to hiring outside diversity trainers to conduct the initial training of residential life staff, but have then used their own student leaders to carry out the trainings on the general student population. Many diversity practitioners argue that these types of training-to-training programs have proven unsuccessful.

And even when some colleges contract to bring in a professional trainer, the tactics used by the individual have sometimes caused great concern on campus. For example, in 2006, Wilkes University, located in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., fired the school’s multicultural affairs coordinator after a diversity consultant hired to conduct a training session called one student of Indian descent a terrorist. Other students were allegedly made to hurl derogatory slurs at each other in an effort to take away the negative sting of the words.

“I am embarrassed when people in our field get on their soapbox and further polarize students with this blame and shame game,” says Mauricio Velásquez, who is president of The Diversity Training Group, a Northern Virginia-based organization that conducts trainings for colleges, universities and corporations. “To blame White students for the wrongs of their forefathers doesn’t work. We’re in the business of unifying, not dividing.”

Velásquez and Amey-Taylor recommend that colleges and universities who are looking to hire outside diversity consultants scrutinize the résumés and references of candidates and create a checklist that asks questions such as: “What is your philosophy on diversity education?” and “How do you define diversity?” They also suggest individuals explain the types of exercises and activities that they use when they facilitate sessions.

Experts also argue that some colleges mistakenly believe that they can train students to confront racial prejudice, homophobia, ageism, sexism and other biases in a two- or three-day session that lasts for just a few hours.

“Diversity training needs to be ongoing. You can’t do it one time,” says Jane Elliott, a diversity trainer who is sometimes referred to as the “foremother” of diversity training, in part because of the “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise that she conducted on a group of third-grade students in the 1960s. This now-famous exercise labeled participants as inferior or superior based solely upon the color of their eyes and exposed them to the experience of being a minority.

“What happens is that so many colleges do diversity training once a year and they figure that it’s taken care of and that they’ve done their job,” says Elliott. “But we don’t teach American literature for one hour and expect students to know it for the rest of their lives. It has to be an ongoing process.”

Amey-Taylor agrees. “We didn’t learn all of our isms overnight, and we cannot unlearn or modify all of our isms within three hours.”

Elliott and others argue that colleges should implement a year-long class where students regularly challenge their own biases in a safe environment that is facilitated by expert trainers and reinforced with readings and lectures.

While some form of diversity training has become common on most college campuses over the last decade, it is often implemented in response to a polarizing incident on campus, like the discovery of a noose, a swastika or anti-gay epithets scribbled across a bathroom stall.

Last year, several colleges mandated diversity training after a series of incidents involving themed parties at which White students dressed up in blackface and partygoers perpetuated racial stereotypes by carrying 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor and wearing Afro wigs, necklaces with large medallions and name tags bearing traditionally Black and Hispanic names.

“Too often the training that is done is a knee-jerk reaction to something that has happened and is reactive rather than proactive,” says Amey-Taylor, adding that every college and university should conduct an assessment that examines the climate on campus before any diversity training session is conducted. Amey-Taylor says that college officials should create a set of goals for the session to benefit all students.

They should also keep in mind that diversity training should fulfill the school’s larger goal of recognizing and respecting diversity at all levels, including the enhancement of minority faculty and staff on campus. She says that top-level managers should be rewarded or held accountable for their commitment to such practices.

“There has to be a commitment by the organization that includes diversity competency in its performance management systems,” says Amey-Taylor.

Amey-Taylor who is part of an improvisational theater group made up of a half-dozen diversity trainers, has found the use of theater to be an effective vehicle to allow “actors to do and say those things that people can’t do.” Her troupe has performed across the world.

“If we define diversity in its broadest context, it allows conversations to include similarities and differences and allows everyone to feel comfortable and uncomfortable in that dialogue,” says Amey-Taylor. “If you start with the premise that diversity education is essential to being a whole human being, everyone can benefit.”

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Diversity Training Tips From the Experts

• Before any diversity training sessions begin, college officials should first conduct an assessment that examines the campus climate. • College officials should create a set of goals to determine the purpose for the sessions and the benefits for students/staff. • When interviewing diversity consultants, college officials should ask, “What is your philosophy on diversity education?” and “How do you define diversity?” • Ask diversity consultants to explain the types of exercises and activities that they use when they facilitate sessions. • Consider implementing a year-long class for students to regularly challenge their own biases in a safe environment that is facilitated by expert trainers.