Professor Controversies

A Different Type of Campus-Speaker Controversy 

Universities such as MIT had given Dorian S. Abbot, a tenured geophysics professor at the University of Chicago, the opportunity to give a lecture on climate and exoplanets early in October. However, they disinvited him when his views on colleges’ diversity programs came to light. He posted slides to YouTube that stated that the University of Chicago should “treat everyone who applies to our department equally, and judge applicants only on the basis of their promise as scientists.” Abbot later compared the current environment of American campuses to the Nazi campaign which removed Jewish students from Universities in Germany. Resultantly, MIT dropped his lecture. Abbots’ want to give a presentation on racial diversity and its place within the hiring of professors seems like an abuse of his power and out of his expertise. It is important to consider the inequality of oppurtunity that race and racism produce for professors, students, and other groups in higher education. For example, Ibrham Rogers states “Inequality is never a coincidence. African Americans were purposefully excluded by academics" (The Black Campus Movement, 4). This statement still holds true today. It seems that Abbot lacked the knowledge of the history and current-day manifestations of this problem when he spoke about academia's process of hiring professors.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-different-kind-of-campus-speaker-controversy

Was a Professor's Apology Enough?

Bright Sheng, a professor of composition at the University of Michigan, showed his class the 1965 version of Othello, which includes Laurence Oliver in blackface. Immediately after the film Sheng reached out to his class and stated that the blackface within the film was “racially insensitive and outdated” and that he “failed to recognize that showing a heavy makeup of a black face in fact has a strong racist content” and he hadn’t realized “the graveness of (his) action”. Even after Sheng sent out this apologetic email, students were angry and called for Sheng to be removed from the class. Ultimately David Gier, Dean of the Music School at Michigan, decided that Sheng should be removedfrom the course, but that he’d retain his tenured professorship. This incident exemplifies how power dynamics are at play during racially sensitive incidents on college campuses. Sheng held power over his class, and the University of Chicago only gave him a slap on the wrist for showing blackface. In the past, when universities have intervened in race-related issues, they tend to come up short and exacerbate tensions between students and administrations. A prevalent example of this is in the film Tell Them We Are Rising when student protestors at Southern University demanded that their President, President Netterville, help free two students whom authorities had apprehended for participating in a protest. Students asked to meet President Netterville in his office, however he was not there. An anonymous tip then led to police involvment, and two innocent students were shot dead by police. Similar to the event that took place at Southern University, University of Michigan exacerbated tensions between students and the school due to the adminstrators lack of punishment towards Professor Sheng.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/a-professors-apology-for-showing-a-film-with-blackface-was-not-enough

Does Tenure Impede Diversity

This article discusses whether tenure increases or decreases racial diversity in the faculty ranks. Peony Fhagen, senior associate dean of equity, inclusion, and faculty development at Colorado College, thinks it is “somewhat insidious” to ask that question when academics in the country have been doing so well. On the other hand, Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars asserts, “Racial diversity should have no bearing on tenure decisions.” The National Center for Education Statistics has recent data that tenure may be a potential barrier to accelerating the pace of greater diversity in academia. The NCES states, “Among full-time professors, a whopping 80 percent are white, and 53 percent are white males. But the data shows, black males, black females, and hispanic males each account for only 2 percent of full-time professors, and hispanic females even less"(Kafka). There have also been instances where faculty have gone out of their way to make sure people of color do not get the tenure they rightfully deserve. Angela Harris and Carmen González cover this problem in their introduction to Presumed Incompetent. They write, “Many of the women who tell their stories in this section were hired, promoted, and given or denied tenure in ways that violated normal campus procedure. Hostile white colleagues, in some of these accounts, went to great lengths to sabotage the women they felt did not belong in their institution” (Harris and González 10). In general, tenure makes it challenging to create and open new faculty positions for people of color. This will continue to be an issue unless latino, black, and other women of color are not governed and socially constructed by their skin color through the political system known as racism.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/does-tenure-impede-diversity