Back in October 2020, I watched Jodi Shaw go public to explain a problem with the hostile work environment at Smith College, her then-employer and her alma mater. I’ll never forget the earnestness in her voice, the determined look on her face and her intense emotions as she carefully described the situation. She knew she was about jump off the high dive and there would be no turning back. As I watched her video, I didn’t sense any attempt at advocacy or showmanship. Shaw made her video to say some things that were factually straightforward, but socially dangerous for the many Smith adherents of the new religion of Critical Race Theory. She called out that the Emperor had no clothes.
Shaw was concerned that Smith College was attempting to fight racism with what has come to be known as neoracism, a pernicious new version of racism. At Smith College, Martin Luther King’s great dream is dead. At the urging of the leadership of Smith College, complex human beings are proudly categorized and judged by the color of their skin, not by the content of their character.
I’ve followed Shaw’s postings and videos carefully since October. Shaw has expanded on her concerns in subsequent videos and tweets: Reducing people to “colors” undermines moral agency, reduces people to “racial objects,” and needlessly creates antagonistic in-groups and out-groups. She knew that breaking her silence would threaten her loss of income and perhaps her personal safety and it now has, as explained below.
Bari Weiss is also following Jodi Shaw’s story, most recently in an article she titles “Whistleblower at Smith College Resigns Over Racism.” Weiss writes:
Jodi Shaw was, until this afternoon, a staffer at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She made $45,000 a year — less than the yearly tuition at the school. She is a divorced mother of two children. She is a lifelong liberal and an alumna of the college. And she has had a front-row seat to the illiberal, neo-racist ideology masquerading as progress.
As part of her article, Weiss has reprinted Shaw’s resignation letter in full. Here is an excerpt from Shaw’s letter:
I can no longer work in this environment, nor can I remain silent about a matter so central to basic human dignity and freedom. . . . Under the guise of racial progress, Smith College has created a racially hostile environment in which individual acts of discrimination and hostility flourish. In this environment, people’s worth as human beings, and the degree to which they deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, is determined by the color of their skin. It is an environment in which dissenting from the new critical race orthodoxy — or even failing to swear fealty to it like some kind of McCarthy-era loyalty oath — is grounds for public humiliation and professional retaliation. . . . Every day, I watch my colleagues manage student conflict through the lens of race, projecting rigid assumptions and stereotypes on students, thereby reducing them to the color of their skin. I am asked to do the same, as well as to support a curriculum for students that teaches them to project those same stereotypes and assumptions onto themselves and others. . . .
What passes for “progressive” today at Smith and at so many other institutions is regressive. It taps into humanity’s worst instincts to break down into warring factions, and I fear this is rapidly leading us to a very twisted place. It terrifies me that others don’t seem to see that racial segregation and demonization are wrong and dangerous no matter what its victims look like. Being told that any disagreement or feelings of discomfort somehow upholds “white supremacy” is not just morally wrong. It is psychologically abusive.
Jodi Shaw is no longer working as an employee of Smith College, but she is continuing to actively help Smith College find its way out of the Critical Race Theory thicket. You can follow her tweets here. She has set up a GoFundMe to help with her living expense and her legal fees.
Bari Weiss concludes her article:
What is happening is wrong. Any ideology that asks people to judge others based on their skin color is wrong. Any ideology that asks us to reduce ourselves and others to racial stereotypes is wrong. Any ideology that treats dissent as evidence of bigotry is wrong. Any ideology that denies our common humanity is wrong. You should say so. Just like Jodi Shaw has.
[Added Feb 27 2021]
And consider this too. I used to have the highest respect for the ACLU. Now they are completely caught up in the throes of Wokeness. You would think that lawyers would understand the basics about fact-finding. Especially amazing given that even the NYT is starting to ask real questions about the clown show that is Smith College.
